Traders are focused on Bitcoin’s price milestone, yet rising fears around quantum breakthroughs are casting a shadow over its long-term security.

A new report from Capgemini is raising alarms over the future of digital security, warning that quantum computing could undermine the cryptographic foundations of Bitcoin and other blockchain networks within the next decade.

At the center of the concern is elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), the mechanism Bitcoin uses to generate addresses and validate ownership. Like RSA, ECC is vulnerable to Shor’s algorithm — a quantum computing method capable of breaking the mathematical problems that underpin current encryption.

While Bitcoin is not explicitly named in the report, its core security relies on the same encryption standards now flagged as vulnerable. If quantum computing reaches sufficient power, it could theoretically expose Bitcoin’s private keys, especially for wallets with known public keys.

Capgemini’s findings come from a survey of 1,000 major organizations across 13 countries. Although 70% are actively working on post-quantum cryptography (PQC) — new algorithms designed to withstand quantum attacks — only 15% are considered “quantum-ready,” and just 2% of global cybersecurity budgets are currently allocated to quantum preparedness.

The report highlights a growing risk: “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks. These involve collecting encrypted data today with the expectation that it can be cracked once quantum machines are capable. For Bitcoin, the risk is tangible — over 25% of all BTC is held in addresses with publicly exposed keys, including early wallets like those associated with Satoshi Nakamoto.

To address this, Bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp and other researchers recently proposed a phased plan to secure legacy wallets. The strategy includes freezing coins in vulnerable addresses and migrating them to quantum-resistant formats before attackers can exploit the weakness.

“This proposal is radically different from any in Bitcoin’s history — just as the threat posed by quantum computing is radically different from any other threat in Bitcoin’s history,” the authors wrote, as reported by CoinDesk.

Although the exact timing of “Q-Day” — the moment when quantum computers can break today’s encryption — remains uncertain, Capgemini notes that progress in quantum hardware, error correction, and algorithm design has accelerated. Some experts believe a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) could arrive before 2030.

Governments are already responding. The U.S. NSA plans to retire RSA and ECC by 2035. Meanwhile, NIST has finalized several PQC standards — including Kyber and Dilithium — for public use.

Tech giants such as Apple, AWS, and Cloudflare have begun integrating PQC into their systems. However, no major blockchain — including those in the top 10 by market capitalization — has yet adopted quantum-resistant encryption.

For now, Bitcoin remains secure under existing cryptographic assumptions. But with the pace of quantum innovation accelerating, the network’s long-term resilience may depend on timely adaptation.