Ledger Chief Technology Officer Charles Guillemet said the idea that only about 30% of Bitcoin is exposed to quantum-computing risk, while the remaining roughly 70% stays safe because public keys are protected by hashes, is flawed. He was responding to earlier Glassnode data showing that around 30.2% of BTC has already exposed spending public keys on-chain. Guillemet argued that this figure captures only the blockchain’s static state and does not account for public keys that may still exist in xpubs, devices, PSBT files, logs, or backups. He also noted that once a Bitcoin transaction is initiated, the public key becomes visible before confirmation. Citing research from Google Quantum AI, Guillemet said that under the assumption of a fast quantum computer that does not yet exist today, an attack against secp256k1 could be completed in about nine minutes. On that basis, he said hiding public keys alone is not enough to solve Bitcoin’s quantum-risk problem and that the network will ultimately need to migrate to post-quantum cryptography.
Ledger Chief Technology Officer Charles Guillemet said the view that only about 30% of BTC is exposed to quantum-computing risk, while the other roughly 70% remains safe because public keys are shielded by hashes, is problematic.
Earlier data from Glassnode showed that about 30.2% of BTC has already exposed spending public keys on-chain. Guillemet said that figure measures only the blockchain’s static state. Public keys that have not appeared on-chain may still exist in xpubs, devices, PSBT files, logs, or backups.
He also said that once a Bitcoin transaction is initiated, the public key becomes visible before the transaction is confirmed.
Guillemet cited research from Google Quantum AI saying that, under the assumption of a fast quantum computer that does not currently exist, a related attack against secp256k1 could be carried out in about nine minutes. In his view, simply hiding public keys does not solve quantum risk, and Bitcoin will ultimately need to migrate to post-quantum cryptography.
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