- Research from CoinShares
indicates that only 10,230 BTC, or roughly
0.05% of the total supply, are held in wallets with
exposed public keys vulnerable to quantum attacks.
- The report
pushes back against “Q-Day” alarmism, noting that the
computing power required to break Bitcoin’s ECDSA
encryption is still decades away.
- Institutional giant
Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) is estimated to have
only 1.4% of its holdings at risk, largely due to modern
address security.
The
long-standing debate over quantum computing’s ability to
compromise the Bitcoin network has reached a new inflection point as recent
data suggests the immediate threat is significantly overstated. According
to a new research note from CoinShares, only a tiny
fraction of the circulating supply is actually “at risk” from potential
quantum-assisted theft. While theoretical models often cite up to 4 million
BTC as vulnerable due to legacy P2PK (Pay-to-Public-Key)
addresses, the firm argues that only 10,230 BTC sit in
large enough concentrations with exposed keys to be worth a targeted
attack.
The distinction lies in Bitcoin’s address
architecture. Modern addresses, such as those using SegWit
(Bech32), do not expose a user’s public key until a transaction is
broadcast. This means a quantum computer would have a window of only
roughly 10 minutes to crack the key before the transaction
is confirmed. In contrast, legacy P2PK addresses, common
during the Satoshi era, have their public keys permanently visible on the
ledger, allowing a quantum attacker to work on them offline for an
indefinite period.
“Bitcoin’s quantum vulnerability is not an
immediate crisis but a foreseeable engineering
consideration,” wrote Christopher Bendiksen,
Bitcoin research lead at CoinShares. He noted that the computing power
required to break a single key would currently require a machine with
13 million physical qubits—a figure nearly 100,000 times
larger than the current state-of-the-art systems like Google’s
105-qubit Willow chip.
The report also analyzed the
holdings of Strategy (MSTR), the world’s largest corporate
holder of Bitcoin. Despite holding over 190,000 BTC, only approximately
1.4% of Strategy’s holdings are estimated to be at risk
because the firm utilizes institutional custody solutions that frequently
rotate addresses and use quantum-resistant cold storage
practices. During a recent earnings call, Strategy Chairman
Michael Saylor announced a new “Bitcoin Security
Program” to evaluate long-term cryptographic upgrades, reinforcing the
sentiment that the risk is manageable through proactive
coordination.
Community sentiment remains cautious but
optimistic. Many developers argue that soft forks could
introduce quantum-resistant signature schemes, such as Lamport or
Winternitz signatures, long before quantum hardware matures.
However, the report warns that the primary challenge is not the math, but
the social coordination required to migrate millions of
users to new wallet types.
“Quantum computing is
moving from theory to long-term strategic consideration… the Bitcoin
community is already researching quantum-resistant cryptography as a future
engineering challenge the network can prepare for.” — Mark Palmer, Analyst
at Benchmark.
For now, the market appears to be
pricing out the “Quantum Doomsday” scenario, treating it
as a distant technical debt rather than a systemic failure. The consensus
among institutional researchers is that “Q-Day” remains
at least 10 to 20 years away, giving the network ample time to evolve its
defenses.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational
purposes only and does not constitute advice of any kind. Readers should
conduct their own research before making any decisions.
© Cryptopress. For informational purposes only, not offered as advice of any kind.
