Responding to a question about whether advancing quantum research puts Bitcoin at risk, Adam Back posted:
Adam Back (tweet, November 15, 2025)Probably not for 20-40 years, if then. And there are quantum secure signatures, NIST standardized SLH-DSA last year. Bitcoin can add over time, as the evaluation continues and be quantum ready, long before cryptographically relevant quantum computers arrive.
Back reframed the quantum threat as a solvable engineering problem with a multi-decade runway. Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 360 (BIP 360), drafted by Hunter Beast, Ethan Heilman and Isabel Foxen Duke, outlines a gradual transition to post-quantum-resistant outputs using NIST-standardized algorithms. As of 2025, the highest-capacity quantum systems remain far below the threshold needed to run Shor’s algorithm against Bitcoin’s elliptic curve signatures. This 20–40 year estimate is the timeline figure cited in the security model’s quantum threat section.
This 20–40 year estimate is set against the institutional timelines, including the NSA’s 2035 migration date, in the quantum-threat analysis.
Not every named figure shares that runway. Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko has put the odds of a breakthrough within five years at roughly even — on the identical question, a far more urgent estimate than Back’s.
