Debate over quantum computing risk in Bitcoin appears to be narrowing toward a pragmatic middle position, according to Alex Thorn, research director at Galaxy Digital, who said conversations at the Bitcoin 2026 Las Vegas suggested more alignment than division. In a May 2 post on X, Thorn described discussions with “skeptics, advocates, and many overall smart bitcoiners” and said an early consensus is forming around two ideas: preserving Bitcoin’s property-rights norms while quietly preparing post-quantum defenses in case they are ever needed. His account reflects personal impressions from those conversations, not a formal policy process or protocol decision.
A Middle Ground Emerges on Bitcoin Quantum Risk
Thorn said one of the clearest areas of convergence concerns Satoshi Nakamoto’s early mined coins, many of which sit in older pay-to-public-key, or P2PK, outputs often cited in quantum-risk discussions. According to Thorn, many of the people he spoke with argued those coins “should not be touched,” even if they are theoretically more exposed under a future quantum attack model. He wrote, “violating his property rights could be disastrous for bitcoin’s core value proposition. but the risk is also lower than many realize — satoshi’s coins are in ~22,000 addresses, each of 50 BTC. a long range attack would have to crack them all.”
That framing matters because some proposals in the broader quantum debate have centered on whether vulnerable old outputs should be forcibly migrated or otherwise neutralized. Thorn’s post suggests resistance to that approach remains strong, especially where it could set a precedent for overriding ownership at the protocol level. He also argued that the biggest practical “honeypots” are not dormant early wallets but “mostly exchanges or active entities who can upgrade to a PQ-address if needed,” describing them as less realistic near-term targets because they can respond operationally.
He further distinguished between what he called long-range and short-range attack scenarios, saying that difference is “essential” to assessing Bitcoin’s actual exposure. “The hourglass proposal could also further mitigate if we thought long-range Qday was imminent,” Thorn wrote. He added, “meanwhile, neutral atom tech can only do long range attacks, and google quietly opened a neutral atom lab just prior to their recent paper… unclear, but distinguishing between long & short range is essential, and impacts the satoshi-coin issue.” Thorn did not present those points as settled fact, and his comments reflect an ongoing technical debate rather than a concluded industry view.
Developers Back Quiet Work on PQ Defenses
A second area of apparent agreement, according to Thorn, is that research into new cryptography for Bitcoin is broadly worthwhile even without consensus that the threat is immediate. He wrote, “it is good to work on new crypto for bitcoin, post-quantum or otherwise. developing it, testing it, compressing its signatures, proposing and debating implementation — all of these are good for bitcoin.” In Thorn’s telling, the point is not that Bitcoin should rush an upgrade, but that serious preparatory work has value on its own.
At the same time, Thorn said many of the people he spoke with remain wary of the tradeoffs. He listed several risks, including diverting engineering time from other priorities, introducing untested or overly novel cryptography into Bitcoin, and triggering governance friction around contentious upgrades. That caution appears to be part of the emerging middle ground rather than a rebuttal to post-quantum work itself.
His summary of the Las Vegas conversations pointed to a “put it on the shelf” approach. Thorn wrote, “most people i talked with in las vegas agreed that background work, perhaps resulting in a new PQ implementation being ‘put on the shelf’ in case it’s needed, is unequivocally a good thing. this mostly seemed to be a reasonable middle ground on the contentious mainstage panel as well, despite disagreements on urgency.” He added that “with the right funding and resources, good work can be accomplished” while limiting the risks of distraction and premature implementation.
Thorn said he still sees quantum computing as “a problem worth working on, even if there is only a 1% chance that it ever affects bitcoin,” while stressing that his comments were “just my impressions” and open to disagreement. That caveat is important: the apparent consensus he described is informal, and no binding roadmap for Bitcoin has emerged from it. Even so, his account suggests the discussion may be shifting away from absolutist positions and toward a narrower, more operational question of how to prepare without undermining Bitcoin’s core social and technical assumptions.
AI Transparency Note: This article was prepared with the assistance of an AI system based on the sources listed and was reviewed, edited, and approved by a human editor before publication. All quotes, data points, and factual claims are intended to be grounded in the cited source material; however, errors cannot be ruled out entirely.
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