Bitcoin developers have a solution to the threats of quantum computing. The difficult question is whether the network can agree at the same time. The threat of quantum computing to Bitcoin is not a technical problem – it’s a political one.
Those are the central arguments of a new analysis published by Guillaume Girard, a partner at UTXO Management, an investment firm focused on Bitcoin and a subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc. In a piece titled “Bitcoin and the Quantum Threat: A Non-Technical Guide,” Girard argues that while cryptographically non-existent QC is cryptographically non-cryptographic and CRC is not computationally accessible. the threshold required to break the encryption of Bitcoin, the public must act now – because the governance process that governs any modification of the protocol is moving at the speed of the country’s legislature.
Bitcoin security is based on elliptic curve cryptography, which protects the private keys that control access to the wallet. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer using Shor’s algorithm could derive the private key from the revealed public key, allowing theft at scale. Google’s Quantum AI team published research in March showing that a machine with fewer than 500,000 physical organs — well below previous estimates of 10 million — could break this encryption, with Google’s internal goal of post-quantum readiness set for 2029. About 1.7 million PaytoKeep-PK2 Payto-PK Payto-PK2 (currently) addresses where public keys are permanently exposed on the chain, making them extremely vulnerable targets.
The quantum solution is on the Bitcoin table
Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 360 (BIP-360), authored by developer Hunter Beast, introduces a new type of output called Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR) that removes public key exposure from normal operations. The proposal is integrated into the Bitcoin repository and is under active review.
A companion proposal, BIP-361, written by Jameson Lopp, maps a three-phase migration away from vulnerable signature systems, although Phase B of that system would suspend coins from wallets that fail to migrate within a five-year window.
A different proposal called Hourglass would allow quantum attackers to move stolen coins only in limited batches – possibly one BTC per block – eliminating economic damage and transferring the fees to miners.
The most serious problem involves coins that cannot migrate: lost wallets, inactive holders, and the estimated 1.1 million BTC attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. Girard identifies two candidate solutions, each with significant drawbacks.
The first will burn coins to potentially high-risk addresses after a deadline — a practical fix that critics say sets a dangerous layer of censorship for a protocol built on neutrality. The second, Hourglass, accepts that theft will happen but restricts the movement of stolen coins to reduce price impact and market disruption.
There is no clean option, and both require the same thing: broad public consensus among all users, miners, developers, and – for the first time – owners of large institutions like BlackRock.
Institutions are already reacting
The debate has gone beyond the developer mailing list. Jefferies removed its entire 10% stake in Bitcoin 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 cryptographic foundation.
Su’s Michael Saylor announced the Bitcoin Security Plan to engage the broader security community about quantum readiness, framing the issue as an engineering challenge rather than an emergency. The Citi cybersecurity team has put a multi-billion dollar value tag on quantum threats to crypto in general.
Girard’s conclusion is balanced: the real competition is between CRQC’s timeline to break Bitcoin and the community’s timeline to open a soft fork. Based on the current data, he believes that Bitcoin is on the way – but he notes that if the developer’s action is considered too slow by private and institutional buyers, those participants have both the motivation and the financial weight to speed up the consensus without existing structures.
The buyer side of Bitcoin is no longer retail; by governments and property managers who will not tolerate inactivity. Many experts are still considering an active attack for at least several years, but as Girard puts it, the fog of war makes the timeline unclear — and in this war, waiting for certainty is itself dangerous.
Bitcoin Magazine is published by BTC Inc, a subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc. UTXO Management is also part of Nakamoto Inc. (NASDAQ: NAKA)
