If you wanted to use a quantum computer to mine Bitcoin today, you’d need the total energy of an entire sun to power it.
March 27, 2026
Original Paper
Kardashev scale Quantum Computing for Bitcoin Mining
arXiv · 2603.25519
The Takeaway
While quantum computers are often feared for their ability to break encryption, this study calculates the actual physical cost of using them for Bitcoin mining. To succeed, a quantum mining fleet would need roughly 10^25 Watts of power—a scale known as a Type II Kardashev civilization, which involves capturing the total energy of a star like the Sun.
From the abstract
Bitcoin already faces a quantum threat through Shor attacks on elliptic-curve signatures. This paper isolates the other component that public discussion often conflates with it: mining. Grover's algorithm halves the exponent of brute-force search, promising a quadratic edge to any quantum miner of Bitcoin. Exactly how large that edge grows depends on fault-tolerant hardware. No prior study has costed that hardware end to end. We build an open-source estimator that sweeps the full attack surface: