Recently, a topic has been gaining attention in the community—the threat of quantum computing to Bitcoin. David Duong, head of investment research at a leading compliant platform, issued a warning: approximately one-third of the Bitcoin supply is facing potential quantum attack risks.

It sounds very sci-fi, but the issue is actually quite realistic. The reason why this one-third of Bitcoin is vulnerable is that the cryptographic outputs of the wallets they are stored in are already publicly visible. In other words, if a quantum computer becomes powerful enough, it could theoretically reverse-engineer private keys from these public keys and directly steal funds.

Duong believes that the threat of quantum computing to Bitcoin falls into two categories. One is the economic level—if quantum machines become strong enough to mine Bitcoin blocks more efficiently, it could undermine the entire network’s incentive structure. The second is a direct threat—quantum computers cracking private keys, leading to wallet attacks. Currently, quantum mining is not a major issue due to scale limitations, but signature security has already become a core hidden danger.

Interestingly, this risk has attracted the attention of traditional financial institutions. A global asset management giant explicitly listed quantum computing as a risk factor in the fund prospectus submitted in May. It seems this is no longer just a concern within small circles.