On January 12, 2026, BTQ Technologies (NASDAQ: BTQ) announced the launch of Bitcoin Quantum, a permissionless fork testnet described as the first quantum-safe fork in Bitcoin history. The testnet is designed to serve as a real, production-grade testing environment for the crypto ecosystem, allowing developers and institutions to prepare for quantum computing threats without directly impacting the Bitcoin mainnet.
Technical Core: ML-DSA Replaces ECDSA, Block Size Increased to 64 MiB
Bitcoin Quantum is built on Bitcoin Core with critical modifications. The most significant change is the replacement of the ECDSA signature algorithm—vulnerable to Shor's algorithm—with ML-DSA (Dilithium, FIPS 204), one of the most mature post-quantum digital signature standards standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Because post-quantum signatures are much larger, the testnet increases the block size to 64 MiB and adjusts script limits to handle the larger transaction data. The network uses a fresh genesis block, making it a clean-slate independent fork that does not inherit Bitcoin's existing ledger history. It is positioned as a "quantum canary"—a dedicated environment for testing and validating quantum-safe schemes.
Quantum Threat Quantified: ~6.5M BTC with Exposed Public Keys
BTQ highlighted the urgency of the quantum threat. Bitcoin's current ECDSA signatures could allow a sufficiently powerful quantum computer to derive private keys from public keys. Multiple studies estimate that approximately 6.5 million to 6.7 million bitcoins—about 32.7% of the total supply, worth hundreds of billions of dollars—have had their public keys exposed on-chain (including early P2PK addresses, reused addresses, and some Taproot outputs). A mature quantum computer could instantly steal these assets. Additionally, every transaction exposes a public key for about 10 minutes while waiting in the mempool, creating a "short-range attack" window. The entire Bitcoin market cap (currently over $2 trillion) faces systemic risk.
BTQ's Transition Roadmap
The testnet is permissionless, open to anyone wishing to run nodes, mine, build tools, or conduct stress tests. BTQ has also provided a block explorer and mining pool support for real-time community validation. The company plans to complete security audits in 2026, launch enterprise pilots, and release a mainnet version along with migration tools. Follow-up steps include collaborating with major exchanges and wallet providers to facilitate the gradual shift of retail and institutional assets to quantum-safe versions. BTQ emphasized that Bitcoin Quantum is not a replacement for the Bitcoin mainnet but a reference point for the community to audit and optimize quantum transition solutions.