Editor's note: Will quantum computing become the 'next survival test' for Bitcoin? There is no shortage of researchers and technical solutions within the community regarding this issue, but the direction of the protocol is ultimately determined by a small group of core developers with substantial influence.
This article systematically outlines the public positions of Bitcoin's main developers on quantum risks, finding that: within the top decision-making circle, the quantum threat is still largely viewed as a distant, theoretical issue rather than an engineering challenge that needs immediate attention. The ongoing efforts of a few researchers have yet to translate into consensus or action, nor have they been able to disrupt the inertia of the core governance structure.
The following is the original text:
Recently, some Bitcoin developers have begun to refute a point I and others have made, that Bitcoin developers do not care about the risks posed by quantum computing.
It should be obvious to anyone who has seriously followed the relevant discussions that most Bitcoin developers, weighted by influence, have either provided a long timeline or outright denied this threat regarding quantum computing. However, let's specifically examine Matt's statement.
I had already known this was roughly the case, as I have been following these discussions, but after doing this sorting, I am still surprised by the depth of indifference displayed by the most important developers.
Let me briefly explain the methodology: If you don't understand who holds the 'leverage of power' in Bitcoin development, it is deliberately kept opaque. When Craig Wright legally harassed Bitcoin developers, some chose to 'retreat behind the scenes' or 'retire', but they continued to contribute code to avoid his legal maneuvers. The list of 'core maintainers' is not the list of 'most important Bitcoin figures' but rather those trusted to carry out a bureaucratic task. Since Gavin Andresen, these people have deliberately distanced themselves from responsibility and ownership of Bitcoin. They repeatedly emphasize that they do not 'control' Bitcoin but rather that everything is decided by a vague consensus of stakeholders. They often make a nearly Rousseauian vague claim that they represent 'the will of the people'.
Of course, they are not really going to ask global Bitcoin users whether they agree with a change. The way it operates in reality is: if you can convince about five or six of the most influential developers that a change is important, that change has a chance of being pushed through. This in itself is extremely difficult and very rare, so the result is that changes almost never happen. In the past decade, Bitcoin has only undergone two updates. It is precisely because of this structure that any change almost requires consensus among all 'considered important people'. It is easy to see how this can lead to deadlock and inaction. So far, this state has barely functioned; but when Bitcoin begins to face an uncertain yet rapidly approaching threat and needs to make quite drastic adjustments, this is precisely the most unsuitable governance structure. In the modern sense, Bitcoin has never truly faced an existential crisis; the last time there was a substantial survival issue (in 2010 and 2013), the governance structure was still sufficiently centralized to quickly roll out a fix.
Therefore, although doing so is nearly 'heretical' in the context of Bitcoin and will inevitably annoy developers, as I am revealing the 'unstructured' governance reality they deliberately maintain, I still intend to try to judge which developers possess the greatest 'perceived authority'.
By the way, to explain my background: I have been researching Bitcoin professionally for ten years, and my master's thesis was about Bitcoin governance; I have provided funding support to Bitcoin development organizations through Castle Island; I have spoken at several Bitcoin conferences; and I have met and communicated with many of the developers mentioned here. No one can truly map out the power dynamics of Bitcoin governance completely, but I am closer to this reality than most.
I am aware that ranking Bitcoin developers by 'influence' will certainly upset many people, but this step is unavoidable for this analysis. We must know who the true gatekeepers are in order to assess whether the most important Bitcoin developers are really prioritizing quantum risks. You can certainly question my ranking or propose another standard, but the only thing that matters is whether I accurately identified those core threshold figures.
The difficulty of this issue is precisely because Bitcoin developers deliberately keep the power structure opaque to the public. I have been following this issue for a long time and have a relatively clear judgment about 'who really matters', but even so, it is still an extremely difficult task. And the reason is simple: developers want it to remain hard to see.
The green markings are maintainers. The list is not complete and may contain errors. The influence ranking is my personal subjective judgment.
