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PsiQuantum, one of the most ambitious companies in the quest to construct a quantum computer that can be used in business, has made a big stride ahead. On March 6, 2026, co-founder Peter Shadbolt released pictures on X of the first steps of building at the company’s Chicago site. In under six days, crews put up 500 tonnes of steel for what is supposed to be a 1-million-qubit quantum computing center. Many researchers think that this size would be enough to endanger Bitcoin’s present cryptographic security.
The goal of the research, which was worked on alongside Nvidia, is to build a quantum system that can handle faults and still run sophisticated algorithms. PsiQuantum has made the facility the backbone of next-generation AI supercomputers, but its possible cryptanalytic powers have once again stirred concerns in the Bitcoin community.
How real is the quantum threat to Bitcoin?
Two main cryptographic primitives make Bitcoin safe:
- ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) to sign transactions
- SHA-256 for mining proof-of-work and creating addresses
Many people think that Shor’s algorithm, a quantum method that can quickly solve the discrete logarithm problem that makes elliptic curve encryption work, can break ECDSA. If a quantum computer that is strong enough becomes available, an attacker could get private keys from public keys, especially for addresses where the public key has been exposed (for example, reused addresses or spent outputs).
SHA-256, which is used for mining and hashing, is harder to break. Grover’s approach only speeds things up by a factor of two, which means that the effective security goes down from 256 bits to about 128 bits. This is still impossible to do with quantum hardware that we can see coming.
The most important concern has always been scale: how many logical (error-corrected) qubits do you need to execute Shor’s algorithm against secp256k1 (the curve used by Bitcoin)?
Early estimates put the number of logical qubits between 1 and 4 million. Recent studies have steadily lowered the bar. A preprint that came out in late 2025 said that under actual conditions, about 100,000 logical qubits might break 256-bit elliptic curve keys. The trend is clear: the number of necessary qubits is reducing quicker than many people thought it would, even if it is still quite large.
Even if it starts out noisy, PsiQuantum’s goal of 1 million qubits puts it in the range where cryptanalytic applications could happen in the next ten years. The company hasn’t given out precise technical information on error rates, coherence times, or logical qubit overhead, but the size of the projected facility has brought up the argument again.
“We Have No Plans to Attack Bitcoin,” says PsiQuantum
Terry Rudolph, one of the co-founders, talked about the problem explicitly during the Quantum Bitcoin Summit presented by Presidio Bitcoin in July 2025. Rudolph was clear when asked if the company would ever try to get private keys from public keys:
“We don’t have any plans. You can’t hide this stuff either; there are hundreds of people in the firm.
Rudolph stressed that any significant attempt to crack widely used cryptography would be quickly known to the entire academic community and law enforcement. Instead of cryptanalysis, PsiQuantum’s declared objective is to focus on commercial uses, namely AI supercomputing, materials science, and drug development.
Still, the fact that this kind of gear exists is a cause for alarm. Even if PsiQuantum doesn’t do anything, the technology could spread. Nation-states, well-funded criminal organisations, or rogue individuals with access to such systems might encounter diminished ethical or reputational limitations.
How Much of Your Bitcoin Is at Risk?
Some Bitcoin is more vulnerable than others. CoinShares published a study in February 2026 that said that only about 10,230 BTC, which is worth about $728 million at current rates, is in addresses where the public key has been made public and may be recovered by a quantum assault.
Most of these are old P2PK addresses and some P2PKH outputs from extremely early transactions, some of which go back to the Satoshi era. Modern address formats (P2WPKH, P2TR) only show public keys when coins are spent. This means that coins that haven’t been spent yet are safe until users misuse addresses.
CoinShares said that a possible sell-off of this weak supply would look like a normal trade. Even if quantum capabilities suddenly appear, they wouldn’t have as big of an effect as Bitcoin’s $1.4 trillion market cap. The actual danger is long-term vulnerability. If quantum computers become useful before the network moves to quantum-resistant signatures, coins that are dormant or lost could be taken.
Bitcoin’s Roadmap toward Quantum Resistance
For years, the Bitcoin development community has known about the quantum threat. There are a number of proposals being talked about:
- BIP-340 Schnorr signatures (which were previously turned on by Taproot in 2021) have certain benefits, but they don’t protect against quantum attacks.
- Lamport or Winternitz one-time signatures — Easy to use and quantum-resistant, but big and only good for one usage.
- XMSS or SPHINCS+ — These are hash-based schemes that NIST has approved, but their signatures are rather big.
- Lattice-based signatures – NIST finalists like Dilithium or Falcon, which have smaller signatures and are fairly efficient.
Vitalik Buterin laid out Ethereum’s quantum roadmap in late 2025. He suggested a multi-stage migration, starting with soft-forking to Lamport for new keys and ending with the full replacement of ECDSA. The developers of Bitcoin Core have chosen a more cautious approach, saying that they would rather wait for post-quantum standards to be fully developed before suggesting big modifications to the consensus.
To include quantum-resistant signatures, there would need to be near-universal agreement on a hard fork. Upgrades that are done too quickly or that cause problems could cause chain splits or criticism from the community. The general opinion right now is that it will be at least 10 to 15 years before we have viable quantum computers that can break ECDSA. It could take even longer.
Conclusion: A Risk for the Long Term, Not an Immediate Crisis
The first-ever 1-million-qubit facility from PsiQuantum is a real step forward in quantum computing. If the project can run without errors at that size, it would be possible to use cryptanalytic attacks on Bitcoin’s ECDSA, although it will probably still be years before they can be used in real life.
The corporation has made it clear that they do not want to harm Bitcoin, and only a small number of BTC (around 10,230 coins) are in addresses that are easy to hack. Before any real threat appears, the network has time to switch to quantum-resistant cryptography.
For now, the construction milestone is a good reminder. The cryptography behind Bitcoin won’t last forever. The timing is still far away, but the direction is clear: the industry needs to get ready. Developers, wallet providers, and users should keep a close eye on post-quantum research and start switching to safer address forms right away.
The race is on between the growth of quantum computing and the move to cryptography. The Chicago office of PsiQuantum might one day be part of that story, but the key question for Bitcoin is whether the network can update faster than the threat comes.
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