On January 25, 2026, a16z Crypto released an in-depth report on quantum computing and blockchain security, providing a calm assessment of the "quantum crisis" from the dual perspective of a leading crypto venture capital firm and research institution. The core conclusion of the report is that the probability of a quantum computer capable of breaking mainstream crypto assets (CRQC) emerging before 2030 is extremely low. This judgment is based on a single source it cites, but the tone remains cautious. In stark contrast, the market's imagination over the past few years has continued to ferment the idea of "quantum wiping out Bitcoin overnight," becoming a fixed panic label in the emotional cycle. Now, professional institutions are using data and technical pathways to dismantle the crisis narrative, drawing a clear contrast between the emotional expectations of a quantum storm and the reality of engineering progress.
The Spread of Quantum Panic: From Sci-Fi Imagination to Market Shadow
● The narrative from media and the community regarding quantum threats has long been heavily colored by science fiction, with extreme statements like "quantum computing wiping out Bitcoin overnight" and "all on-chain assets instantly going to zero" being common. Such expressions often skip over technical details, equating quantum computing directly with the "instant obsolescence of existing cryptographic systems," which is continuously amplified and re-shared on social platforms and forums.
● At times of market corrections during bull runs, deep adjustments in bear markets, and fluctuating regulatory policies, the narrative of quantum threats is often brought back up, becoming an important material for layering panic. For most investors who cannot determine the authenticity of the technology, the vague risk of "possibly being wiped out one day in the future" easily amplifies anxiety about long-term holdings, like a shadow always hanging over the market, difficult to disprove and hard to eliminate.
● a16z explicitly points out in the report that "the urgency of quantum computing for blockchain is often exaggerated," attempting to cool down this emotional narrative from a technical and timeline perspective. This judgment does not deny the quantum risk itself but lays the groundwork for a more detailed dissection later: what is truly concerning is the nature of quantum capabilities, the timeline for their emergence, and the costs involved, rather than a vague disaster scenario manipulated by panic rhetoric.
a16z's Cool Assessment of the Quantum Timeline: Engineering Reality Pressures Sci-Fi Imagination
● According to this security analysis, a16z believes that the probability of a CRQC emerging before 2030 that could substantially break mainstream cryptocurrency systems is extremely low. This judgment comes from a single technical source it cites, thus maintaining a "cautious yet not overly extended" stance in the report: it is neither a denial of quantum research nor a definitive timeline prophecy, but rather a conservative estimate based on existing public information.
● The report deliberately distinguishes between "demonstrating a certain quantum capability in a laboratory" and "conducting large-scale attacks on public chain systems in the real world": the former can be a demonstration with a small number of qubits in a controlled environment, while the latter means achieving extremely high standards in reliability, cost, scalability, and continuous operation. To pose a feasible threat to global assets like BTC and ETH, a complete engineering system is required, not just a single experimental breakthrough.
● Thus, a16z's stance is very clear: quantum computing will indeed become an important variable for blockchain security in the long term, but treating it as a "core black swan" in the coming years is a serious misreading in terms of technical pathways, timelines, and attack thresholds. Rather than being pushed by panic, it is better to acknowledge that this is a long-term risk that needs continuous tracking, rather than an immediate priority for public chain technology routes.
Signatures and Zero-Knowledge Are Not Weak: Limitations of the "Collect First, Crack Later" Approach
● A key conclusion given in the report is that the quantum attack model of "collect first, crack later" does not work against current mainstream digital signature schemes. The traditional panic assumption is often that attackers first collect a large number of on-chain public keys and transaction records, and then concentrate on cracking them once quantum machines mature. However, in mainstream designs, many sensitive pieces of information are not exposed on-chain for long periods, making it difficult for attackers to simply accumulate historical data to achieve future "one-click liquidation."
● For mainstream public chains like BTC and ETH, their signature and account models determine that confirmed historical transactions cannot be "retrospectively looted." Once a transaction enters a block and receives sufficient confirmations, even if attackers gain stronger computational power in the future, they cannot reverse the consensus state that was reached at that time. Even if quantum machines emerge, the attack targets are more likely to focus on unfinished interactions or a very small range of exposed accounts, rather than all past records of the entire chain.
