The Great Bitcoin Quantum Debate: A Comedy of Errors!

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Ah, my dear readers! Gather ’round as we unveil the audacious Alex Pruden, the esteemed CEO of Project 11, who takes a bold stance against the CoinShares estimate that merely a paltry 10,200 bitcoin lie in the perilous clutches of quantum vulnerability. No, no! Pruden posits that a staggering number-around 6.9 million BTC-could be at risk, should those cryptographically gifted quantum computers decide to make their grand entrance sooner than anticipated.

This spirited squabble, magnified by none other than the illustrious Nic Carter of Castle Island fame, has spilled from the dusty halls of academia into the bustling marketplace of investors. The question is not whether quantum computing would wreak havoc upon our current signature schemes, but rather how many Bitcoin are already left dangling in the quantum wind, given the rather amusing way we utilize keys on the blockchain and the frantic choreography required for a migration!

Why ‘Only 10,000’ Bitcoin Is An Estimate Worthy of a Laugh

Pruden’s main contention regarding the “only 10k BTC” phraseology is as definitional as it gets! In a dramatic twist of logic, he insists that quantum vulnerability extends far beyond the archaic pay-to-public-key (P2PK) outputs, embracing any address that has dared to sign a transaction once (and left some funds lurking about), for once the public key appears on-chain, it may as well have a neon sign flashing “come and get me!” And thus, coins abandoned in those UTXOs could be ripe for the picking by an attacker with a taste for deriving private keys from public ones!

He points to a “constantly updated tracker” run by Project Eleven, boldly proclaiming that 6,910,186 BTC are indeed quantum-vulnerable, and cites a report from Chaincode Labs on post-quantum threats to Bitcoin as his trusty evidence.

Moreover, Pruden shines a spotlight on the presumed holdings of the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto-a veritable treasure trove indeed! “The entity believed to be Satoshi alone holds 1,096,152 BTC across 21,924 addresses. All vulnerable!” he declares, presenting those coins as if they were a buffet of delectable treats just waiting for hungry attackers.

Carter, responding with the grace of a fencing master, remarks upon the CoinShares figure, saying, “As much as I respect Chris and his work at CoinShares, he’s wrong on this one.” A delightful jab, wouldn’t you agree?

Pruden deftly positions the Bitcoin discourse within a broader narrative of large tech companies and security institutions dancing towards post-quantum planning. He references a Google blog post by Hartmut Neven and Kent Walker, who describe post-quantum cryptography as a pressing, systemic transition requiring a coordinated conga line of action and accelerated adoption.

He even cites research suggesting that breaking RSA-2048 might require merely “~1 million noisy qubits,” a figure delightfully lower than previous estimates, which could compress the timelines of doom-though Bitcoin utilizes ECDSA rather than RSA, of course. And to add to the uncertainty, he quotes the brilliant theoretical computer scientist Scott Aaronson, warning against overconfidence in systems that can be rendered obsolete:

“On the other hand, if you think Bitcoin, and SSL, and all the other protocols based on Shor-breakable cryptography, are almost certainly safe for the next 5 years… then I submit that your confidence is also unwarranted. Your confidence might then be like most physicists’ confidence in 1938 that nuclear weapons were decades away, or like my own confidence in 2015 that an AI able to pass a reasonable Turing Test was decades away… The trouble is that sometimes people, y’know, do that.”

Pruden concludes with a flourish, noting that it’s less about predicting a fateful date and more about avoiding a planning regime built on the whimsical notion of “it’ll be slow.”

He argues that the CoinShares post grossly underestimates the operational realities of a post-quantum transition for an already-mature, decentralized system. He highlights the Herculean task of migrating “millions of distributed keys,” the absence of a central authority, and the fact that ownership of assets rests solely upon digital signatures, with “no fallback.” Quite the precarious situation, I must say!

He even cites peer-reviewed research that claims “the BTC blockchain would have to shut down for 76 days” to facilitate migration transactions for the existing UTXO set in a best-case scenario-what a delightful tidbit meant to emphasize that even a distant threat can demand immediate engineering and governance work!

Pruden does not shy away from criticizing what he labels an appeal to authority, citing the opinions of a hardware-wallet executive as evidence that quantum threats are far off. He suggests that vendors might have their own reasons to downplay the urgency, lest their existing devices become as obsolete as a typewriter in a digital age.

And as our tale wraps up, dear reader, let us not forget that at press time, BTC traded at a whimsical $69,050!

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2026-02-11 09:11