In my view, the most important Bitcoin developers/founders include: Pieter Wuille (without a doubt in first place), Greg Maxwell, Jonas Nick, Anthony Towns, Adam Back, Alex Morcos, Marco Falke, Andrew Poelstra, Mara van der Laan, and Peter Todd. Their associated institutions are listed in the table.
Pieter Wuille is a co-author of SegWit and the main author of Taproot—these are the only two major upgrades to Bitcoin in the past decade. He created libsecp256k1, wrote the Schnorr signature specifications, and co-proposed BIP9. In terms of pushing major technical changes, he is by far the most important Bitcoin developer, bar none.
Mara van der Laan (formerly Wlad) served as the chief maintainer of Bitcoin Core from 2014 to 2021 and officially 'retired' in 2023, but has clearly returned in some significant sense.
Michael Ford is one of the longest-serving current core maintainers, and although he does not directly write BIPs, his influence is significant.
Andrew Poelstra is the most low-key among all 'high influence' developers, yet his influence is immense—he can be considered the 'developer’s developer', a bit like the existence of Steely Dan. He is a co-author of the Taproot and Schnorr implementations and has made many important contributions across the field of cryptography.
Morcos is responsible for a major developer organization, Chaincode. Michael Ford is currently the most prolific core maintainer. Greg Maxwell is a legendary and outspoken developer. Adam Back is cited in the Bitcoin white paper, a co-inventor of Hashcash, and the head of Blockstream.
Marco Falke was an extremely active reviewer in Core, although he stepped down from the key maintainer role in 2023. Jonas Nick is one of the main authors of Taproot. Peter Todd is a long-active and widely engaged Bitcoin developer known for inventing important mechanisms like RBF to counter adversarial thinking and prevent unsafe changes.
I would have included Luke Dashjr among them, but his recent influence has waned.
Everyone mentioned here possesses a considerable degree of 'soft power'. They collectively decide whether an update will be taken seriously and ultimately realized. If you cannot get almost everyone on this list to agree that your update is 'important', then it is basically impossible to happen. The 'High Priests of Bitcoin' we often refer to are precisely these people.
The other developers and thinkers in the lower half of the list are certainly equally important—after all, only a few dozen people are guarding an asset worth a trillion dollars, and I do not mean to belittle their contributions—but in my view, they are not gatekeepers. Nevertheless, their opinions are still very weighty, and I list them here as well.
How do the most important Bitcoin developers view quantum risks?
Let's start with the 'high priests'.
Pieter Wuille, February 2025
I certainly agree that there is currently no urgency; but if (and only if) quantum computers that could compromise cryptography really become a reality, then the entire ecosystem will have no choice but to disable those spending schemes that have been compromised, and this must be done before such machines appear.
April 2025
I am not confident in the feasibility of Ethan Heilman's proposal, but I am glad to see the thinking and discussion in this direction.
July 2025
I believe that the main quantum-related threat Bitcoin faces, at least in the medium term, is not the actual emergence of cryptographic-related quantum computers (CRQC), but whether people believe it might appear soon.
I am not saying that this kind of machine will never appear, but I believe that the fear of its imminent arrival will have an impact sooner and more significantly. It needs to be clear that I do not advocate any specific action—whether it be a BIP, timeline, technical path, or even whether action should be taken.
Pieter participated in discussions about quantum risks, but he does not see this as urgent. In his view, the issue is more about people selling off due to worries (and that situation is indeed happening).
Mara van der Laan, June 2015
In the most extreme case: if secp256k1 or SHA256 shows obvious weaknesses, or practical quantum computing has become powerful enough to break that scale of discrete logarithms, I have no doubt everyone would agree to introduce new encryption algorithms.
Mara has long served as a Bitcoin Core maintainer, later retiring and then returning. She mentioned quantum issues in earlier articles but did not explicitly state whether she believes there is a risk.
