Crypto experts warned at a private lunch held during the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas that advances in quantum computing technology pose an increasingly urgent threat to Bitcoin.
Experts say that powerful quantum computers may crack Bitcoin private keys within the next few years, putting approximately $42 billion worth of Bitcoin at risk and potentially triggering a market "liquidation event."
Google's latest research finds that the quantum resources needed to break RSA encryption are 20 times less than previously estimated, further exacerbating concerns.
Casa co-founder Jameson Lopp emphasized: "The Bitcoin community needs to reach a consensus on mitigating threats before this truly becomes a survival crisis.
"Several solutions have already been proposed, including introducing quantum-resistant encryption addresses and limiting the number of transactions for vulnerable addresses.
Some members of the Bitcoin community quickly dismissed advances in quantum computing, but influential cryptographers and business leaders are concerned about the potential disaster in closed-door settings.
Computer and security experts explained at a private lunch last week that a sufficiently powerful computer could reverse-engineer the private keys of wallets, potentially disrupting the Bitcoin market one day, suddenly flooding exchanges with old Bitcoin and causing prices to spiral upward—just a few steps away from the massive Bitcoin 2025 conference room at the Venetian in Las Vegas.
Although this threat was once seen as distant, experts now believe that the Bitcoin community has less than a decade, or even just a few years, to develop contingency plans. Among those advocating for preparation rather than industry-wide denial is Jameson Lopp, CTO and co-founder of self-custody service Casa.
"It's hard to say we have decades because the timeline seems to be compressed," he said. "The real question is: Can Bitcoin unite to reach consensus on how to mitigate this threat before it truly becomes a survival crisis?"
The lunch was held at Delilah in the modern Dinner Club at Wynn Las Vegas, hosted by the multi-chain Layer 2 network Anduro incubated by Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital and the crypto insurance company Evertas, founded in 2017. The discussion was led by Hunter Beast, Senior Protocol Engineer at Anduro, and Michael B. Casey, Engineering Director at Marathon.
According to an informed source, the event explored potential solutions and received responses from members of the U.S. Treasury. However, according to another informed source, the Treasury did not attend.
"Liquidation Event"
Companies including Google and Microsoft have invested billions into quantum computing research, making it a competitive space race among the world's tech elite.
Using particles that can simultaneously act as both individual units and waves, their experimental machines can handle complex computations that would otherwise take today's machines thousands of years. (In-depth breakdown can be found here.
Bitcoin is vulnerable to attacks from quantum computers that could reverse-engineer private keys, allowing malicious actors to steal assets belonging to Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, leading exchanges, and coins mined by early network participants.
Last week, a research paper from Google suggested that breaking the so-called RSA encryption that supports private key security may require 20 times less quantum resources than previously estimated by experts. Theoretically, they only need one public key.
East and Casey stated that Bitcoin's algorithm could be cracked with zero warning. Under the current structure of the network, malicious actors may be incentivized to gather as many keys as possible before potentially obtaining billions of dollars in Bitcoin.
A study released by Deloitte found that 25% of Bitcoin's circulating supply is vulnerable to quantum attacks because the keys to their associated wallets have been compromised. At current prices, this amounts to a total of 4 million Bitcoins, worth nearly $42 billion.
The reality is that attackers would get much less. Experts state that if the algorithms supporting Bitcoin are cracked, it could immediately depress asset prices during a "liquidation event."
It is certain that Bitcoin can be protected from quantum threats by transferring funds to wallets that have not yet exposed their public keys. However, this is impossible for actors who lose their keys and impractical for exchanges allowing public on-chain deposits.
"This is a huge coordination problem," Beast said, emphasizing that the community should lean towards being "prepared" rather than "in denial."
