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Quantum computing poses a long-term threat to Bitcoin but is not a threat that is imminent.
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Only 10,200 BTC are in addresses that can be realistically attacked and quickly sold.
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Breaking Bitcoin cryptography would require millions more qubits than current quantum machines.
CoinShares claims that Bitcoin is only at risk from a theoretical quantum threat, and not a real one. The problem is caused by future quantum computers which could break Bitcoin’s cryptography. It has nothing to do with current capabilities.
According to the digital asset firm, a system that secures over $1 trillion is expected to have a debate. Bitcoin’s quantum vulnerability, a well-known engineering problem with a long lead time, is not a sudden risk of failure.
CoinShares said that there is no way Bitcoin could be destroyed overnight due to quantum computers.
What Quantum Computers Can Do and Cannot do
Bitcoin security is based on two tools. Hash functions and elliptic-curve signatures protect addresses and mining. Quantum algorithms have a different effect on these.
CoinShares said Shor’s algorithms could one day reveal private keys if the public keys are visible. Grover’s algorithm reduces SHA-256 strength from 256-bits to 128-bits, but it is still computationally impossible to brute-force. Quantum systems can’t change Bitcoin’s 21-million supply, bypass the proof-of-work or rewrite its chain.
Under quantum assumptions, mining does not change in a meaningful way. Even if the quantum computer mines faster than a conventional computer, the difficulty adjustment will remove any lasting advantage.
How much bitcoin is actually exposed?
Exposure is limited to existing Pay-to Public-Key (P2PK), where public keys are visible. CoinShares estimates that roughly 1.6-1.7 million BTC (or 8% of the supply) are in this category.
Only a small fraction of this amount can be realistically exploited quickly. CoinShares estimates around 10,200 BTC are in UTXOs that are large enough to be stolen, and sold without taking years.
In this subset, 382 BTC are spread over 3,304 wallets that each hold less than 10 BTC. 7,000 BTC is in wallets that hold 100 to 1,000 BTC. 3,230 BTC are in wallets that have 1,000 to 10,000 BTC. CoinShares claims that even in the worst-case scenario, activity at this level would be similar to large market trades and not a shock system.
The remaining 1,62 million BTC is distributed across over 30,000 wallets. Each wallet holds between 10 and 100 BTC. Even with extreme assumptions it would take decades to unlock those coins.
Modern address types, such as P2PKH and P2SH, as well most Taproot setups, hide public keys until coins have been spent. Claims that 20% to half of Bitcoin is vulnerable include address reuse and temporary disclosure, which can be corrected with basic wallet behaviour and years of warning.
The technology gap is massive
The gap between theory, and reality, is large as of early 2026. To crack Bitcoin keys in a single day, you would need roughly 13,000,000 qubits of physical hardware with full fault tolerance. This is roughly 100,000 times more powerful than the largest machines of today. Millions of times more powerful systems would be needed to break keys in an hour.
Google’s Willow quantum computing system has 105 qubits. Each additional qubit increases the coherence difficulty exponentially. Even optimistic estimates put cryptographically relevant quantum computer in the 2030s, or later. Many models point to a 10- to 20-year horizon.
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