Did you know? Google’s Willow quantum chip demonstrated an astonishing speed benchmark, solving problems in minutes that would take the fastest classical supercomputers around 10²⁵ years.
Bitcoin’s security relies on two cryptographic pillars: SHA‑256, which protects the mining process and transaction integrity, and ECDSA, which secures private keys behind signatures considered unbreakable by today’s machines.
Under classical computation, brute‑forcing either system would take longer than the age of the universe, but the quantum threat to Bitcoin changes that equation.
Algorithms like Shor’s could one day allow a powerful quantum computer to derive a private key from a public key in minutes, making it possible to hijack funds from any exposed address before a transaction even settles.
Security experts stress that cryptocurrency security doesn’t mean “safe until Q‑Day.” State actors and cybercrime groups are already harvesting data for the harvest now, decrypt later crypto risk, quietly building archives they hope to unlock when hardware catches up.
The mix of AI in crypto and quantum technology may speed up this timeline dramatically. Carvalho argues that AI could help identify weak points in blockchain cryptography, while quantum hardware delivers the raw power to exploit them. This combination — “how AI and quantum could break Bitcoin,” as he frames it — could bring forward the day when current cryptography no longer holds.
The exposure is already measurable. Roughly 25%-30% of all Bitcoin — some 6 million-7 million Bitcoin (BTC) — sits in legacy address types like pay-to-public-key (P2PK) or reused P2PK hashes. These formats reveal public keys, leaving them instantly vulnerable once quantum attacks become feasible. Those dormant and reused coins represent a huge chunk of circulating BTC and, by extension, overall Bitcoin price stability and Bitcoin adoption confidence.
Meanwhile, agencies like the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Security Agency are already urging a pivot to post‑quantum cryptography in crypto, with migration targets set for 2030-2035 to protect critical systems. If Bitcoin’s own upgrade lags, it could become a global case study in Bitcoin vs. quantum — a clash between the world’s leading digital asset and a new class of computing that rewrites the rules of digital asset protection and cryptocurrency security.
Carvalho warns the transition window is already narrowing. Without a decisive Bitcoin cryptography update and investment in quantum‑resistant blockchain security, he fears the industry could discover too late that the risk of quantum disruption wasn’t a distant “someday.”
