Bitcoin advocate Michael Saylor has dismissed fears surrounding quantum computing’s potential threat to Bitcoin, calling it a marketing tactic used to promote so-called “quantum” tokens.
“It’s mainly marketing from people that want to sell you the next quantum yo-yo token,” said Saylor, executive chairman of MicroStrategy, during a June 6 appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
While some experts have warned that quantum computing could undermine Bitcoin’s security, Saylor remains unconvinced. Research from Project Eleven, a quantum computing firm, claims that over 10 million Bitcoin addresses with exposed public keys could put more than 6 million BTC at risk if quantum machines gain the ability to break Bitcoin’s elliptic curve cryptography (ECC).
However, Saylor argued that even if such a powerful quantum computer were developed by a major tech company, it wouldn’t be released due to the catastrophic consequences.
“Google and Microsoft aren’t going to sell you a computer that cracks modern cryptography because it would destroy Google, Microsoft, the US government, and the entire banking system,” he said.
Saylor says Bitcoin would simply require an upgrade
If a real quantum computing threat to Bitcoin ever emerged, the solution would be straightforward, according to Saylor: the network would adapt through upgrades.
“The response would be a Bitcoin hardware upgrade and a Bitcoin software upgrade—just like Microsoft, Google, or the U.S. government update their systems,” he explained.
“We’re just going to upgrade the software.”
Saylor emphasized that the risk of losing Bitcoin to quantum computing is vastly overstated, claiming it’s 10,000 times more likely someone would fall victim to a phishing scam instead.
“Bitcoin is the hardest thing in the universe to hack,” he said. “Your bank account, your Google account, your Microsoft account—every other asset you own is far more vulnerable and would be compromised long before Bitcoin, because they’re significantly weaker.”
The threat quantum computing poses to Bitcoin is already under scrutiny
In April, Project Eleven launched a year-long competition challenging participants to use quantum computers to crack the largest portion of a Bitcoin key.
Dubbed the “Q-Day Prize,” the initiative aims to assess the urgency of the quantum threat to Bitcoin and to accelerate the development of quantum-resistant solutions to safeguard the network in the future.
Quantum computers from IBM and Google are still a long way from posing any real threat to Bitcoin
According to Project Eleven, breaking a full 256-bit ECC Bitcoin key would require around 2,000 error-corrected (logical) qubits.
In comparison, IBM’s Heron chip and Google’s Willow currently operate at just 156 and 105 qubits, respectively—still far from being capable of threatening Bitcoin. However, Project Eleven noted that these advancements are significant enough to warrant attention.