Peter Todd, July 2025
Despite the many claims about progress in quantum computing hardware, the fact remains: no one is close to demonstrating a quantum computer with cryptographic capabilities. The cryptographic capabilities of real hardware can almost be said to be laughable.
Whether they are physically feasible remains unknown; apart from some in the physics community hoping to sell you quantum computers or research funding, the mainstream view is that they do not conform to physical reality.
Adam Back, November 2025
It may take 20–40 years or may never appear at all. Quantum secure signatures already exist, and NIST standardized SLH-DSA last year. Bitcoin can gradually introduce them as assessments progress, preparing long before cryptographic quantum computers appear.
Although the institution led by Adam Back is indeed conducting post-quantum research, his personal judgment on the risks is that there is at least several decades to go, and there is no need for concern at all. He even publicly dismissed my worries as FUD.
In my view, this attitude undermines the credibility of the institutional research outcomes—if the CEOs are making such statements, I find it hard to understand how Blockstream's research can be used to prove that 'developers are worried about quantum risks'.
Gloria Zhao, August 2024
I believe people sometimes worry about quantum computers, and this concern is indeed more interesting over a time scale of 30–50 years than worrying about AI attacks on Bitcoin.
Greg Maxwell, December 2025
Greg has discussed post-quantum signatures in a few exchanges but has not indicated his judgment on the risks. (I even went through his complete Reddit history.) Given his consistent strong opinions, this silence is quite unusual.
Jonas Nick, February 2025
Thank you for your work on BIP360. I believe now is a good time to develop and discuss specific post-quantum solutions.
Fortunately, Jonas is one of the most active post-quantum researchers in the Bitcoin community and has published papers on hash-based post-quantum signatures.
Anthony Towns discussed quantum attacks in 2018 but did not make any clear judgment on the risks.
Although Andrew Poelstra has not publicly commented on the risks, he stated in 2021 that Taproot would not introduce quantum vulnerabilities.
As far as I know, Alex Morcos, Michael Ford, and Marco Falke have never publicly mentioned quantum risks, so I infer that they are not worried (if I am mistaken, please feel free to correct me).
Summary
Overall, most of the most influential Bitcoin developers have never even acknowledged quantum risks directly. The few who admit the risk (excluding Jonas Nick) generally consider it theoretical, distant, or unworkable. Peter Todd and Adam Back explicitly deny the risk. Pieter Wuille acknowledges that the issue exists and participates in discussions but explicitly states that it is not a current risk or priority.
Without the nod of these people, any upgrade to Bitcoin will fail.
The current conclusion is very simple: the most influential Bitcoin developers do not care about quantum risks.
Other Bitcoin developers' views
Luke Dashjr, December 2025
Quantum is not a real threat. Bitcoin has bigger problems to solve.
Luke has explicitly stated that he does not think quantum is a threat. Historically, he has been one of the more influential and active Bitcoin developers, although today he is at odds with the Core system.
Matt Corallo, March 2025
In response to Jameson's (opposing allowing quantum recovery of Bitcoin): I think this provides a strong motivation for us to implement 'simple post-quantum cryptography (PQC)' today—although we do not need to decide on the tricky issue of 'whether to take over non-PQC coins' right now, we want to keep the option to do so in the future. To make this option feasible in practice, wallets must start embedding PQC public keys in their outputs at least ten years before the 'takeover' happens; any longer lead time would give us an important safety margin. Therefore, it seems that now is the right time to add the simplest form of PQC we can do—adding a basic P_HASHBASEDSIG (likely SPHINCS+) in tapscript—so that wallets can hide PQC keys (including multisig) in their taptree.
Matt Corallo does care and does believe there is a risk. But he explicitly denies my point that 'the most important developers do not care' and calls my criticism 'FUD'. Perhaps Matt has some internal information that I do not: perhaps developers are secretly anxious about quantum issues. But in public, they act as if there is absolutely no risk.
Robin Linus, July 2025
Dogs are scarier than quantum computers.
Robin is the author of BitVM and a respected researcher in the field.
