Bitcoin doesn’t have 20 years because the quantum threat is already here
Bitcoin’s 20-year quantum timeline collapses. 25% of the Bitcoin supply sits in vulnerable addresses requiring urgent migration.
Opinion by: Youssef El Maddarsi, chief business officer of Naoris Protocol
Some Bitcoin (BTC) advocates argue that the network faces no meaningful quantum threat in the immediate future, pointing to emerging NIST-approved post-quantum standards and suggesting that Bitcoin can simply upgrade long before any cryptographically relevant quantum computer appears. This confidence relies on the risky assumption that the quantum threat begins only once a machine can break keys in real time. Adam Back argued that Bitcoin has at least 20-40 years to ready itself, but the quantum threat is already active today.
Bitcoin cannot rely on a leisurely multi-decade upgrade path.