The post Bitcoin’s quantum debate is resurfacing, and markets are starting to notice appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Quantum computing and the threat it poses to encrypted blockchains has once again crept into online bitcoin conversations, raising concerns that it poses a long-term risk that investors and developers are still struggling to talk about in the same language. The latest flare-up in the debate followed comments from prominent Bitcoin developers pushing back against claims that quantum computers pose any real risk to the network in the foreseeable future. Their view is straightforward: that machines capable of breaking Bitcoin’s cryptography do not exist today and are unlikely to for decades. Adam Back, co-founder of Bitcoin infrastructure firm Blockstream, described the risk as effectively nonexistent in the near term, calling quantum computing “ridiculously early” and riddled with unresolved research problems. Even in a worst-case scenario, Back argued, Bitcoin’s design would not allow coins to be instantly stolen across the network. https://x.com/adam3us/status/2001589051317719400 Back’s assessment is broadly shared among protocol developers. Critics, however, say the problem isn’t the timeline, but it’s the lack of visible preparation. Bitcoin relies on elliptic curve cryptography to secure wallets and authorize transactions. As CoinDesk previously explained, sufficiently advanced quantum computers running Shor’s algorithm — a quantum algorithm used to find the prime factors of big numbers — could derive private keys from exposed public keys, putting a portion of existing coins at risk. The network wouldn’t collapse overnight, but funds sitting in older address formats — including Satoshi Nakamoto’s 1.1 million bitcoins, which have been untouched since 2010 — could become vulnerable to threat actors For now, that threat remains theoretical. Yet governments and large enterprises are already acting as if quantum disruption is inevitable. The U.S. has outlined plans to phase out classical cryptography by the mid-2030s, while companies such as Cloudflare and Apple have begun rolling out quantum-resistant systems. Bitcoin, by contrast, has not yet agreed…

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Filed under: News - @ December 20, 2025 2:10 pm