● The report's perspective also extends to zero-knowledge proof systems like zkSNARK, suggesting that within a foreseeable timeframe, current mainstream zero-knowledge proof components are also unlikely to be affected by feasible quantum attacks. The reason is that these systems are not based on a single algorithm but rather on multi-layered constructions and proof processes. Finding a realistically feasible quantum attack path that balances attack intensity, cost, and success rate is not a simple task of "flipping a switch."
Prematurely Switching to Quantum-Resistant Solutions: Hidden Costs of Performance and Mismatch
● On a strategic level, the core recommendation from the a16z report is that rather than rushing to switch the entire network to quantum-resistant cryptographic solutions, current mainstream public chains should focus their security priorities on protocol vulnerabilities, governance risks, and other already existing threats. Blindly elevating quantum issues to the highest priority can lead to resource misallocation, allowing the everyday risks that truly cause asset losses to be overlooked.
● The report warns that if quantum-resistant encryption is fully introduced today, it is highly likely to bring about transaction volume inflation, increased verification costs, and decreased network throughput as systemic costs. More complex key and proof structures mean that each transaction will require more bandwidth and storage, and nodes will consume more computational resources during verification, which not only raises the operational threshold but also directly harms user interaction experience and on-chain application performance.
● In a situation where the quantum threat has not yet materialized and the timeline remains highly uncertain, preemptively paying for a full network migration may actually weaken system resilience. On one hand, performance and experience declines will compress the innovation space of the public chain ecosystem; on the other hand, a large-scale replacement of underlying cryptographic components is itself a high-risk operation, which can easily introduce new vulnerabilities during the migration process, causing limited security budgets to be misallocated away from more urgent and common issues.
Regulatory Stabilization and Saylor's Increased Bet: The Interweaving of Three Narratives
● The timing of the report's release coincides with the U.S. advancing the Crypto Market Structure Bill, as the regulatory framework is moving from fragmentation to formation. The potential effect of this process is to create unified standards in areas such as transaction transparency, custody responsibilities, and information disclosure, thereby gradually reducing systemic risks at the institutional level and lowering the probability of black swan events caused by "human error" and "institutional gaps."
● On the same day, Michael Saylor released forward-looking signals about further increasing his Bitcoin holdings, amplifying the long-term value bet in the macro narrative: on one hand, viewing BTC as a "cornerstone of digital assets" to be held for many years or even over a decade, while on the other hand, professional institutions calmly point out that the quantum threat is unlikely to materialize before 2030. This juxtaposition weakens the panic imagination of "being wiped out by quantum immediately," providing psychological support for long-term bullish sentiment.
● When the three narratives of "tightening regulation, increased capital, and cooling quantum" intertwine within the same time window, the industry presents a subtle balance: short-term opportunities still fluctuate around macro liquidity and policy directions, while long-term threats stem more from institutional and governance evolution rather than from a super quantum machine that has yet to appear. In this state of competition, the real challenge lies not in fearing the future, but in how to allocate resources and attention between real constraints and long-term variables.
Between Noise and Vision: How Should Public Chains Arrange Security Priorities
The overall judgment given by a16z's quantum security report is that quantum threats need to be seriously and continuously tracked, but are far from dominating the current technical routes and resource allocation of public chains. The probability of a CRQC emerging before 2030 that could substantially breach mainstream crypto systems is assessed as extremely low. Within this timeframe, what truly determines system security remains the quality of the protocol's design and governance resilience.
From a practical priority perspective, the more urgent battleground in the current ecosystem focuses on consensus and incentive design, governance mechanisms, smart contract auditing, and effective integration with regulatory systems. These areas have already caused real losses to the market in the form of on-chain attacks, governance hijacking, and cross-chain bridge vulnerabilities. In contrast, the quantum risks that remain at the level of long-term assumptions do not justify a hasty full network migration to quantum resistance.
Looking ahead, a more rational approach is to view quantum computing as a decade-level technological variable: continuously monitor cryptographic research and hardware advancements, reserve space for evolution, but not let short-term panic drive asset and technology decisions. Use time to gain information, replace emotional responses with structural defenses, allowing public chains to focus their main resources on the security battlegrounds that truly determine survival amidst a noisy narrative environment.
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