Google's Quantum AI team has found that breaking Bitcoin's blockchain with quantum computers may be easier than previously thought, suggesting that Bitcoin's Taproot technology, which enables efficient, private transactions, may be partly responsible for this. The team found that the computing power required to break Bitcoin's security may be lower than previously assumed, raising questions about how soon quantum threats could become a reality. Researchers found that cracking the cryptography used by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could require fewer than 500,000 physical quantum bits, or qubits, well below the "millions" often cited in recent years. The research suggests that a quantum attacker could attack transactions in real time, giving an attacker a 41% chance of beating the original transfer. The findings also reveal that about 6.9 million bitcoin, roughly one-third of the total supply, already sits in wallets where the public key has been exposed in some way.