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Shor's Algorithm

Quantum factoring and discrete-logarithm algorithm that would break RSA and ECC given sufficient fault-tolerant hardware.

Known aliases

  • Shor
  • Shor algorithm
  • Shor’s algorithm

Current stories

investConfirmed2 publishers

Tron's quantum-resistant signatures still need governance approval to leave the Nile testnet

Justin Sun says Tron is ready to bring quantum resistance to mainnet at any time, now that post-quantum signatures run on its Nile testnet. Mainnet still needs separate governance approval, Crypto Briefing reported, and the opt-in design reaches only holders who adopt it.

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption10
Hype gap+35
Incentives65
Confidence55
buildOne report1 publisher

One blog post reports an NSA post-quantum deadline of 2027 for national security systems

NSA has moved its post-quantum deadline for National Security Systems to 2027, two years ahead of Cloudflare, Google and Microsoft, a dev.to post reports. That account is secondhand, so whether suppliers to those systems have to re-plan their migrations depends on what the agency's own statement says.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence15
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+55
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence30
investOne report1 publisher

Researchers forge RSA signatures from a hardware security module by making it sign 4 billion raw numbers

UC San Diego and INRIA researchers forged RSA signatures on a 1,024-bit key inside a hardware security module after about 4 billion signing requests. The key stayed inside the device throughout, so for custodians the exposure is in signing settings, starting with the FIPS mode the researchers switched off.

Publishers:decrypt.co

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence40
investConfirmed4 publishers

StarkWare put a quantum-safe bitcoin spend on mainnet, and priced it at $75 to $150

The construction runs inside today's Script limits, so no soft fork was needed. The cost of quantum defence moves instead onto the individual holder, at $75 to $150 per transaction.

Perspective Coverage

4 publishers
Builder
Builder 44%
Operator
Operator 34%
Investor
Investor 22%

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption5
Hype gap+18
Incentives50
Confidence60
productOne report1 publisher

Google's own post-quantum deadline runs two years ahead of the NSA's target

Google said faster progress in quantum hardware and error correction moved its migration to 2029. A Caltech, Berkeley and Oratomic paper published the same month put the qubits needed for Shor's algorithm as low as 10,000.

Publishers:siliconangle.com

Reality

Evidence38
Adoption20
Hype gap+38
Incentives72
Confidence45
leadershipOne report1 publisher

NIST sets 2030 and 2035 retirement dates for quantum-vulnerable algorithms, raising stakes for banks

Post-quantum standards were finalised in August 2024, and NIST means to phase out most quantum-vulnerable algorithms by 2035. For banks the harder problem is finding every place RSA and ECC are written into application code.

Publishers:forbes.com

Reality

Evidence46
Adoption32
Hype gap+24
Incentives64
Confidence50
investOne report1 publisher

FINMA gives Swiss banks about a year to put a post-quantum plan before the board

Three regulators have now dated the migration away from today's encryption, and the nearest date belongs to FINMA, which wants supervised institutions to get a post-quantum strategy through the board by mid-2027.

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption20
Hype gap+32
Incentives45
Confidence45
securityOne report1 publisher

A new IACR estimate sizes the secp256k1 break at 1,450 logical qubits and 40 million Toffoli gates

The algorithm-level numbers are the part of the estimate that can be recompiled onto any fault-tolerant machine, and the headline 25.7 days on 19,397 physical qubits belongs to the trapped-ion architecture its own authors proposed.

Publishers:iacr.org

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+12
Incentives62
Confidence55
securityOne report1 publisher

IonQ's compiled secp256k1 break needs twice the qubits of its 2027 machine

IonQ's September 8 paper puts one secp256k1 key at just under 26 days on 20,000 physical qubits. The company's roadmap reaches 10,000 fault-tolerant qubits in 2027 and names no year for the larger machine.

Publishers:ionq.com

Reality

Evidence38
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+55
Incentives88
Confidence62
productOne report1 publisher

IonQ credits SkyWater's standard lines with cutting its chip design cycle to two months

Superion 256 opens for orders with deliveries due in 2027. The six tapeouts IonQ ran in half a year say more about whether its 2028 fault-tolerance date is real than the qubit count does.

Publishers:siliconangle.com

Reality

Evidence32
Adoption18
Hype gap+44
Incentives80
Confidence46
buildOne report1 publisher

IonQ's secp256k1 estimate spends 13 physical qubits on every logical one

The 26-day figure is a runtime rather than a date, and it works out to one logical Toffoli every 57.6 milliseconds on trapped-ion hardware whose scale IonQ's roadmap does not reach until 2028. No error rates are published to check it.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence30
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+40
Incentives80
Confidence40
productOne report1 publisher

A quantum-resistant bitcoin spend clears mainnet under today's consensus rules

Gizmodo reports that a StarkWare researcher's transaction needed no soft fork. That fact moves post-quantum migration out of the developer debate and into the custody workflow, where somebody has to schedule it and pay for it.

Publishers:gizmodo.com

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption18
Hype gap+20
Incentives62
Confidence45
buildOne report1 publisher

JDK 24 relocates the post-quantum blocker to your key custody plumbing

InfoQ's Spring Boot walkthrough puts ML-KEM and ML-DSA behind the standard JCE on JDK 24. That retires the library argument and leaves the migration gated on where a private key lives and how long your service tokens do.

Publishers:infoq.com

Reality

Evidence44
Adoption22
Hype gap+24
Incentives32
Confidence41
investOne report1 publisher

IBM buys HRL, lines up $2B of proposed federal money, and puts 2029 on the retention schedule

IBM has closed the HRL Laboratories deal behind a 2029 fault-tolerant target. For anyone holding ciphertext that must outlive the decade, the vendor's date is now the planning date.

Reality

Evidence34
Adoption41
Hype gap+46
Incentives74
Confidence38
productOne report1 publisher

Red Hat counted 572 quantum-vulnerable spots in OpenStack. The obstacle is OpenStack's own pins.

Hardcoded algorithms and forced TLS 1.2 across 90-plus repositories stop OpenStack inheriting post-quantum crypto the platform already ships. Keystone's token signing is one hardcoded line.

Publishers:redhat.com

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption32
Hype gap+18
Incentives72
Confidence52
investOne report1 publisher

Ethereum's quantum plan gets a one-way switch: draft EIP would retire BLS for good

A contributor's draft would make the validator deposit contract variable length and add a mode to end BLS signatures permanently. It is unfinished, unnumbered, and aimed at a 2029 target that may move.

Reality

Evidence54
Adoption10
Hype gap+18
Incentives55
Confidence52
leadershipOne report1 publisher

Harvest now, decrypt soon: post-quantum migration is a funded program, not a research topic

A Forbes Tech Council argument for urgency leans on benchmarks that were never factoring runs. The part of it that survives scrutiny is still enough to justify the spend.

Publishers:forbes.com

Reality

Evidence38
Adoption36
Hype gap+42
Incentives78
Confidence48