Quantum Computing and Bitcoin: Separating Real Risk from Manufactured Panic

Over the years, various commentators have speculated about the potential impact that quantum computing may have on Bitcoin. These stories can often be dramatic and attention-grabbing, but they rarely reflect the state of actual quantum research, the nature of Bitcoin’s cryptography, or the incentives and practical capabilities of the entities building quantum technologies. Quantum computing is indeed a profound scientific breakthrough, one that will eventually require upgrades across many global systems. Yet the idea that Bitcoin faces an imminent existential threat simply does not align with evidence, security theory, or the realities of how quantum technologies will likely emerge.

This article makes the case that the quantum threat to Bitcoin is real in the long term, but not immediate, not unique to Bitcoin, and nowhere near as catastrophic as some commentators suggest. Most importantly, the Bitcoin ecosystem is already exploring clear, viable pathways toward quantum-resistant security. Any serious attempt at threat modelling must acknowledge that Bitcoin is among the most fortified digital assets in the world, and one of the best positioned for a graceful transition into a quantum era.

Bitcoin as the Heir to a Forty-Year Tradition of Cryptographic Research

A crucial point often forgotten in panic-driven discussions is that Bitcoin did not emerge in isolation. It is the inheritor of more than four decades of cryptographic and digital-money research. Public-key cryptography—the mathematics that makes secure digital communication possible—originated in the 1970s through the groundbreaking discoveries of Diffie and Hellman and the later invention of RSA[1]. Their work established the fundamental ideas behind secure key exchange, authenticated communication, and digital signatures.

Over the following decades, cryptographers and computer scientists developed blind signatures, electronic cash proposals, timestamp servers, peer-to-peer communication protocols, and proof-of-work systems. These ideas were explored by researchers like David Chaum, Adam Back, and the early cypherpunk movement. By the early 2000s, the world had a sophisticated toolkit of ingredients for decentralized digital money, even if no one had yet solved how to combine them into a trustless, fully decentralized system.

The introduction of SHA-256 further strengthened the cryptographic landscape. Standardized by NIST in 2001[2], SHA-256 quickly became one of the most widely scrutinized and respected hashing algorithms in the world. Bitcoin uses SHA-256 to secure the blockchain, to guarantee the integrity of each block, to structure Merkle trees, and to ensure the trustworthiness of its proof-of-work system[3]. The resilience of SHA-256 is a central pillar of Bitcoin’s security.

When Satoshi Nakamoto released Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System in 2008[4], the contribution was not the invention of cryptography or peer-to-peer networking. Rather, Satoshi’s achievement was the synthesis of decades of research into a coherent monetary protocol that could function without centralized control. The people who helped develop Bitcoin after Satoshi—computer scientists, open-source contributors, and cryptographers around the world—continued this lineage of rigorous scientific work. Bitcoin is therefore not a speculative invention built from thin air. It is built upon the most scrutinized, heavily-studied security primitives in computer science.

The Quantum Timeline: A Marathon, Not a Sprint

Despite sensational headlines, the kind of quantum computer capable of breaking modern cryptography does not yet exist. To threaten Bitcoin’s elliptic-curve signatures, a quantum computer would need millions of stable, error-corrected qubits running long, uninterrupted programs—far beyond the few thousand noisy qubits available today[5]. 

Qubits are extremely delicate quantum particles—far more complex than the bits used in ordinary computers. They must be kept isolated from noise and cooled to near absolute zero. Today’s quantum computers have only a few thousand qubits, while breaking Bitcoin’s cryptography would require millions of stable, error-corrected qubits working reliably for long periods.

The gap between current and required capacity is immense, and expanding a quantum computer’s qubit count is not a linear engineering problem. Quantum systems are fragile and must be kept isolated from environmental noise at temperatures near absolute zero, using highly specialized equipment[6].

