Google's Quantum Computing Breakthrough: Error Rate Reduced by 40x, How's Bitcoin's Quantum Resistance Upgrade Coming Along? On October 15, Google Quantum AI announced a major breakthrough: achieving a 99.99% magic state logical fidelity on the 105-qubit Willow chip, with experimental error rates reduced by about 40x. The results were published in *Science*. This technology addresses one of the most challenging engineering bottlenecks in quantum computing, making it more feasible to run complex quantum algorithms in the future. Back in March, Google also estimated that the number of physical qubits theoretically required to break Bitcoin's elliptic curve cryptography could be reduced from tens of millions to under 500,000—about 1/20th of the previous estimate. While both algorithms and hardware are advancing, there’s still a significant gap before BTC can truly be cracked. A 40x improvement in error rates doesn’t equate to a 40x increase in cracking speed, and there’s currently no solid evidence suggesting that the timeline for quantum attacks has been accelerated by years. Bitcoin developers are also actively preparing for quantum resistance upgrades, with two key proposals already on the table: - **BIP-360** introduces a new P2MR address type to reduce the risk of quantum attacks from long-term public key exposure and lays the groundwork for future quantum-resistant signatures. - **BIP-361** goes further by proposing a migration plan. Once quantum-resistant signature schemes are available, it suggests phasing out traditional ECDSA and Schnorr signatures to drive a network-wide upgrade. However, both proposals are still in draft stages for now.