Chamath @ 00:32:19Inconclusive
techaimarkets
Based on Willow’s current capabilities, quantum hardware will scale to roughly 4,000 logical qubits (enough to break RSA‑2048) and ~8,000 logical qubits (enough to break SHA‑256 used by Bitcoin) within about 2–5 years from 2024, putting breaking of these schemes by quantum computers on that timeframe.
So if you think of Willow as essentially like one stable logical qubit equivalent in a chip, we need about 4000 to break RSA 2048, and we need about 8000 to break Sha 256, which is the underlying encryption framework for Bitcoin. So I think you're right. I think we're in the sort of like the endgame. 2 to 5 year shot clock.
Explanation
As of November 30, 2025, it is too early to judge Chamath’s 2–5 year prediction.
Key facts:
- Google’s Willow processor, announced in December 2024, has 105 physical superconducting qubits and demonstrates a few logical qubits with below‑threshold error correction, not thousands of logical qubits.(blog.google)
- Google itself and outside analysts emphasize that Willow is far from a “cryptanalytically relevant quantum computer”: estimates for breaking RSA‑2048 still sit around millions of physical qubits (roughly 4 million), with timelines typically a decade or more away, not 1–2 years.(theverge.com)
- Current overviews of quantum progress in 2025 describe systems in the ~10²–10³ qubit range and consistently state that we are still far from the fault‑tolerant, large‑scale machines needed to break RSA‑2048 or Bitcoin’s SHA‑256/ECDSA security; those capabilities are generally projected into the 2030s or later.(forbes.com)
- Policy and cybersecurity guidance (e.g., UK NCSC) likewise targets around 2035 as the planning horizon for serious quantum decryption threats, reinforcing that no such capability exists yet.(theguardian.com)
- There is no public evidence by late 2025 that RSA‑2048 has been broken by a quantum computer or that Bitcoin’s core cryptography has been compromised; instead, industry and governments are still treating this as a future risk and rolling out post‑quantum standards (e.g., NIST PQC).(en.wikipedia.org)
Because Chamath’s stated window is 2–5 years from 2024 (roughly 2026–2029), and only about one year has elapsed, we cannot yet say definitively whether quantum hardware will fail or succeed in reaching the ~4,000–8,000 logical‑qubit scale in that period. The current trajectory makes the prediction look very optimistic, but the deadline has not passed, so the correct classification for now is "inconclusive (too early)".