Asset manager Ark Invest says quantum computing is a long-term consideration for Bitcoin security, but not an imminent threat.
In a Wednesday report co-authored with Unchained, the investment manager said current quantum computers fall far short of the capabilities needed to break Bitcoin’s cryptography, which relies on elliptic curve encryption to protect wallets.
“Current quantum systems lack the capabilities necessary to compromise Bitcoin,” wrote authors Dhruv Bansal, co-founder and CSO of Unchained; Tom Honzik, director of custody research at Unchained; and David Puell, research trade analyst and associate digital asset portfolio manager at Ark Invest.
Even if quantum systems eventually reach that level, risks will likely emerge gradually and at a high cost to attackers, according to the report.
One of the main reasons Bitcoin will not face an immediate threat is because a major breakthrough in quantum computing would likely first disrupt the broader security of the Internet, prompting coordinated responses from governments, technology companies, and financial institutions before reaching Bitcoin.
The report comes as long-term investors face the possibility that advances in quantum computing could one day break the cryptography underpinning bitcoin, fueling speculation about a possible security crisis.
Earlier this year, a top portfolio strategist at Jefferies, Christopher Wood, said investors should reduce 10% of their bitcoin allocation and add gold instead, due to a quantum threat. The move shook investors and spooked the digital asset market.
35% of supply at risk
While researchers generally agree that such capabilities are still some way off, the prospect that powerful quantum machines could eventually crack private keys or older wallet formats has raised concerns among investors about the long-term risks to bitcoin and the broader digital asset ecosystem.
The Ark report estimated that about 35% of bitcoin supply is located in types of addresses theoretically exposed to future quantum attacks, including about 1.7 million BTC that are believed to have been lost and about 5.2 million BTC that could be migrated to more secure wallets.
One of those wallets, of approximately 1 million BTC, belongs to Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of the Bitcoin network.
However, rather than a sudden “Q day”, Ark Invest sees these progressions unfolding in several different stages over many years. Some investors fear the first attack could occur before 2030, while others suggest it could be “decades away,” the report notes.
The report maintains that in either scenario, it will likely give the Bitcoin community time to upgrade the network with quantum-resistant cryptography and encourage users to move coins to more secure address formats.
“The good news is that we already know how to protect ourselves against quantum attacks,” the report says.
“The majority of Bitcoin supply is held in quantum-resistant addresses, and the remainder is held in vulnerable quantum addresses that should not be at risk until Stage 3 of our timeline, when a CRQC exists that can break a 256-bit ECC key.”
The world’s largest cryptocurrency was trading around $70,000 at the time of this publication.
Read more: Grayscale sees regulation, not quantum fears, shaping crypto markets in 2026
