BTQ Technologies launched the first working version of BIP 360 on Bitcoin Quantum Testnet v0.3.0, introducing Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR) to fix Taproot's public key exposure. Galaxy Digital warns ~7M BTC ($490B) at risk from quantum attacks. Over 50 miners have joined.
CZ said on a June 18 podcast that Bitcoin could give legacy holders 6 to 12 months to migrate after a quantum-resistant upgrade, with untouched coins potentially frozen under protocol rules, putting Satoshi's estimated 1.1 million BTC in focus.
Analysts say only about 21 million XRP, or 0.03% of circulating supply, sits in wallets with exposed public keys, while estimates put Bitcoin’s potentially exposed supply between 11% and 37%.
A new zero-knowledge recovery tool from Project Eleven offers a possible escape route for some Bitcoin holders before practical quantum attacks become a reality, but it does not solve the hardest part of the problem. The tool works only for HD wallets created after 2012, leaving older coins in early pay-to-public-key, or P2PK, addresses outside its reach. That includes roughly 1.1 million BTC widely associated with Satoshi Nakamoto, spread across about 22,000 addresses. According to the article, the real debate is no longer just about when quantum computers will become capable of breaking elliptic-curve signatures. It is about what the Bitcoin community should do with legacy coins that cannot be migrated through modern cryptographic methods. Several paths are on the table, including doing nothing, freezing vulnerable coins under proposals such as BIP-361, throttling spending from old addresses, or even redistributing dormant coins through a hard fork. Each option cuts against a different part of Bitcoin’s value proposition, from property rights to immutability. The report also says markets are starting to price in this governance risk. It cites Jefferies’ decision in January 2026 to remove a 10% Bitcoin allocation from its pension model portfolio, not because a quantum breakthrough had already happened, but because of uncertainty over how Bitcoin would handle early vulnerable coins.
IOSG argues that quantum computing is not a doomsday button for cryptocurrencies, but it does pose a serious long-term threat to the cryptographic foundations of Web3. In a reposted article by 0xjacobzhao, the firm says the real danger is not that blockchains suddenly stop working, but that a cryptographically capable fault-tolerant quantum computer could derive private keys from already exposed public keys and produce valid signatures on-chain. That would put extreme pressure on three core properties of public blockchains: permanently public ledgers, irreversible asset transfers, and self-custodied private keys. The article says the industry’s problem is no longer a lack of post-quantum cryptography. Instead, the hard part is coordination. Bitcoin and Ethereum face different migration problems: Bitcoin must deal with exposed legacy UTXOs, signature-size expansion, and governance disputes over dormant coins, while Ethereum is working on a broader migration across accounts, validator signatures, data availability, and zero-knowledge systems. IOSG points to a 5 to 8 year “engineering comfort window” before quantum risk becomes much harder to manage, even though broader Q-Day estimates remain centered around 2035 to 2045, with faster scenarios falling in the 2030 to 2035 range.
Castle Island's Nic Carter argues Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto is probably deceased, citing failure to secure 1.7M early bitcoins (worth $120B) against quantum computing threats. Silence since 2011 suggests death, he says. Community must prepare cryptographic upgrades.
On-chain data shows Tesla moved 3,385 BTC for the first time in two years, worth roughly $225 million at the time. The funds were sent in three batches to three unidentified addresses, while the purpose of the transfer remains unclear.
Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence confirms Tesla's 11,509 BTC transfer was a wallet rotation, not a sale. The funds are spread across 7 wallets. SpaceX also holds 8,285 BTC worth $550 million.
