XREX CEO Wayne Huang says quantum risk is bigger for finance than for Bitcoin

A new survey from the Global Risk Institute puts the odds of a quantum computer breaking today’s encryption at 28% to 49% within 10 years, rising to 51% to 70% within 15 years. Speaking at the 11th WHATs NEXT Quantum Technology Summit, XREX co-founder and group CEO Wayne Huang said that risk is more acute for the broader financial system than for cryptocurrencies. His argument was straightforward: banks and other regulated institutions can migrate on a regulator-led timetable, while Bitcoin has no central authority that can order a network-wide upgrade. Huang said the core problem is not simply whether quantum machines can break current cryptography today, but how long a full migration would take once institutions decide to move. In banking, that means reviewing account authentication, transaction signing, data transmission, and integrations with outside vendors, then testing and switching systems in phases. The article also points to “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” attacks, in which encrypted data is collected now and cracked once quantum capabilities mature. The report also notes that Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission issued a reference guide for post-quantum cryptography migration in June 2026, while the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has already released post-quantum cryptography standards. Huang said Bitcoin faces a different hurdle: any quantum-resistance upgrade would depend on community consensus among miners, nodes, developers, exchanges, and users.