Mark Erhardt (Murch), November 2025
Among all the things that could keep me up at night, quantum computers are definitely not one of them.
Most of those who believe the quantum threat is imminent are often looking to raise more funds to 'burn' their research.
If we really see CRQC within 20 years, feel free to come and laugh at me.
Antoine Poinsot, March 2025
In response to my claim that 'influential BTC developers are downplaying the threat': I believe this exaggeration weakens your (originally reasonable) point about 'uncertainty'.
It also exacerbates what I believe is the real threat existing in the next decade: the perception among important stakeholders that the quantum threat is imminent.
Olaoluwa Osuntokun (roasbeef), July 2025
Laolu gave a talk on hash-based post-quantum signatures at the Presidio Bitcoin Quantum Summit. He remained entirely technical throughout and did not assess the level of risk.
Tadge Dryja, July 2025
In response to Jameson's post-quantum proposal: Of course, CRQC may pose risks. But this proposal goes in the opposite direction: disabling important functions in advance for something that may never happen, even preemptively destroying coins.
Tim Ruffing, July 2025
Tim published a paper titled (The Post-Quantum Security of Taproot as a Commitment Mechanism). But to my knowledge, he has not directly commented on the risk itself. It is worth noting that he began doing this type of research early on, even publishing a paper on post-quantum confidential transactions in 2017.
Gregory Sanders (instagibbs), December 2025
In response to Scott Aaronson's comments about rising quantum risks: The evidence will speak for itself; by then I will naturally change my tune. Until then, I remain skeptical.
Jeremy Rubin, July 2021
A fun fact: Satoshi Nakamoto removed Bitcoin's post-quantum security in a hard fork in 2010.
The good news is: by re-enabling OP_CAT or a similar mechanism, Bitcoin can become quantum secure again.
Jeremy's concerns about quantum issues came earlier than most.
Amiti Uttarwar, January 2026
I find the discussion about quantum threats very interesting. There are several people I think are very smart and have been involved in the discussion for a long time who believe that quantum poses an existential threat to Bitcoin.
Augustin Cruz, February 2025
In 2025, Augustin released a quantum migration proposal called QRAMP, but it was later deleted.
Mikhail Kudinov, 2025
Mikhail co-authored (Hash-Based Signature Schemes for Bitcoin) with Jonas Nick, whose research agenda focuses mainly on post-quantum cryptography, so it is reasonable to assume he is very concerned about this.
Ethan Heilman, February 2025
I firmly believe that Bitcoin must transition to post-quantum signatures in the near future.
Ethan has proposed multiple post-quantum solutions for Bitcoin and has recently become one of the signatories of BIP360. He is one of the staunchest advocates for post-quantum transition.
Jameson Lopp, July 2025
We hope to protect the value of the UTXO set and minimize the incentives for quantum attacks. Bitcoin has never faced an existential threat to its cryptographic primitives. Once a quantum attack succeeds, it will cause serious economic chaos and destruction throughout the ecosystem. NIST has approved three post-quantum signature schemes for production environments in 2024; some academic roadmaps even estimate that cryptographic quantum computers may appear as early as 2027-2030.
Jameson has also been very active in sounding the alarm about quantum risks: both promoting formal migration plans and pushing for public discussions around 'how Satoshi's coins will be handled'. Although he is not technically a Core developer, he is undoubtedly one of the most vigorous advocates for the transition.
Jonas Schnelli, December 2025
In response to a tweet 'quantum computers won't arrive tomorrow': 'All those predicting quantum doomsday, take a look at this article.'
Jonas is an influential former core maintainer who has since exited Bitcoin development. He tends to downplay risks.
Anthony Milton
Anthony is a low-key but very active post-quantum researcher in Bitcoin. He co-authored an important report from Chaincode (Bitcoin and Quantum Computing) and runs PQ-Bitcoin.org, advocating for Bitcoin upgrades.
Clara Shikhelman
Clara is the head of research at Chaincode, co-authoring the quantum report with Anthony Milton and jointly operating PQ-Bitcoin with him.
