Bitcoin is not Good Enough
Bitcoin is Fucked, and so are you if you are betting on it.
Bitcoin is a ticking time-bomb that will inevitably collapse the entire trust that people have in decentralized cryptocurrencies, and the higher its value climbs, and the more people tie their fortunes to it, the worse the bloody mess is going to be, and the more assured that people won't trust its successor.
Why am I saying this? Because sooner or later, Quantum techniques like Shor’s Algorithm will break the then-puny ECDSA techniques powering Bitcoin. People like Peter Diamandis are assuring us that such techniques are protecting the entire global systems (military, banking, medical…), so if these algorithms are broken, Bitcoin will be the least of our worries, in this article I want to argue that this is not the case, the global systems will eventually be fine, Bitcoin won't survive.
National Security and Critical Infrastructure Will Survive
The main difference between, and the only point that I really want you to take home with you is this:
Global Infrastructure can be upgraded, Bitcoin cannot
I am not saying that the procedures will be easy, or painless, some data centers will be breached, a lot of people will lose confidential data, some systems might even be completely scrapped and rebuilt from 0, many people might lose access to essential services for months, and some chaos will ensue. But it won't be a fatal blow to anything essential, anything that people or governments really need or want, hell if history has taught us anything it might all be a Y2K scare all over again.
Global and Critical infrastructure maintainers are not idiots, and have already begun upgrading:
- Governments: The U.S. NIST selected four quantum-resistant algorithms in 2022 for standardization, with agencies like the NSA mandating upgrades by 2035. The EU is funding PQ-Crypto initiatives for public infrastructure.
- Tech Giants: Google, Apple, IBM, Nokia, and Microsoft now test quantum-safe protocols in cloud services.
- Banks: JPMorgan and SWIFT are piloting quantum encryption to phase out vulnerable algorithms.
Bitcoin’s Death in a Post-Quantum Era
So what about Bitcoin, can't we just simply upgrade Bitcoin too to use those fancy Quantum encryption algorithms? The answer to this is actually YES, but we will have to thread a needle in a storm where the people with the power to save Bitcoin as a decentralized entity would have to constantly go against their interests to do this…….so the answer is NO (with extra steps)
1. Irreversible Exposure
The elliptic curve cryptography (ECDSA) securing Bitcoin wallets is a sitting duck for quantum attacks. Once a public key is exposed (e.g., in reused addresses or unconfirmed transactions), Shor’s algorithm can retroactively steal funds. An estimated 24 million BTC 25% of all Bitcoin ≈$384 Billion as of Feb 8, 2025 resides in such vulnerable wallets, and the value is rising.
All of that wealth would instantly put you on par with Elon Musk, who at the time of writing is the richest man in the world.
The Company/Group/Government that first cracks the encryption would have to move all of that BTC to a safer wallet, without making use of or trying to go for a 51% attack, so that the next entity to also crack the encryption will not be tempted to do the same.
It’s also estimated that some 20% of all bitcoins are lost in wallets with forgotten keys, there is of course an overlap between the lost keys that can be cracked anyway, but this further incentivizes a 51% style control of Bitcoin.
2. Centralized Decentralization
Bitcoin’s greatest strength, decentralization, is now its Achilles’ heel. Unlike banks or governments, there’s no authority to:
- Freeze vulnerable accounts.
- Mandate address migrations.
- Enforce quantum-resistant standards.
So the remaining unlost holders of Bitcoin wallets would have to agree to a standardized quantum encryption, that they would all follow, and apply retroactively to all previous transactions.
Do the migration at one time and across every wallet, and the people in charge of these migrations have to be trusted enough to not include any new Bitcoin, or mechanism for later on printing more bitcoins.
The nature of Capital will tell you that people would sooner transfer all of their wealth to other assets, instead of seeing the value of BTC go to zero, while they wait for this consensus.
We Need a Decentralized Quantum-Resistant Currency NOW
We could in theory start the process of moving Bitcoin to a more stable version right now, but chances are this is not going to happen, mostly for the same reasons stated above.
Of course, what governments will want, is for people to move to a centralized coin controlled by the central banks, this will give the government the power to print as much as they want again.
Governments will most likely get away with this, as the shared trauma of losing most of your life savings in one day will convince most people that it is better to have inflation slowly erode your finances away.
This is, of course, no fun, and defeats the entire purpose of decentralized cryptocurrencies in the first place.
If we are serious about a future where we have a global reserve of wealth that cannot be stolen away by inflation, then we need a Quantum Resistant crypto currency today, and we need to move most people to it. Bitcoin is pretty damn good, but its not perfect.
This is of course not financial advice, I am not a financial advisor, so pretty please, don’t sue me.
