IonQ Paper: Breaking ECC 256 Needs 19,397 Qubits and 26 Days of Runtime
jamestagg · x · 2026-09-11
IonQ published a fully compiled, end-to-end resource estimate for breaking 256-bit elliptic-curve signatures: 19,397 qubits required with roughly 26 days of runtime, along with concrete error-correction algorithms and encodings (Q102 is 102,22,9; Q66/C6 factory codes).
The author notes that halving the qubit overhead via better error-correction codes would hit IonQ's 2027 target instead of 2028 and cut runtime to 13 days; reusing "dirty" qubits rather than fresh ones could lower the requirement to 10,500. The takeaway: Bitcoin is likely "too late to migrate in safety."
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