Researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that their newest supercomputer El Capitan is capable of performing 2.79 quadrillion calculations per second, making it the fastest computer in the world. To understand scale: that’s 2.79 followed by fifteen zeros.

What exactly is the threat of El Capitan, and when will the world see the first computer capable of "subjugating" the Bitcoin ecosystem? Journalists from the Decrypt news publication tried to answer this question.

Is it possible to hack the Bitcoin network?

The launch of El Capitan is a small but remarkable step in the development of computing technology. Such an opinion was shared by the representative of the laboratory Jeremy Thomas. Here’s his rejoinder.

To do what El Capitan can do in one second, it would take more than a million of the latest iPhones simultaneously working on a single computation. That’s a stack of phones more than five miles high.

The supercomputer was recognised as the best of its kind at the SC Conference, an international conference dedicated to high-performance computing in Atlanta, Georgia. El Capitan was ranked number one on the list of the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory worked with Hewlett Packard Enterprise, AMD and the Department of Energy to build El Capitan.

El Capitan is the world’s most powerful supercomputer

The supercomputer is designed to perform complex tasks like modelling, artificial intelligence development and research. Of course, it is much faster than a normal computer, and almost 5.4 million times faster. Using a phone analogy, Thomas calculated that it would take more than 8 billion people working simultaneously for eight years to do what El Capitan can do in one second.

The power of El Capitan raises concerns about the security of blockchain encryption. Still, in theory, an over-performing device could interfere with transactions on the Bitcoin or altcoin network. In such a case, the security of such blockchains would be undermined, and the value of the underlying assets would surely plummet.

However, experts say that the fears can be considered unfounded. For example, here is a statement from Arcium CEO and co-founder Yannick Schreid on the subject.

With the help of a supercomputer, all possible private keys would have to be searched. For example, if the key length is 256 bits, an attacker trying to spoof your transactions would need to check all possible 256-bit keys.

Bitcoin network hash rate and the price of the cryptocurrency

According to Schreid, even with the ability to perform quadrillions of operations per second, a supercomputer like El Capitan would take 10 billion years to go through a 256-bit private key because of computational asymmetry.

It is inherent in Bitcoin, Etherium and Solana blockchains due to elliptic curve cryptography (ECC).

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ECC is popular among blockchain developers due to its efficiency and robust security. At the same time, it is quantum computing that poses the biggest threat to the security of such systems. The expert continues.

A supercomputer still processes data in binary form using bits, and its power is primarily due to parallelisation – the simultaneous execution of multiple tasks. Quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits, which are based on the principles of superposition and entanglement. This is a fundamentally new dimension of computing.

Duncan Jones, head of cybersecurity at Quantinuum, agreed with Schrade’s views. Here’s how he commented on the topic.

Modern blockchain-based encryption systems cannot be broken by any existing classical system, including supercomputers. However, the threat from emerging quantum computers is much more serious. Within a decade, we may see quantum computers powerful enough to run the algorithms used in blockchains today.

Blockchain developers

While supercomputers aren’t a threat to blockchains right now, you can’t rely solely on cryptography in its current form. Ahmed Banafa, a professor in the engineering department at San Jose State University, stated that.

The crypto industry often puts too much trust in its perceived security, overlooking potential vulnerabilities. Many enthusiasts see blockchain immutability as synonymous with invulnerability, but this view ignores the risks associated with advances in quantum computing technologies.

Banafa emphasised that the potential risks of quantum computing are increasingly being discussed among developers. However, to date, few platforms have taken the necessary protective measures.

It can be assumed that their integration will be one of the sector’s main challenges for the next ten years. Again, if there is a need for it.


For now, supercomputers do not threaten blockchain security. Although it is important to realise that when the risks of this happening are more real, developers will be able to react and take appropriate measures. In particular, building asymmetric encryption algorithms using lattice theory problems will help protect against over-performing computing devices. So there is probably no need to worry about this prospect.


Look for more interesting things in our crypto chat of millionaires. There we’ll talk about other important topics related to the world of decentralised cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

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