Bitcoin Developers Push Back Against Quantum Computing Threat Claims as Microsoft Unveils New Chip

No Immediate Threat, But Preparation Underway

As major technology firms accelerate quantum computing research in 2026, concerns about potential threats to cryptocurrency cryptography have resurfaced—but Bitcoin developers and researchers are pushing back against what they describe as overblown marketing narratives.

In February, Microsoft unveiled its Majorana 1 chip, which the company dubbed "the world's first quantum chip powered by a new Topological Core architecture," rekindling debate about quantum hardware's timeline ^[1]. However, most experts say the risk to crypto remains theoretical rather than imminent.

"The whole 'quantum threat to Bitcoin' narrative is 90% marketing and 10% imminent threat… we're almost certainly at least a decade away from computers that can actually break existing cryptography," said Nic Puckrin, crypto analyst and co-founder of Coin Bureau ^[1].

Clark Alexander, co-founder and head of AI at Argentum AI, told Cointelegraph that he expects quantum computing to find "extremely limited commercial use" in 2026 ^[1].

Technical Reality Check

Bitcoin-adjacent researchers have challenged recent claims suggesting quantum computers have made progress breaking cryptography. Bob McElrath argued in a widely shared technical breakdown that recent claims about small-bit elliptic-curve cryptography being "broken" do not demonstrate a real cryptographic break ^[2].

McElrath stated that the "attack" depended on classical pre-processing and effectively hard-coded the private key into the circuit, while the circuit depth was far beyond what real hardware could execute within qubit coherence limits ^[2]. He further noted that the reported output fidelity looked like random noise and that the claimed success rate performed worse than random guessing ^[2].

Blockstream CEO Adam Back echoed these concerns, arguing that much of the public discussion conflates different cryptographic primitives and overstates timelines ^[2]. Back emphasized that Bitcoin is secured by digital signatures, not encryption as quantum headlines often imply, and that cryptographically relevant quantum computers are likely decades away, if they are feasible at all ^[2].

The Physics Barrier

Current quantum devices face significant technical hurdles. "Current quantum devices have only hundreds or thousands of noisy qubits, it's far below what's needed to run deep algorithms like Shor's… This means a realistic cryptanalytic attack would demand millions of physical qubits, ultra-low gate error rates, and the ability to perform millions of sequential operations without losing coherence," explained Kireieva ^[1].

A key reason cited by both Back and McElrath is that current quantum research remains focused on error correction, involving keeping fragile qubits coherent long enough to perform basic operations, rather than executing the sustained, fault-tolerant computations required to threaten real-world cryptography ^[2].

"Harvest Now, Decrypt Later" Concern

While a cryptographic collapse by 2026 is highly unlikely, experts point to a different concern: attackers collecting encrypted data today for future decryption.

"The quantum threat coming to life in 2026 is highly unlikely," said Sean Ren, co-founder of Sahara AI, "but bad actors are already collecting as much encrypted data as possible… so that, when the tech is ready, all that archived data becomes readable" ^[1].

Millions of Bitcoin Potentially Exposed

Kireieva estimated that 25%–30% of all BTC (around 4 million coins) are in vulnerable addresses whose public keys have already been exposed on-chain, making them more susceptible to private-key recovery by a sufficiently powerful quantum computer ^[1].

She advised users to minimize exposure by avoiding address reuse, ensuring public keys remain hidden until funds are spent, and staying prepared to migrate to quantum-resistant wallets and address formats as soon as they become available ^[1].

Staged Mitigation Strategy

Developers are advocating for a measured approach. Coinjoined Chris framed the core issue as asymmetric risk: cryptographic mistakes are hard to reverse in a consensus system ^[2]. The suggested strategy involves reducing exposure immediately using existing best practices and building an upgrade path that can be activated if external signals materially change ^[2].

Developer Hunter Beast argues for a staged approach pointing to work underway on post-quantum options that lean on hash-based assumptions rather than lattice assumptions, citing SLH-DSA (SPHINCS+) as a conservative candidate ^[2]. He acknowledges that post-quantum signatures are substantially larger than Schnorr signatures and that throughput and scaling tradeoffs are real constraints ^[2].

As Back summarized the approach: "Be prepared, not scared" ^[2].