Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko warned that Bitcoin developers must act to prepare for a possible breakthrough in quantum calculation that could make the network’s current security measures outdated.
In a speech on all-in Summit 2025, Yakovenko said there is a “50/50” chance of quantum computers will be powerful enough within five years to break the cryptographic protection that ensures Bitcoin cartoons.
“We should migrate Bitcoin to a quantum of resistant signature scheme,” he said.
The concern stems from the possibility of quantum machines running algorithms like Shor’s, which could crack the elliptical curve digital signature algorithm that is currently protecting Bitcoin Private Keys. It would make it possible to create transactions and compromise wallets, an existential risk of the network.
Community Pushback
Bitcoin’s design does not make such a change easy. A migration to cryptography after quantity would require a hard fork, a very contentious and technically complex process that would need widespread support across the network and would not be backward compatible.
While Yakovenko emphasized urgently, others in the crypto community are not convinced that the threat is near. Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, considered that technology is still something far away, and even making Bitcoin Quantum-Clear are “relatively simple.”
Bitcoin Core contributor Peter Todd pointed out earlier on social media that quantum computers “do not exist” as “the” demos running toy problems do not count. ” For Luke Dashjr, another Bitcoin core contributions, Quantum is not so much of a threat to Bitcoin now as spam and develops corruption that society can now address.
Yakovenko claimed that progress in artificial intelligence shows how fast laboratory work can jump into the real world. The moment tech giants like Apple or Google roll quantum-proof cryptographic stacks, he said, “It’s time to migrate.”
