Galaxy Digital today launched a Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative, committing up to $5 million in developer grants, research, and an advisory council to harden Bitcoin against the threat of quantum computers. The move comes as timelines for a quantum machine capable of breaking Bitcoin's elliptic curve cryptography compress — though no such computer exists yet.
Why 1.7 million BTC are at risk
Bitcoin's security today relies on elliptic curve cryptography, which could be broken by Shor's algorithm on a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. That's not a new worry, but the threat is becoming more concrete. An estimated 1.7 million BTC in legacy pay-to-public-key addresses are particularly exposed because their public keys are visible on the blockchain. Once a quantum computer can derive a private key from a public key, those funds could be stolen. The timeline is uncertain, but the risk is real.
What the $5 million will fund
The grant program will back quantum-resistant transaction proposals, post-quantum signature schemes, tooling for wallet migration, and security audits. Galaxy Research also plans to publish analysis of the quantum threat and developer response, targeting investors, policymakers, and the technical community. The initiative isn't just about writing checks — it's about building a pipeline of solutions that can actually be deployed on Bitcoin's network.
The advisory council and the political push
Galaxy's Quantum Advisory Council includes Barry Sanders from the University of Calgary, Damien Bérubé from MIT Sea Grant, and Eran Tromer from Boston University. Their work builds on recent progress: BIP-360, a proposal from developer Hunter Beast that removes public-key exposure from standard transactions, merged into the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal repository in 2025. On the policy side, President Trump signed executive orders advancing U.S. quantum work, setting a 2031 federal deadline for post-quantum defense. NIST finalized its first post-quantum cryptographic standards in 2024. The political and technical timelines are converging.
Galaxy calls for more partners
Mike Novogratz, Galaxy's CEO, said the firm believes it's important to help be part of the solution. He's not wrong — Bitcoin's decentralized governance makes upgrades slow, and the developer pool working on quantum resistance is small relative to the scale of the problem. Galaxy welcomes co-funders and other stakeholders to join the initiative. Whether they show up will determine how fast this work moves.
