Google's Quantum AI team has revealed that a future quantum computer could extract a bitcoin private key from a public key in nine minutes. This discovery has sparked concerns about the potential impact on the security of the bitcoin network. The private key and public key are linked by a math problem called the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem, which can be reversed by a sufficiently powerful future computer running an algorithm called Shor's. Google's paper found that a quantum computer can be "primed" in advance by pre-computing the parts of the attack that don't depend on any specific public key. Once your public key appears in the mempool, the machine only needs about nine minutes to derive your private key. This attack requires fewer than 500,000 physical qubits. The bigger and more immediate concern is the 6.9 million bitcoin, roughly one-third of total supply, that already sit in wallets where the public key has been permanently exposed.