The BTQ and DeFi Technologies chairman warns that the crypto community is ignoring an existential problem that could arrive sooner than anyone expects.
In an interview with Armando Pantoja on TheStreet Roundtable, Olivier Newton, chairman of BTQ and CEO of DeFi Technologies, issued a stark warning about the future of blockchain security. While investors fixate on prices, Newton said, they are missing a threat far more serious than volatility — the rise of quantum computing.
“When you look at timeline predictions, it’s very hard to ascertain,” Newton said. “One of the reasons for BTQ’s focus on specifically protecting blockchains was in my early twenties, I lived in mainland China and was exposed to the quantum research laboratories out there.”
He said the global race for quantum power is happening both publicly and in secret. “It’s not like, when is my Bitcoin gonna be broken, let me Google it,” Newton said. “There’s so many things happening behind the scenes. There’s nation states and governments out there that are obviously advancing their qubit production and utility at an astounding rate, and that’s non-public information.”
The clock is ticking
Newton said the timeline for a cryptographic crisis is shrinking fast. “You have cryptanalysis where you’re looking at the potential breaking of ECSDA within one to three years. That was looking like it was maybe fifteen years away last year. So where are we going to be in six months if this exponential rate of technology increases?”
He said the entire premise of Bitcoin depends on cryptography that may not last another decade. “The US government is deprecating ECSDA by 2030 and making it illegal in the span of the next three to four years to be utilized in governments and corporations,” Newton said. “How is that going to fit for Bitcoin, for Bitcoin ETFs, and who’s going to implement these upgrades?”
Newton said BTQ has been building defenses for years. “We’ve been working specifically on blockchain related post quantum encryption cryptography for about six or seven years now,” he said. His research began long before the blockchain era. “I set up the foundational intellectual property of BTQ about thirteen years ago because I was interested in quantum computing,” he said.
BTQ’s strategy includes hardware partnerships with Foxconn and TSMC to accelerate quantum-safe encryption. “We set up an office in Taiwan where we have relationships and partnerships with Foxconn, the largest electronics manufacturer in the world,” Newton said.
He also revealed that BTQ has achieved a milestone called quantum proof of work. “It is Bitcoin’s proof of work but basically in quantum state using a quantum device called the Boson sampler,” he said. “It is possible to move, but governance and how that all happens remains to be seen.”
For Newton, the message was clear. Quantum computing is not a distant risk — it is an approaching reckoning. “We have the research capabilities and teams to kind of execute keeping decentralized currencies safe for the future,” he said.
