TL;DR:
- Fireblocks CEO stated that the quantum threat to Bitcoin is primarily a coordination problem, not a technical one.
- Michael Shaulov noted that North Korean hacker attacks, such as the $292 million exploit on Kelp DAO, hinder institutional adoption more than volatility does.
- Crypto privacy is “the most important and unresolved problem” for Fortune 500 companies seeking to adopt digital assets.
The CEO of crypto infrastructure firm Fireblocks, Michael Shaulov, argued that the threat of quantum computing to Bitcoin‘s cryptographic schemes is not “really a threat the way people present it”. His remarks took place during the Financial Times Digital Asset Summit and aim to reframe a debate that has gained urgency in recent months.
Shaulov argued that migrating to post-quantum signature schemes is “primarily a coordination problem” for Bitcoin. In his words, “it’s not a technical challenge“, and he recalled that the network has already changed its signature scheme “once or twice throughout its history”. What is required, according to the executive, is that developers and the community agree on a plan and execute all the necessary pieces before the quantum threat materializes.
Bitcoin’s Race Against Q-Day
The timelines for the so-called Q-Day are narrowing. A report by Project Eleven, a firm specializing in quantum security, estimated that Q-Day could arrive by 2030, roughly two years ahead of Google researchers’ projections. Last month, the same firm awarded 1 BTC to a researcher who used a publicly accessible quantum computer to break a 15-bit elliptic curve key using a variant of Shor’s algorithm. While far removed from the 256 bits that protect Bitcoin, it represented a concrete advance in the field.
Shaulov was more emphatic in identifying threats that, in his view, weigh more heavily on the industry in the short term. What “keeps us up at night” at Fireblocks, he said, are North Korean hacker attacks, particularly from the Lazarus Group. Exploits such as the one targeting Kelp DAO, which involved losses of $292 million, have a more direct impact on institutional adoption than price volatility does, according to the executive.
Privacy Is the Most Valued Asset
The third axis of Shaulov’s analysis was privacy. He cited the case of Walmart, which launched operations with Bitcoin and Ethereum through its OnePay app last year, to illustrate the problem: any crypto payment received by the company is publicly visible on a block explorer, allowing outside observers to infer revenue and commercial patterns. “In our conversations with virtually every Fortune 500 company”, he noted, privacy is “basically the most important and unresolved problem” for the advancement of digital asset projects.