Recent commentary by analysts such as Charles Edwards suggests that while a theoretical “Q-Day” could arrive faster than some early predictions—perhaps less than eight years under aggressive assumptions—the timeline is still uncertain and depends on breakthroughs that have not happened yet[7]. Other researchers argue that the threat is real but remains many years away, and that the risk is best addressed through steady and proactive preparation rather than fear-driven speculation[8].

A recent academic study estimated that upgrading Bitcoin to quantum-safe signatures would require approximately seventy-six days of coordinated transition work[9]. In other words, the threat is manageable precisely because the timeline is long enough to allow very thoughtful planning and implementation.

The responsible conclusion is not that Bitcoin is in danger today, but that the community should begin preparations now to ensure that future transitions are smooth.

Why Quantum Attack Capability Will Be Extremely Rare

Even when quantum computers eventually grow powerful enough to challenge existing cryptography, they will not be widely accessible tools. The specialized infrastructure required for large-scale quantum machines—extreme cooling systems, sophisticated qubit control equipment, expensive error-correction hardware, and high-security physical facilities—means that only the most advanced national governments, elite research institutions, and major technology corporations will have access to them[10]. This will not be a threat posed by nefarious hackers working out of a suburban basement. 

This reality has enormous implications for threat assessment. The popular image of lone hackers cracking open Bitcoin wallets from their bedrooms is pure fiction. Quantum attack capability will be restricted to a tiny group of entities that act strategically, cautiously, and with clear incentives. These actors will prioritize the highest-value and easiest targets available to them.

And Bitcoin is not that target.

A Helpful Analogy: The Global Economy as a 20-Storey Apartment Building

To visualize the relative vulnerability of different assets, imagine the global digital economy as a large apartment building with twenty floors.

Bitcoin resides on the eighteenth floor. It sits behind a reinforced door, protected by multiple high-security locks, and the digital value itself is stored in a sophisticated combination safe inside the apartment. The building’s architecture includes transparent hallways and security cameras—analogous to Bitcoin’s public ledger—ensuring that any attempted theft would be immediately visible to everyone in the building.

Now look at what occupies the lower floors. On the ground level, just inside the lobby, sit enormous amounts of sensitive financial and personal data protected only by standard classical encryption. Bank account credentials, mobile banking apps, and cloud passwords are effectively resting on open countertops, guarded only by the building’s front entrance and an overworked security guard who is taking a nap behind the reception desk. On the first and second floors, corporate intellectual property, manufacturing secrets, national-security communications, and proprietary research databases sit in apartments whose doors are often left unlocked or secured with weak protection. Many government systems, legacy authentication servers, and industrial control networks occupy the lower floors as well. These systems hold trillions of dollars in value and strategic intelligence, often with weaker security than Bitcoin[11].

The global financial system alone contains hundreds of trillions of dollars in financial claims—vastly more than Bitcoin’s approximately two trillion dollars of market cap—and much of it is stored in centralized databases that would be far easier to compromise with quantum tools[12].

A rational quantum attacker will not start by breaking into a fortified safe on the eighteenth floor when the lobby is full of cash-filled envelopes left unattended on a table.

Bitcoin’s Future: Already Preparing for Post-Quantum Security

This brings us to one of the most important points: Bitcoin is not ignoring the quantum threat. In fact, the Bitcoin development community has been studying post-quantum security options for years. Prominent proposals include new quantum-resistant address formats such as those described in BIP-360, which outlines “Pay-to-Quantum-Resistant-Hash” address types designed to support next-generation signature schemes[13]. Developers are exploring lattice-based signatures, hash-based signatures, hybrid systems, and phased migration strategies suitable for a decentralized network[14].

This level of proactive preparation reflects the culture that has always defined Bitcoin: careful engineering, long-term thinking, and deep respect for security.

It is also important to acknowledge the work of individuals like Charles Edwards and Nic Carter, who have thoughtfully urged the community to think carefully about quantum risk—not through panic, but through responsible futurism. Their research and public commentary reflect the best tradition of Bitcoin’s global community, which has always been forward-looking and grounded in rigorous analysis.

