A new report from security firm Quantus has sharply revised the timeline for when quantum computers could break the public-key cryptography that underpins nearly all cryptocurrencies. According to the report, rapid advances by Google and IBM in error correction, qubit stability, and computational efficiency mean that practical quantum attacks on encryption may arrive as early as 2030—far sooner than previous estimates that assumed decades of safety.
The warning lands at a delicate moment. Institutional money continues pouring into the crypto market, governments are piloting central bank digital currencies, and billions of dollars are secured by algorithms that quantum machines could unravel. Public-key cryptography protects wallet ownership, transaction validation, and decentralized network integrity. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could theoretically reverse engineer private keys from public keys, rendering current wallet security obsolete.
Separately, ZeroTier CEO Andrew Gault has raised an even more immediate alarm. In a statement, Gault said attackers are already intercepting and storing encrypted network traffic between crypto exchanges, custodians, and institutions. The technique—known as “harvest now, decrypt later”—exploits the fact that today’s encrypted sessions, while secure against classical computers, may be trivially broken once quantum systems mature. Authentication tokens, API keys, and signed messages that flow across the public internet are being collected in bulk, creating a time bomb that could decimate the inter-institutional trust fabric of the crypto financial system.
While Bitcoin holders can move funds to quantum-resistant addresses, authentication flows between firms cannot be retroactively replaced. Once captured, a session token can be used to compromise entire networks later. Gault warned that the industry must begin migrating to quantum-resistant key exchange protocols for inter-party communication immediately, rather than focusing solely on static wallet signatures.
Developers have already started working on solutions. Post-quantum cryptography—encryption designed to withstand both classical and quantum attacks—is actively being standardized. The technology exists, but broad adoption across exchanges, prime brokers, and custodians remains far from complete. The Quantus report and Gault’s warning together underscore that the race between quantum innovation and crypto security has entered a new, more urgent phase.
