There is nothing "hacked" so far. The Distributed Pollard Kangaroo algorithm is known
since 2000.
Let's get some numbers for the 90 bit challenge:
BitCrack runs at about 715 MKeys/s on Tesla V100 -
look here.
If we remove hash160, the rate would be 1430 Mj/s. Mj here stands for million kangaroo jumps.
The algorithm has expected run time 2*sqrt(b-a) jumps, here b-a = 2
89.
This gives expected running time of 09:39:55.
Looks quite fast.
Of course this is just a probability, if lucky, the time goes down to 3-4 hours, or not lucky, then time doubles to 18-20 hours.
Or really unlucky, with triple the expected run time - 1 day 04:59:47.
Since the algorithm scales linearly, one could use multiple V100, let's say 8, resulting in expected time 01:12:29.
The price for 8x V100 in google cloud is $15/hour.
Someone having 20x RX 480, each running BitCrack at 107 MKeys/s.
Using the same assumptions that would give 214 Mj/s each, for a total of 4280 Mj/s.
Please note, that for complex code AMD OpenCL compiler is very, very bad, and the system might crash, or even worse, bug the computations.
Assuming 150W per RX 480, the system would consume 3kW.
|------+-------------+---------+---+-----------------+-------------|
| | 8x Tesla V100 | | 20x RX 480 |
| bits +-------------+---------+---+-----------------+-------------|
| | time | price | | time | power |
|------+-------------+---------+---+-----------------+-------------|
| 90 | 01:12:29 | $18 | | 03:13:45 | 9.7 kWh |
| 95 | 06:50:04 | $103 | | 18:16:05 | 54.8 kWh |
| 100 | 1d 14:39:43 | $580 | | 4d 07:20:24 | 310.0 kWh |
| 105 | 9d 02:42:22 | $3281 | | 24d 08:34:45 | 1753.7 kWh |
| 110 | 51 days | $18558 | | 137 days | 9920.6 kWh |
| 115 | 291 days | $104979 | | 2 years 49 days | 56119.6 kWh |
|------+-------------+---------+---+-----------------+-------------|
Of course these numbers could easily double when unlucky.
And someone else could solve it before, then it's all a loss.