Five Years Until Quantum Hacking Threat, Bitcoin and XRP Speed Up Shift to Next Generation Cryptography

Amid growing warnings that advanced quantum computers could soon neutralize Bitcoin’s (BTC) cryptographic system, developers have begun preparing preemptive upgrades to defend against the threat, signaling a broader shift in the security paradigm across virtual assets including XRP (Ripple).

According to cryptocurrency outlet Decrypt on February 16 (local time), Bitcoin developers have merged Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 360 (BIP 360) into the GitHub repository as part of a post-quantum framework aimed at countering quantum computing threats. The proposal introduces a new method called Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR), which disables key path spending—a vulnerability that exposes public keys when coins are spent. This move addresses weaknesses in the Taproot upgrade introduced in 2021 and lays essential groundwork for smoothly adding quantum-resistant signature schemes through a future soft fork.

Academic and industry experts remain sharply divided over when quantum computers capable of breaking private keys using Shor’s algorithm might emerge. Thomas Rosenbaum, president of the California Institute of Technology, predicted that a fault-tolerant quantum computing system could appear within five to seven years. Supporting the early-threat argument, Caltech researchers have maintained coherence in more than 6,000 qubits with 99.98% accuracy, while IBM has achieved entanglement across 120 qubits, underscoring the rapid pace of technological advancement.

However, a more cautious view holds that it could take decades before such quantum threats materialize in reality, a perspective closely watched by other crypto ecosystems including XRP. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has set its post-quantum migration target for the mid-2030s, and CoinShares has assessed quantum vulnerability as a foreseeable engineering consideration rather than an immediate crisis. Jameson Lopp, chief security officer at Casa, also predicted that even with linear innovation, it would take at least a decade to reach a level capable of threatening cryptographic systems.

Experts note that the rigid decision-making inherent in decentralized networks may pose a more critical risk than the physical pace of quantum hardware development. Ethan Heilman, co-author of BIP 360, explained that activating the proposal would require overwhelming consensus—more than 95% support—from network participants including miners and node operators. As network protocols harden over time, a phenomenon known as ossification, securing agreement among stakeholders with intertwined interests is becoming an increasingly formidable challenge.

Some observers caution against excessive fear, arguing that even if large-scale quantum systems emerge, centralized financial infrastructure would likely become targets before distributed personal wallets. Nevertheless, the Bitcoin ecosystem remains committed to building technological defenses to safeguard secure transaction environments, adhering to the principle that any existential risk must be treated with utmost seriousness as long as uncertainty persists.

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