- BlackRock’s IBIT filing flags quantum computing as a potential threat to Bitcoin’s security, marking the first time the asset manager explicitly names quantum tech as a systemic risk in official ETF disclosures.
- While quantum computers aren’t a threat today, future advances could compromise wallet security and transaction validation.
- The crypto industry is already exploring defenses, including quantum-resistant wallets and quantum blockchains to safeguard against long-term threats.
BlackRock just reminded investors that Bitcoin’s cryptographic backbone isn’t immune to the future.
In a freshly amended filing for its iShares Bitcoin Trust, the asset management giant expanded its risk disclosures to include more explicit warnings about quantum computing and other advanced mathematical breakthroughs.
The updated language outlines how future leaps in technology could potentially compromise Bitcoin’s core cryptographic protections.
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The Quantum Threat
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart flagged the update, noting that the additions form part of a broader overhaul to the fund’s risk section. Seyffart downplayed the change, saying, “These are just basic risk disclosures” and that it is “completely standard”.
But the possibility is serious enough that BlackRock explicitly called it out in its May 9 iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) filing —its first direct mention of quantum as a systemic threat to Bitcoin’s cryptography. It reads:
If quantum computing technology is able to advance, it could potentially undermine the viability of many of the cryptographic algorithms used across the world’s information technology infrastructure, including those used for digital assets like Bitcoin.
BlackRock SEC filing
Seyffart does make a point. The quantum section is one piece of a much broader overhaul to IBIT’s risk disclosures, which now span nearly 50 pages (from page 16 to 65).
Among the other risks detailed are regulatory uncertainty, the environmental impact of mining, geographic concentration of mining power in China, the fallout from events like the FTX collapse, protocol forks that could splinter the Bitcoin network, and much more motivation for investors.
The Quantum Clock is Ticking
Bitcoin’s security model has weathered every attack vector thrown at it for over a decade. But the quantum threat, while it is getting closer, is not here yet, and won’t be for another 20 years, or at least that’s what Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang stated.
But at the heart of the issue is Bitcoin’s reliance on the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), the system that secures wallets and validates transactions. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm—a quantum algorithm capable of solving the discrete logarithm problem exponentially faster than classical methods—could render that security model obsolete.
There’s also Grover’s algorithm, another quantum technique that would give attackers a speed advantage in mining. But it’s Shor’s algorithm that presents the more immediate concern—one that threatens not just performance, but control.
So, that may beg the question, is Bitcoin and the entire industry doomed? Well, for what it’s worth, the Bitcoin community recently launched a proposal, known as QuBit and authored by pseudonymous developer Hunter Beast. It introduces a new address format called Pay to Quantum Resistant Hash (P2QRH).
It basically implements quantum-resistant signature schemes while including economic incentives for adoption, similar to the rollout of SegWit.
Meanwhile, broader research is unfolding in two directions: post-quantum cryptography, which uses classical algorithms immune to quantum attacks, and quantum-native blockchains, which reimagine blockchain infrastructure using quantum mechanics and communications.
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