Can anyone comment on the seemingly impossible transition from quantum computers on the order of ~150 qubits available today to systems with the 500,000 physical qubits required to break classical encryption?

Seems like quite the handwave, especially with a target as close as 2030.

If Bitcoin encryption is breakable so soon, then what about RSA? That would be a bigger deal than a bitcoin.

Heise was, some time ago, a reliable paper. Now times seems to have changed.

Do you not know how the news works? This is a report about a whitepaper by Googles Quantum AI. If you want to be mad about something, be mad about Google releasing this, not the newspapers reporting the press release.

Who wants to offer me this bet?

This will be forever 5 years away, like commercial fusion

You'll have to wait "forever" to win that bet.

No, it will come five years after commercial fusion.