Bitcoin does face a genuine quantum-computing risk, but the threat remains far from immediate, according to Wall Street broker Benchmark. In a Thursday report, analyst Mark Palmer said recent headlines have intensified fears that advances in quantum technology could weaken Bitcoin’s cryptographic foundations, yet his view is that the danger is “real but distant,” and that the network still has enough time and technical flexibility to adjust before the issue becomes urgent.
The weak point is ECDSA, not Bitcoin mining hash functions
Palmer said Bitcoin’s main vulnerability is not SHA-256, the hashing algorithm tied to mining, but ECDSA, the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm used to secure private keys. In theory, once a public key is exposed—usually when bitcoin is spent—that address becomes a possible target for a quantum attack. A classical computer would need trillions of years to guess a Bitcoin private key, while a sufficiently advanced quantum machine could derive it from a public address in minutes and then drain the wallet.
That level of hardware does not exist today. Palmer wrote that quantum computers capable of breaking ECDSA are unlikely to arrive for at least 10 to 20 years, and possibly longer. Current systems are still small, error-prone, and unable to sustain computation at the scale required to threaten blockchain infrastructure.
Only a limited share of Bitcoin is in addresses with exposed public keys
Benchmark estimates that only about 1 million to 2 million BTC are held in addresses whose public keys are already exposed. That group includes coins from the Satoshi era and wallets that have been reused. Even so, Palmer said those holdings are not practically vulnerable at current levels of quantum capability.
The report also notes a narrow theoretical attack window when bitcoin is spent and the public key is broadcast to the mempool. An attacker would need an extremely powerful fault-tolerant quantum computer and near-perfect execution to intercept and reroute funds during that period. The scenario is possible on paper. It is not close in practice.
Debate is heating up as firms start planning for the long term
The quantum debate has become more visible across both crypto and traditional finance. Many Bitcoin developers and advocates have pushed back against alarmist claims, arguing that machines capable of breaking Bitcoin cryptography do not exist and may not appear for decades. At the same time, some investors and strategists are weighing the long-term security implications more seriously.
Strategy (MSTR) executive chairman Michael Saylor has said that if quantum computing becomes truly powerful, it would threaten digital security broadly, including banking systems and internet communications, not Bitcoin alone. Jefferies global head of equity strategy Christopher Wood has taken a different portfolio stance, removing a 10% bitcoin allocation from his model portfolio because of long-term security concerns tied to quantum advances.
Preparation is already underway inside the industry. Coinbase announced earlier this month that it had formed a Quantum Advisory Council, a sign that quantum risk is being handled less as an abstract talking point and more as a structured institutional issue. Ethereum has also elevated post-quantum security to a top strategic priority and created a dedicated “Post Quantum” team.
Benchmark sees no systemic threat to Bitcoin today
Palmer does not view the issue as a protocol-breaking event in the near term. Even if some early coins were lost in a worst-case quantum scenario, he said that would not amount to systemic damage to Bitcoin’s core integrity.
From an investment perspective, he described quantum computing as a long-duration technical consideration rather than an immediate threat or a reason to abandon the Bitcoin thesis. In his view, the main near-term drivers for Bitcoin price remain liquidity conditions, regulatory developments, and institutional adoption, not speculative timelines around quantum supremacy.