Bitcoin developers have a solution to quantum computing threats. The trickier question is whether the network will be able to agree on one in time. The threat of quantum computing to Bitcoin is not primarily a technical problem, but rather a political one.
These are the basic arguments of the new commentary published Written by Guillaume Girard, a venture partner at UTXO Management, a Bitcoin-focused investment firm and subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc. In an article titled “Bitcoin and the Quantum Threat: A Non-Technical Guide,” Girard argues that while there is no cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) yet and may never reach the threshold required to break Bitcoin’s encryption, the community must act now — because the governance process governing any change to the protocol moves at the pace of the state legislature.
Bitcoin security depends on Elliptic curve cryptographywhich protects the private keys that control access to the wallet. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer, running Shor’s algorithm, could derive a private key from an exposed public key, enabling theft on a large scale. Google’s Quantitative AI Team published Research conducted in March suggests that a device containing fewer than 500,000 physical qubits — far fewer than previous estimates of 10 million — could crack this encryption, with Google’s internal goal of post-quantum readiness set in 2029. Nearly 1.7 million bitcoins currently reside in legacy public-key pay-to-key (P2PK) addresses where public keys are permanently exposed on-chain, making them the most vulnerable targets.
A quantitative solution is on the table for Bitcoin
Bitcoin 360 Improvement Proposal (BIP-360), written by developer Hunter Best, He presents A new output type called Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR) that removes public key exposure from standard transactions. The proposal has been integrated into the Bitcoin development repository and is under active review.
A companion proposal, BIP-361, by Jameson Loeb, maps A three-stage migration away from weak staking schemes, although Phase B of that plan could freeze coins in wallets that fail to migrate within a five-year window.
A separate proposal called Hourglass would allow quantum attackers to transfer stolen coins only in limited batches — potentially one bitcoin per block — limiting economic damage and shifting fee revenue to miners.
The most difficult issue involves coins that cannot be migrated: missing wallets, inactive holders, and an estimated 1.1 million bitcoins attributed to… Satoshi Nakamoto. Girard identifies two candidate solutions, both of which have serious drawbacks.
The first is burning coins at quantum-vulnerable addresses after the deadline — an effective fix that critics say sets a dangerous censorship precedent for a protocol built on neutrality. The second, Hourglass, accepts that theft has occurred but restricts the flow of stolen coins to mitigate the price impact and market disruption.
Neither option is clean, and both require the same thing: broad social consensus among users, miners, developers and, for the first time, owners of large institutions like BlackRock.
Institutions are already reacting
The discussion has moved beyond developer mailing lists. Jefferies It has been removed A full 10% Bitcoin allocation from its pension model portfolio in January 2026, with global equity strategist Christopher Wood citing quantum risk as a potential long-term threat to Bitcoin’s crypto-basis.
Strategy Michael Saylor Announce Bitcoin Security Program to coordinate with the broader security community on quantum preparedness, framing the issue as an engineering challenge rather than an emergency. Citi’s cybersecurity team has put a multi-trillion-dollar price on the quantum threat to large-scale cryptocurrencies.
Gerard’s conclusion is calculated: the real competition is between the CRQC’s timeline being able to break Bitcoin and the community’s timeline of activating the soft fork. Based on current data, he believes Bitcoin is on the right track — but he points out that if sovereign and institutional buyers view developer actions as too slow, those stakeholders have the motivation and financial weight to accelerate consensus beyond existing structures.
The marginal buyer of Bitcoin is no longer retail; It is governments and asset managers who will not tolerate inaction. Most experts still consider a practical offensive could take at least several years, but as Girard says, the fog of war makes the timeline unclear — and in this fight, waiting for certainty is itself a risk.
Bitcoin Magazine is published by BTC Inc., a subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc. UTXO Management is also a subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc. (NASDAQ:NAKA)