Hunter Beast, December 2025
The industry roadmap led by companies such as IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Intel indicates that quantum computers could potentially break the ECDSA cryptographic system used for Bitcoin public-private key encryption within 2-5 years.
Hunter is the chief researcher of BIP360—currently the only named BIP clearly aimed at promoting quantum migration.
The following influential figures have recently not expressed views on quantum risks.
Satoshi Nakamoto (last discussed: 2010)
Gavin Andresen (last discussed: 2010)
Hal Finney
Mara Van Der Laan (last discussed: 2015)
Marco Falke
Michael Ford (fanquake)
Hennadii Stepanov (hebasto)
Ryan Yanofsky (ryanofsky)
TheCharlatan
Alex Morcos
Ava Chow (last discussed: 2019)
Suhas Daftuar
Neha Narula
Samuel Dobson (meshcollider)
Rusty Russell
Gleb Naumenko
Cory Fields (cfields)
Overall question: How do Bitcoin developers view quantum risks as a whole?
Based on my initial ranking of developers by influence and the public statements organized above, we can finally answer the question: how high is the overall concern of Bitcoin developers about quantum risks when weighted by influence?
This is precisely the conclusion that will be drawn next.
Unfortunately, the key developers at the top who actually decide whether Bitcoin will undergo updates almost unanimously believe there is no imminent threat, the only exception being Jonas Nick.
As a veritable 'number one' key developer, Pieter Wuille has participated multiple times in discussions regarding quantum issues, but he also believes that there is currently no real risk.
Among developers of medium influence, a wide variety of positions can be seen. On one hand, there is a group of researchers focused on quantum issues, such as Hunter Beast, Jameson Lopp, Clara Shikhelman, Anthony Milton, Ethan Heilman, Mikhail Kudinov, Augustin Cruz, Laolu, and Tim Ruffing.
On the other hand, there are also some core maintainers with actual power who remain silent about this threat; or some well-known developers—such as Luke Dashjr, Greg Sanders, Jonas Schnelli, or Tadge Dryja—who explicitly downplay or even deny the quantum risks.
Although the work done by researchers like Hunter Beast, Anthony Milton, Jonas Nick, and Jameson Lopp is crucial, these results have not gained any substantial traction among the most elite 'gatekeeping' developers at the top. Don't believe it? Just look at the reaction on the mailing list when Hunter announced a major update to BIP360—there was only one reply. The roadmap proposed by Hunter also received only polite responses, with no follow-up action. Nothing will happen until the most influential developers formally express their support for a proposal.
Summary
If you have read this far, the conclusion should be very clear: among those developers who truly decide whether the protocol changes, quantum issues are viewed as theoretical, distant, and even speculative problems rather than a reality that is happening and requires engineering solutions.
Peter Todd, Adam Back, and Luke Dashjr explicitly deny its feasibility or real relevance; Pieter Wuille, Gloria Zhao, and Adam Back define quantum issues as concerns that need to be addressed at least 30-50 years from now; Van der Laan, Poelstra, Maxwell, Towns, Morcos, Falke, and others have either never stated their views or have refused to participate in public discussions.
Among the most important group of people, only Jonas Nick has explicitly expressed concerns.
Real serious attention exists below the lines of power. Researchers like Heilman, Shikhelman, and Milton are seriously engaged in this work; Lopp is also continuing and rationally promoting discussions—which I sincerely acknowledge. Hunter Beast and his team are the ones who have invested the most on a practical level, trying to address a specific aspect of the problem through a named BIP (the quantum vulnerability of Taproot signatures). But so far, BIP360 has still encountered complete indifference from 'opinion makers'.
Do not be misled by the statements of Adam Back or Matt Corallo. Among the most influential Bitcoin developers, there is indeed a pathological indifference. Although there are a few bright spots, overall, quantum migration is clearly not a priority for Bitcoin Core and its main funding agencies.