On January 25, 2026, a16z Crypto released a research report titled "Quantum Computing and Blockchain: Matching Urgency with Actual Threats," attempting to cool down the discussions on crypto security heightened by the "quantum doomsday" narrative. The core conclusion of the report is quite restrained: the probability of a quantum computer capable of practically breaking mainstream crypto assets (CRQC) appearing before 2030 is extremely low. On one hand, there is a technological threat that remains distant in terms of time scale, while on the other, there are daily occurrences of contract vulnerabilities, private key leaks, and protocol governance risks on the blockchain, with the tension between the two widening. As the market immerses itself in the narrative of quantum panic, more realistic and deadly security vulnerabilities are often downplayed.
The Rise of the Quantum Doomsday Narrative but Difficult to Ground
● On the narrative level, quantum computing has been shaped into the "civilization ender" of the crypto world. Over the past few years, statements such as "once quantum computing matures, it will instantly unlock all on-chain asset private keys" and "all existing public chain algorithms will simultaneously fail" have been amplified in the media and social platforms, becoming a recurring source of panic in the cycle. This exaggerated expectation easily combines with market volatility and regulatory headwinds, evolving into systemic doubts about the foundational security of the entire crypto system.
● In its latest report, a16z provides a more measured judgment: the probability of a true large-scale, practical CRQC capable of breaking mainstream cryptographic algorithms appearing before 2030 is extremely low. This does not deny the long-term threat but reminds the market to bring the "timeline" back to reality—current verifiable engineering and physical progress is still insufficient to support the logic of "large-scale quantum attacks in the short term," let alone the urgency of immediately rewriting the entire crypto stack.
● However, investors and project teams tend to overestimate such long-term black swan events. On one hand, extreme scenarios are more likely to drive emotions and traffic on the narrative level, providing "grand reasons" for valuation repricing; on the other hand, compared to the tedious and difficult daily offensive and defensive operations, pushing all risks onto the "quantum enemy" offers a more psychologically comfortable escape. The result is that security issues that can be immediately improved through engineering practice are overshadowed by a distant "ultimate risk."
Over a Million BTC as a Quantum Litmus Test
● A data point cited in the report concretizes the "imagination space" of the quantum issue: the top 100 publicly listed companies holding Bitcoin collectively own 1,127,981 BTC (data source: BitcoinTreasuries.NET). This means that just a corner of the disclosed positions in the traditional financial system is enough to constitute a massive "quantum litmus test"—any hint of a breach in Bitcoin's signature algorithm could theoretically trigger market expectations corresponding to over a million BTC.
● As more traditional institutions and publicly listed companies enter the crypto asset space, the scale of holdings and disclosure transparency are both increasing, amplifying the narrative impact of the "quantum threat." For these institutions, when facing inquiries from shareholders and regulators, quantum computing becomes a natural and easily understood source of security anxiety, more easily included in risk disclosures than complex on-chain governance or node games. Thus, even if CRQC is still far off, discussions around "how to respond to quantum attacks" are increasingly pushed to the forefront.
● However, comparing this set of holding data with the actual technological timeline reveals a misalignment: the market capitalization has reached a level that can shake macro sentiment, but according to a16z's judgment, the practical process of quantum computing is still unlikely to pose a direct cracking threat before 2030. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, the quantum issue is more like an "emotional parameter" affecting pricing expectations and risk premiums, rather than an urgent security deadline requiring the entire network to migrate algorithms.
Protocol Upgrade Games are the Current Frontline
● a16z points out in the report that the more pressing challenge to blockchain security currently comes from protocol upgrade coordination and traditional security issues, rather than the yet-to-materialize quantum attacks. Any adjustment to the underlying protocol—whether introducing a new signature scheme, modifying consensus parameters, or optimizing Gas pricing—must repeatedly balance security, decentralization, and performance, and these trade-offs often more quickly and directly determine the life and death of user assets than distant quantum threats.
● In practice, a public chain upgrade often involves multiple parties' games: core developers need to choose between technical feasibility and maintenance costs; miners or validators are concerned about whether their computing power/staking returns are affected and whether operating costs rise; application parties assess whether the upgrade brings incompatible changes and whether large-scale reconstruction of contract logic is needed. Any excessive resistance from one party could lead to delays in upgrades, on-chain splits, or even the formation of competing chains; these real-world games are the frontline of protocol security.
● In contrast, "traditional security events" such as contract vulnerabilities and private key management errors have direct losses for users that are quantifiable and immediate: a single audit oversight could result in tens of millions of dollars in stolen assets, and a single operational error could lead to the leakage of node signing keys or the failure of multi-signature mechanisms. These losses have repeatedly occurred over the past few years, with their scale and frequency far exceeding any actual consequences from hypothetical quantum attacks, yet they are often deprioritized in the grand narrative of "future great threats."
