Quantum computing threats to blockchains are widely overstated, but urgent migration to post-quantum encryption is needed due to harvest-now-decrypt-later risks. Signature upgrades, however, require slower, deliberate adoption—especially for Bitcoin.

"By a “cryptographically relevant quantum computer” I mean a fault-tolerant, error-corrected quantum computer capable of running Shor’s algorithm at scales sufficient to attack elliptic curve cryptography or RSA within a reasonable timeframe (e.g., breaking secp256k1 or RSA-2048 with at most, say, one month of sustained computation). We are nowhere near a cryptographically relevant quantum computer by any reasonable reading of public milestones and resource estimates. Companies sometimes claim a CRQC is likely before 2030 or well before 2035, but publicly known progress doesn’t support those claims."

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