Original Article Title: Bitcoin developers are mostly not concerned about quantum risk
Original Article Author: NIC CARTER
Translation: Peggy, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: Will quantum computing be the "next survival test" for Bitcoin? Despite no shortage of researchers and technical solutions within the community on this question, the protocol's direction has always been determined by that small group of core developers with substantial influence.

This article systematically summarizes the public stance of Bitcoin's main developers on quantum risk, finding that: at the highest decision-making level, quantum threats are still widely regarded as a distant, theoretical problem rather than an engineering challenge requiring immediate attention. The continued efforts of a few researchers have not yet translated into consensus or action and have struggled to overcome the inertia of the core governance structure.

Below is the original text:

Recently, some Bitcoin developers have begun to push back against a point I and others have made, namely that Bitcoin developers are not concerned about the risks posed by quantum computing.

It is generally obvious to anyone who has seriously followed the discussions that, on the issue of quantum computing, the majority of Bitcoin developers, when weighted by influence, have either provided a very long timeline or outright denied this threat. However, let's specifically examine Matt's statement.

I already understood the situation to be roughly like this, as I have been following these discussions, but even after doing this review, I was still surprised by the depth of indifference shown by those most important developers.

First, a brief note on methodology: if you are unfamiliar, the "power dynamics" within Bitcoin development are deliberately kept opaque. When Craig Wright engaged in legal harassment of Bitcoin developers, some developers chose to "step back" or "retire" but continued to contribute code, thus circumventing his legal maneuvers. The list of "Core Maintainers," those who actually push updates into Bitcoin Core, is not a list of the "most important Bitcoin people" but rather individuals trusted to perform a bureaucratic task. Since Gavin Andresen, these individuals have deliberately distanced themselves from responsibility and ownership of Bitcoin. They repeatedly emphasize that they do not "control" Bitcoin but rather that everything is decided by a vague stakeholder consensus. They often use a nearly Rousseauian vague language, claiming to represent the "will of the people."

Of course, they wouldn't actually go out and poll the global Bitcoin user base for whether they agree on a change. The reality is: if you can convince about five or six of the most influential developers that a change is crucial, only then can that change possibly be pushed through. This is inherently very difficult and also highly uncommon, hence the result is—changes hardly ever happen. In the past decade, Bitcoin has only undergone two updates. It is precisely because of this structure that any change almost always requires unanimity among all the "important people." It is easy to see how this would lead to deadlock and inaction. So far, this state of affairs has barely held up; however, when Bitcoin starts facing an uncertain but rapidly approaching threat and needs to make quite drastic adjustments, this governance structure is precisely the most inappropriate. In a modern sense, Bitcoin has never truly faced an existential crisis; the last time a substantial existential issue arose (in 2010 and 2013), the governance structure was still centralized enough to swiftly roll out fixes.

Therefore, even though doing so is nearly "heretical" in the Bitcoin context and is sure to annoy developers because I am essentially revealing the "unstructured" governance reality they deliberately maintain, I still intend to try to assess: which developers hold the most significant "perceived authority."

(As an aside regarding my background: I have been professionally researching Bitcoin for ten years, my master's thesis was on Bitcoin governance; I have provided funding support to Bitcoin development organizations through Castle Island; I have presented at multiple Bitcoin conferences; I have also met and interacted with many of the developers mentioned here in person. No one can truly map out the power structure of Bitcoin governance comprehensively, but I am closer to this reality than most people.)

I am aware that ranking Bitcoin developers by "influence" will surely irk many people, but for the sake of this analysis, this step is unavoidable. We must know who the real gatekeepers are to assess whether the most critical Bitcoin developers are genuinely prioritizing quantum risk. You can certainly question my ranking or propose another set of criteria, but the only thing that matters is—have I accurately identified those key threshold figures.

The reason why this is so challenging is precisely because Bitcoin developers deliberately keep the power structure opaque to the public. I have long been attentive to this issue, have a relatively clear judgment on "who truly matters," but even so, this remains an extremely tough task. And there is only one reason for it: developers want it to remain so hard to discern.

The highlighted ones are Maintainers. The list is not exhaustive and may contain errors. The influence ranking is my subjective judgment.

In my view, the most important Bitcoin developers/founders include: Pieter Wuille (undoubtedly at the top), Greg Maxwell, Jonas Nick, Anthony Towns, Adam Back, Alex Morcos, Marco Falke, Andrew Poelstra, Mara van der Laan, and Peter Todd. Their affiliations are listed in the table below.

Pieter Wuille is a co-author of SegWit and a key author of Taproot—Bitcoin's only two significant upgrades in the past decade. He created libsecp256k1, drafted the Schnorr signature specification, and co-authored BIP9. When it comes to driving major technical changes, he is by far the most important Bitcoin developer to date.

Mara van der Laan (formerly Wlad) served as the lead maintainer of Bitcoin Core from 2014 to 2021, "retired" in 2023, but has evidently re-emerged in some significant sense.

Michael Ford is one of the longest-serving current Core maintainers. While not directly writing BIPs, his influence is undeniable.