Premature Quantum Solutions May Have Side Effects
● From an engineering perspective, prematurely deploying anti-quantum algorithms on a large scale in production environments does not necessarily equate to "greater security"; it may instead introduce new complexities and implementation vulnerabilities. New cryptographic schemes often lack long-term large-scale practical testing, and their implementation details, boundary condition handling, and random number quality could all become new attack vectors. Rushing to replace underlying signature or key derivation mechanisms is akin to conducting group trials on untested drugs.
● Even if the algorithms themselves are mature, real-world compatibility, performance overhead, and user migration can backfire on security objectives. Larger key sizes and signature lengths may lead to increased on-chain transaction sizes, rising bandwidth and storage costs, thereby squeezing the survival space of small nodes and weakening the foundation of decentralization; complex key rotation and address migration processes increase the probability of user operational errors and asset loss. If security is only focused on the single dimension of "anti-quantum," it is easy to sacrifice robustness at the system level.
● The a16z report also reminds us that different cryptographic primitives have varying sensitivities to new types of attacks. For example, it points out that digital signatures and zkSNARK systems are less susceptible to HNDL attacks, which means that a one-size-fits-all migration could be both costly in engineering terms and may not yield proportionate security benefits. A more reasonable path is to monitor specific algorithm threat model changes while advancing modifications in a layered and scenario-based manner, rather than forcibly pushing the entire ecosystem onto a high-risk "quantum fast track" without clear pressure.
Regulatory Acceleration and Tech Stock Corrections Amplify Quantum Anxiety
● In the external environment, the construction of the U.S. crypto regulatory framework is accelerating, and exchanges and compliant asset channels are under new pressure in the security narrative. Compliant platforms need to explain their risk control capabilities to regulators, institutional clients, and retail investors simultaneously, making "quantum security" one of the standard phrases in compliance documentation. The more regulators emphasize systemic risk prevention, the more likely distant technological threats like quantum computing gain disproportionate weight in the discourse.
● At the same time, the recent performance of the "Big Seven" tech stocks has been lackluster, leading the market to question the mid-to-short-term return paths of AI and other high-tech themes. As high-valuation themes shift from exuberance to caution, any factor that can be packaged as "tech risk" will be amplified and projected onto other sectors. Quantum computing, which can link with AI, semiconductors, and directly relate to crypto assets, naturally becomes the most suitable "concern carrier" during emotional switches.
● The tightening of macro sentiment, on one hand, has garnered more attention for the quantum threat, while on the other hand, it has forced the industry to reassess the priority of security investments. When the market no longer pays a premium for pure narratives, developers and project teams are more motivated to allocate resources toward tangible, verifiable security improvements—more rigorous contract audits, more robust key management, and more transparent protocol upgrade processes. In this environment, the quantum issue instead serves as an "external pressure," pushing the industry to catch up on controllable battlefields.
Delaying Quantum Panic to Focus on Controllable Battlefields
The central argument of a16z's report is to recalibrate the scale of "urgency" from the distant and abstract quantum crisis back to current protocol and operational security. The long-term threat of CRQC cannot be denied, but before 2030, the more realistic battlefield remains: how to reduce coordination errors in each upgrade, how to lower systemic vulnerabilities at the contract and wallet levels, and how to maintain security boundaries for nodes and applications in complex games.
For project teams, a reasonable course of action is to rationally track the progress of quantum research, reserving scalable space for algorithm upgrades and key rotations during the architectural design phase; but in prioritizing resources, they should first address "low-hanging fruit" such as code audits, key management, monitoring and early warning, and emergency plans. For investors, when evaluating projects, they should place the engineering execution capability, governance transparency, and upgrade mechanisms on par with or even higher than the "anti-quantum narrative," rather than allowing the latter to easily sway valuation judgments.
From the perspective of the next few years, the relationship between quantum and crypto resembles a slow and prolonged arms race: cryptographic schemes will evolve, hardware capabilities will improve, and threat models will update. However, the short-term outcome of this race does not depend on who shouts the loudest or who writes "anti-quantum" on their PPT first, but on who can solidly refine protocol design, code quality, and operational processes in the present. Spending time on these controllable battlefields may be the most rational defensive posture when facing the distant quantum storm.
Join our community to discuss and grow stronger together!
Official Telegram community: https://t.me/aicoincn
AiCoin Chinese Twitter: https://x.com/AiCoinzh
OKX Benefits Group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=l61eM4owQ
Binance Benefits Group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=ynr7d1P6Z
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
