Coinbase's Quantum Computing Advisory Council has issued a stark warning to the crypto industry: the window to prepare for quantum threats is open now, and waiting for consensus could make fu
Coinbase's Quantum Computing Advisory Council has issued a stark warning to the crypto industry: the window to prepare for quantum threats is open now, and waiting for consensus could make future migration far more difficult.
The council's report estimates that approximately 7 million $BTC are currently considered quantum-vulnerable, a figure that accounts for address reuse across multiple address types. The issue centres on legacy addresses where public keys are already exposed on-chain. Many of these are believed to be Satoshi's coins or funds whose owners have long since lost their keys.
Bitcoin's core infrastructure, including mining, hash functions, and the chain's historical record, is not meaningfully threatened by quantum computing. The real vulnerability is wallet-level: the cryptography that proves ownership of assets, the digital signature, is the part a quantum computer could eventually break.
Researchers cited in the report warn that a "cryptographically relevant quantum computer," one powerful enough to crack the elliptic curve digital signatures protecting Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major blockchains, is more likely than not to exist as early as 2030. Today's quantum machines have fewer than 1,000 logical qubits, while estimates suggest that breaking Bitcoin's elliptic curve cryptography would require several thousand high-quality logical qubits. Error correction and stability remain significant engineering hurdles.
The council is urging blockchain developers to begin preparing for a post-quantum future now, arguing that the technical work of upgrading Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other networks should not wait for consensus on what to do with vulnerable or abandoned coins. Upgrading the security of an entire decentralised ecosystem, including blockchains, wallets, exchanges, and hardware, takes years.
The practical challenges of migrating are considerable. Post-quantum digital signatures can be tens to hundreds of times larger than current ones, which could dramatically increase blockchain data costs and reduce throughput. One estimate in the report suggests that replacing today's signatures with quantum-proof alternatives could expand block sizes by up to 38 times.
The report also raises a thornier governance question. The council outlined three options for coins that do not migrate to quantum-safe addresses: permanently freezing or burning Bitcoin in vulnerable addresses, leaving the issue to market participants, or adopting compromise measures such as transfer limits per block or specialised cryptographic proofs.
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommends migrating to quantum-resistant cryptography by 2035, a timeline the report suggests may even prove optimistic. Some networks are already moving. In January, the Ethereum Foundation formed a team to coordinate Ethereum's transition to post-quantum security, exploring the replacement of validator and wallet signatures with quantum-resistant alternatives. Bitcoin is exploring new address formats that better protect keys, though the community has not yet committed to a full upgrade plan.
The council's message is straightforward: "The right time to prepare for a cryptographic transition is before it becomes urgent. The industry should not confuse 'not imminent' with 'not important.'"
Sources:Decrypt: Bitcoin Must Prepare for Quantum Threat Now, Coinbase SaysCoinbase Blog: Quantum Advisory Council Position PaperCoinDesk: Coinbase Advisory Board Warns Quantum Computing Threat Is on the Horizon