Bitcoin’s history makes clear that it can evolve when necessary. The network successfully adopted Segregated Witness in 2017 and Taproot in 2021; a transition to quantum-safe signatures, should the need arise, is entirely possible. No credible research suggests that Bitcoin would be trapped or unable to upgrade. Instead, the evidence points to a network that is technically flexible and socially capable of coordinated improvement.

A Realistic Conclusion: Bitcoin Remains One of the Safest Assets in a Volatile World

As the global digital environment becomes more fragmented, unpredictable, and vulnerable to cyberattack, individuals and institutions increasingly need resilient systems capable of withstanding future threats. Bitcoin remains one of the most secure digital assets in existence. It is built on decades of cryptographic study. It uses SHA-256, a hashing function with no known weaknesses. Its transaction history is fully transparent, making theft unusually conspicuous. Its open community is already preparing for quantum-safe upgrades. And most importantly, quantum attackers will have far easier, far more lucrative, and far less detectable targets than Bitcoin.

Now is not the time to retreat from Bitcoin out of misplaced concern. In fact, it is the precise moment to accelerate the transition toward Bitcoin and away from traditional assets and institutions that are far more vulnerable to security and geopolitical risk. Bitcoin’s resilience, its openness, its global accessibility, and its absolute scarcity make it the best savings vehicle and money in an increasingly unpredictable digital and geopolitical environment.

If quantum computing someday threatens the upper floors of the aforementioned building, we will first hear the alarms echoing from every floor below. By the time quantum computers reach the strength needed to challenge Bitcoin’s existing security, Bitcoin will already have moved forward—just as it has always done.

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Endnotes

1. Whitfield Diffie and Martin E. Hellman. “New Directions in Cryptography,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. Volume 22, no. 6 (1976): 644–654.

2. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Secure Hash Standard (SHS), FIPS PUB 180-2 (Gaithersburg, MD: U.S. Department of Commerce, 2001).

3. Loke Choon Khei. “How SHA-256 Secures the Bitcoin Network,” CoinGecko Learn, 2025, https://www.coingecko.com/learn/how-sha256-secures-bitcoin-network 

4. Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008), https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf 

5. John Preskill. “Quantum Computing in the NISQ Era and Beyond,” Quantum 2 (2018): 79.

6. IBM Research. The IBM Quantum Roadmap: Advancing Toward Practical Quantum Computers (Armonk, NY: IBM Corporation, 2023).

7. Charles Edwards. “Update #66: The Quantum Threat,” Capriole Investments (2025), https://capriole.com/update-66 

8. Jason Nelson. “The Quantum Threat to Bitcoin: How Panic Could Break Crypto Before Physics Does,” Decrypt, November 2, 2025.

9. Jamie J. Pont, Joseph J. Kearney, Jack Moyler, and Carlos A. Perez-Delgado. “Downtime Required for Bitcoin Quantum-Safety: A Lower Bound,” arXiv:2410.16965 [quant-ph], October 2024.

10. Michele Mosca. “Cybersecurity in an Era with Quantum Computers: Will We Be Ready?” IEEE Security & Privacy. Volume 16, no. 5 (2018): 38–41.

11. Christina Comben. “The Quantum Computing Threat Bitcoin Can’t Ignore,” CryptoSlate, November 2, 2025.

12. McKinsey Global Institute. The Global Balance Sheet: A Comprehensive Accounting of the World’s Wealth, 2023.

13. Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 360 (BIP-360). Pay to Quantum-Resistant Hash (P2QRH), 2024, https://github.com/bitcoin/bips 

14. Bitcoin Optech. “Quantum Resistance in Bitcoin,” Bitcoin Operations Technical Group, 2024, https://bitcoinops.org/en/topics/quantum-resistance