Of the nearly 20 million Bitcoins in circulation, just over 10,000 are actually in wallets exposed to quantum attacks.
These figures come from crypto asset management company CoinShares. The company discovered in February that only 10,230 coins were linked to wallet addresses that were vulnerable to quantum computing and had publicly visible encryption keys.
At current prices, that would be closer to $730 million. The company explained that this amount was similar to routine transactions and not a market crisis.
Steel Frame Takes Shape in Chicago
The discovery arrives at an awkward moment. This week, PsiQuantum co-founder Peter Shadbolt posted a photo to X showing a Chicago construction site where his company is building the world’s first commercially useful quantum computer.
In six days, workers erected 500 tons of steel. This structure contains a machine capable of running one million qubits, a unit of quantum computing power.
Scientists say the capacity is theoretically enough to crack the type of encryption that protects Bitcoin wallets.
It’s time to build a really big quantum computer. 500 tons of steel were produced in 6 days. Deadline for the refrigeration plant that breathes up to your neck. Thank you to the hundreds of people who are participating in this mission. pic.twitter.com/eqSwsESusK
— Pete Shadbolt (@PeteShadbolt) March 5, 2026
The company raised $1 billion for the project, announced in September, with chipmaker Nvidia as a key partner.
PsiQuantum said the facility is designed to support fault-tolerant quantum computing and serve as infrastructure for next-generation AI systems.
For context, the largest quantum computer currently operating at the California Institute of Technology runs on 6,100 qubits. The jump to 1 million represents unprecedented scale for the sector.
What you could actually be at risk for
Bitcoin’s encryption uses a 256-bit encryption key. A preprint paper published last month stated that the number of qubits needed to decrypt a 2048-bit key is about 100,000. Mathematically, this suggests that a 1 million qubit machine could do the job.
But experts have long pointed out that the raw number of qubits is only part of the equation. Error rates and system stability are equally important.
BTCUSD trading at $68,470 on the 24-hour chart: TradingView
Not all Bitcoin wallets face the same exposure. Coins held in addresses that have never made a transaction (unspent transaction output, UTXO) are considered the riskiest, especially those whose public keys are exposed to the blockchain. Most of these wallets date back to the early days of Bitcoin.
Developers are already working on a fix.
Bitcoin developers have been discussing how to respond. One option on the table is a hard fork (a fundamental change to the network code) to introduce post-quantum encryption.
The co-author of BIP-360, a proposal to make Bitcoin quantum resistant, said the upgrade could take up to seven years to be fully implemented.
PsiQuantum said it had no intention of using its technology to attack Bitcoin. Co-founder Terry Rudolph made this point publicly at the Bitcoin Quantum Summit last July.
Experts in the field say a true quantum threat to Bitcoin is still at least a decade away.
Construction is currently continuing in Chicago using 500 tons of steel.
Featured image by Unsplash+/Alex Shuper, chart by TradingView
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