Solana Co-Founder Issues 5-Year Deadline for Bitcoin to Survive Quantum Threats

Bitcoin’s security model is under new scrutiny as technology leaders warn of quantum risks. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko said at the All-In Summit 2025 that Bitcoin must shift to quantum-resistant cryptography within five years or face severe breaches.

Yakovenko noted that artificial intelligence is speeding up progress in quantum computing. He argued that this raises the chance of a successful attack on Bitcoin’s cryptography to “50/50” by 2030.

Solana Co-Founder Raises Alarm on Quantum Threats

Yakovenko pointed to Google and Apple’s adoption of quantum-safe tools as proof that migration is already underway.

He stressed that the impact differs. Engineers face years of hard work to protect assets. The public, in contrast, may see wealth gains on a scale similar to artificial intelligence.

“For engineers it’s years of work, but for everyone else, quantum computing is a massive opportunity,” Yakovenko said.

“AI’s pace is astonishing. Research papers are being implemented at unprecedented speed,” he added.

Regulators and Tech Giants Set Timelines

Regulators are setting strict schedules for post-quantum security. The National Institute of Standards and Technology finalized new standards in August 2024, including ML-KEM and ML-DSA. These are now global benchmarks.

The National Security Agency published its CNSA 2.0 plan in May 2025, requiring full use of post-quantum algorithms by 2033. The Bank for International Settlements urged banks to build cryptographic agility, meaning the ability to change methods quickly, to avoid systemic risks.

Technology firms are also moving fast. Microsoft unveiled its Majorana 1 chip in February 2024, with the goal of scaling to one million qubits. IBM announced in June 2025 that its “Quantum Starling” system will run by 2029 in New York, with 20,000 times today’s computing power.

These milestones support Yakovenko’s claim that AI, quantum research, and chip design are converging faster than expected.

Meanwhile, governments are starting to act. El Salvador split its Bitcoin reserves across multiple addresses to limit exposure to a future quantum breach. This shows policymakers treat the risk as real.

Divided Community on Timeline and Threat Level

The crypto community is divided on how soon quantum threats will matter. Quantum AI researcher Craig Gidney and Naoris Protocol’s David Carvalho warn that Bitcoin’s elliptic curve digital signature algorithm, which secures ownership of coins, could be broken within five years.

Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards said 2,500 logical qubits may be enough to crack SHA-256, the hashing function that powers Bitcoin’s proof-of-work, within the next decade.

Others say these fears are overstated. Blockstream CEO Adam Back posted in April 2025 that quantum computers are still decades away from being a real threat.

Also, MicroStrategy chairman Michael Saylor took a similar view in a June 2025 CNBC interview. He argued that most quantum risk talk is marketing and that phishing and social engineering are far greater dangers.

Recent headlines illustrate the tension. On September 4, 2025, Steve Tippeconnic, an Arizona State University graduate and IBM Quantum hobbyist, used IBM’s 133-qubit Heron processor to break a six-bit elliptic curve cryptography key with a Shor-style attack.

Quantum headlines strike again: "Engineer cracks 6-bit crypto key with quantum computer!" But is this the end for Bitcoin's security? Spoiler: No. On Sep 4, 2025, Steve Tippeconnic (an ASU grad and IBM Quantum hobbyist) used IBM's 133-qubit Heron processor (ibm_torino) to…

— Ben Sigman (@bensig) September 15, 2025

Researcher Ben Sigman explained in an X thread that this proved deep quantum circuits can run on real hardware, but also stressed the limits: six bits equal only 64 possibilities, trivial for classical computers to solve instantly.

Sigman noted that moving from such toy examples to Bitcoin’s 256-bit elliptic curve signatures would require millions of error-corrected qubits, a scale thought to be at least a decade away. He added that the real concern is “harvest now, decrypt later,” where encrypted data could be stored today and decrypted in the future once hardware improves.

For now, Bitcoin remains secure, and upgrades like Taproot or post-quantum signature schemes such as NIST’s Dilithium could be added without hard forks.