Listen, I want to share a topic that came up in the news, and it's really interesting. It's about quantum computers and Bitcoin. It sounds like science fiction, but it seems that the time of fiction is coming to an end.
So, several major figures in the world of technology and cryptocurrencies have started sounding the alarm again: what if a quantum computer can hack Bitcoin? Like, it's really possible to open wallets, change transactions, and generally undermine everything that the blockchain stands for.
Here are the opinions I've gathered:
IBM and 2029
IBM plans to release a new generation quantum computer, Quantum Starling, by 2029. It will be a fault-tolerant (that is, stable, non-malfunctioning) quantum computer, which has not been done before. It is believed that such machines will be able to cope with tasks like breaking cryptography.
Google: Is the threat closer than it seems?
In May 2025, Google researcher Craig Gidney rolled out calculations according to which 20 times fewer quantum resources are needed to crack RSA encryption than previously thought. Yes, Bitcoin uses elliptic curves (ECC) instead of RSA, but they are also vulnerable to the Shore algorithm — and Gidney confirmed this.
He estimated that with less than a million qubits, powerful encryption could be cracked in just a week. It doesn't sound like 2100 science fiction anymore.
Who says "not so scary"?
Adam Back, one of the veterans of the bitcoin scene and the head of Blockstream, says: don't panic. He believes that there will be no truly dangerous quantum systems for another 20 years, but he still advises transferring coins to quantum-stable addresses in advance, especially if these are the same ancient coins, such as from Satoshi's cache.
The most disturbing voice
David Carvalho of Naoris Protocol does not stand on ceremony: in his opinion, hacking can happen within 5 years if Bitcoin does not urgently switch to new cryptographic standards. He even refers to a report by BlackRock — yes, the very investment giant - which explicitly states that the quantum threat is taken into account when applying for an ETF.
He also mentions that up to 30% of all bitcoins are stored at vulnerable addresses, and one successful breach can lead to a loss of trust in the entire network.
And what now?
Well, the cherry on the cake is investor Chamat Palihapitiya. At the end of 2024, he suggested that SHA-256— the Bitcoin hashing algorithm, could be broken in 2-5 years. According to him, 8000 quantum chips like those that Google has already made are enough, and that's it. Although for now, scaling such a thing is a separate pain.
So, on the one hand, supercomputers are still not ready, but on the other, everything is moving much faster than expected, and the big players understand this.
Do you think Bitcoin should switch to a new cryptography right now — or are these threats still from the category of "just in case"?
