Quantum computing is real risk — but Bitcoin isn’t standing still, advocates say Quantum computing often crops up in Bitcoin conversations as an existential threat: quantum chips will break today’s cryptography, and Bitcoin won’t adapt in time. On Dec. 14, podcaster and Bitcoin commentator Marty Bent pushed back on that alarmist framing while acknowledging the seriousness of the threat. “Yes, it is a risk,” Bent said, “but it’s a risk for any system that depends on cryptography.” His point: the conversation has moved beyond fear-mongering to concrete research and developer planning — and Bitcoin-specific work is already underway. From abstract worry to concrete designs Bent highlighted recent developer discussions and a research paper from Blockstream engineers Jonas Nick and Mikhail Kutunov as evidence that the community is treating the problem pragmatically. Nick summarized the paper on X on Dec. 9, saying the team examined hash-based, post-quantum signature schemes optimized for Bitcoin’s unique constraints rather than general cryptographic benchmarks. Hash-based signatures are attractive because they rely only on hash functions — a primitive Bitcoin already trusts. While NIST has standardized the hash-based scheme SPHINCS+, Blockstream’s paper looks at alternate parameter choices and optimizations aimed at Bitcoin’s needs. According to Nick, signature size can be reduced to roughly 3–4 KB, which he says brings hash-based schemes into the same ballpark as some lattice-based alternatives (referred to in the paper as ML-DSA). Why adoption is hard The technical feasibility of a post-quantum signature is only part of the story. Bent emphasized that Bitcoin’s global, long-lived, consensus-driven architecture makes protocol changes costly and slow. Any transition must account for existing address formats, HD wallets, multisig setups, threshold signatures and the need to preserve decentralization. “Many quantum-resistant schemes are very data intensive,” Bent said. Larger signatures increase transaction size, slow block propagation and raise the bandwidth and storage burden for full nodes — all of which can harm decentralization. That’s why Blockstream’s work focuses on tuning the trade-offs between signature size, verification cost and bandwidth to keep verification practical for ordinary node operators. Progress, not a cure-all Bent was careful to frame the research as groundwork rather than a finished fix. The aim is to map the design space now so the network won’t be caught flat-footed if quantum hardware advances faster than expected. “This is by no means…‘hey, we solved the problem,’” he said. “But we are taking this problem seriously, doing research and beginning to figure out ways in which we could solve the quantum risk.” He also noted that Bitcoin is often singled out in these debates, even though a fully capable quantum computer would threaten most of the internet’s cryptographic infrastructure, not only BTC. Measured takeaway In Bent’s view the right takeaway is balanced: quantum risk exists and progress in quantum computing is real, but the claim that Bitcoin developers are ignoring the issue doesn’t match reality. “Very smart developers, cryptographers more importantly, are researching the problem,” he said. “If you know where to look, it’s pretty clear that people are preparing for this.” Not solved. Not ignored. Just quietly being worked on. At press time BTC was trading at $89,854. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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