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Ark Invest assesses the proportion of bitcoins susceptible to quantum attacks., 2026/03/13 10:21:23
At least one-third of the existing bitcoins may be vulnerable to quantum threats, although practical implementation of such threats is still a long way off. This conclusion was reached by analysts from Ark Invest and Unchained.
According to the report, 65.4% of the supply—approximately 13 million BTC—is currently not at risk of quantum hacking. These funds are stored in addresses where public keys have not been disclosed on the blockchain, significantly complicating any potential attack.
About 25% of the supply—around 5 million BTC—is considered potentially vulnerable; however, their owners can transfer these funds to more secure addresses if necessary. This primarily concerns coins associated with address reuse, which has led to public keys becoming known to the network, the analysts explained.
A separate category consists of 1.7 million bitcoins (8.6% of the supply) that experts estimate are likely lost. These funds are located on old P2PK (Pay-to-Public-Key) format addresses—one of the early script forms in the Bitcoin network, where funds were locked directly using the public key. Since the owners of such wallets have likely lost access to their keys, transferring these funds to more secure addresses is no longer possible.
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Additionally, around 200,000 bitcoins (approximately 1% of the supply) may be at risk due to the characteristics of P2TR (Pay-to-Taproot) format addresses. However, in this case, owners can still move their assets to safer addresses.
The threat could theoretically materialize only if quantum computers become capable of effectively breaking the elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) used in the Bitcoin network.
Researchers estimate that this would require quantum systems with around 2330 logical qubits and the execution of tens of millions to billions of quantum operations.
Analysts emphasize that quantum risks for Bitcoin will develop gradually rather than as a sudden technological breakthrough. They believe that the advancement of quantum computing will be accompanied by numerous intermediate signals, providing the industry time to prepare for potential threats.
Researchers anticipate that the Bitcoin ecosystem will gradually transition to quantum-resistant address formats and may eventually implement comprehensive solutions based on post-quantum cryptography, which could safeguard the network against future quantum attacks.
Previously, Canadian businessman and Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary stated that large companies are hesitant to increase Bitcoin purchases due to risks associated with potential quantum attacks on the blockchain.