Andrew Poelstra is the most understated among all "high-impact" developers, but his influence is immense—akin to the "developer's developer," somewhat like the Steely Dan of developers. He is a co-author of Taproot and Schnorr implementations and has made significant contributions throughout the field of cryptography.

Morcos heads an important developer organization, Chaincode. Michael Ford is currently one of the most productive Core maintainers. Greg Maxwell is a legendary and outspoken developer. Adam Back is referenced in the Bitcoin whitepaper, a co-inventor of Hashcash, and also the head of Blockstream.

Marco Falke was a highly active reviewer in Core, although he stepped down as a key maintainer in 2023. Jonas Nick is one of the main authors of Taproot. Peter Todd is a long-time active and widely knowledgeable Bitcoin developer, known for inventing important mechanisms like RBF and for his adversarial thinking to prevent unsafe changes.

I would have included Luke Dashjr as well, but his recent influence has waned.

Each individual mentioned here holds a significant degree of "soft power." Together, they determine whether an upgrade will be taken seriously and eventually implemented. If you can't get almost everyone on this list to agree that your upgrade is "important," it's basically not going to happen. The so-called "High Priests of Bitcoin" we often refer to are these individuals.¹

The other developers and thinkers in the bottom half of the list are equally important, of course — after all, it's just a few dozen people collectively guarding a trillion-dollar asset, and I do not mean to diminish their contributions in any way — but in my view, they are not gatekeepers. Nonetheless, their viewpoints carry significant weight, so I am listing them here as well.

How Key Bitcoin Developers View Quantum Risk

Let's start with the "High Priests."

Pieter Wuille, February 2025

I certainly agree there is no urgency now; but if (and only if) breaking cryptography with a quantum computer becomes a reality, the entire ecosystem would have no choice but to deactivate spending schemes that are broken, and this must be done before such a machine appears.

April 2025

I am not convinced of the feasibility of Ethan Heilman's proposal, but I am glad to see thinking and discussion in this direction.

July 2025

I believe that the major quantum-related threat that Bitcoin faces in the medium term is not the actual arrival of post-quantum cryptography (CRQC), but people's belief in its imminent arrival.

I'm not saying that such a machine will never appear, but rather that the fear of its impending arrival will have an earlier and more significant effect. It should be clear that I do not advocate for any specific action — be it a BIP, timeline, technical path, or even whether action should be taken.

Pieter has engaged in discussions around quantum risk but does not see it as an urgent matter. In his view, the issue lies more in people selling out of fear (which is indeed happening).

Mara van der Laan, June 2015

The most extreme scenario is: if secp256k1 or SHA256 were to exhibit a significant weakness, or if practical quantum computing had advanced to the point of being able to break the discrete logarithm of that magnitude, I have no doubt that everyone would unanimously agree to introduce a new cryptographic algorithm.

Mara has long served as a Bitcoin Core maintainer, later retiring and then returning. In earlier writings, she mentioned the quantum issue but did not explicitly state whether she believed there was a risk.

Peter Todd, July 2025

Despite much discussion about the progress of quantum computing hardware, the fact remains that no one is anywhere close to demonstrating a quantum computer with cryptographic capabilities. The cryptographic capabilities of real-world hardware are almost laughable.

Whether they are physically feasible remains unknown; mainstream opinion, apart from some physics circles hoping to sell you a quantum computer or secure research funding, is that they do not conform to physical reality.

Adam Back, November 2025

Perhaps it will take 20–40 years, or may never happen at all. Quantum-secure signatures already exist, and NIST standardized SLH-DSA last year. Bitcoin can progressively incorporate them with evaluation well before cryptographically relevant quantum computers appear.

Although the organization led by Adam Back is indeed conducting post-quantum research, his personal assessment of the risk is: it will be decades before there is any need to worry. He even publicly dismissed my concerns as FUD.

In my view, this attitude undermines the credibility of his organization's research results—if the CEO is taking such a stance, I find it hard to understand how Blockstream's research can still be used to prove that "developers are concerned about quantum risk."

Gloria Zhao, August 2024

I think people sometimes worry about quantum computers, and that concern is indeed more interesting than worrying about AI attacking Bitcoin on a 30–50 year time scale.

Greg Maxwell, December 2025

Greg has discussed post-quantum signatures in a few exchanges but has not indicated his risk assessment. (I even went through his entire Reddit history.) Given his consistently strong opinions, this silence is quite unusual.

Jonas Nick, February 2025

Thank you for your work on BIP360. I believe now is a good time to start developing and discussing concrete post-quantum schemes.

Fortunately, Jonas is one of the most active post-quantum researchers in the Bitcoin community and has published papers on hash-based post-quantum signatures.

Anthony Towns discussed quantum attacks in 2018 but did not make a clear assessment of the risks.

While Andrew Poelstra has not publicly commented on the risks, he mentioned in 2021 that Taproot does not introduce quantum vulnerability.

To the best of my knowledge, Alex Morcos, Michael Ford, and Marco Falke have never publicly mentioned quantum risks, so I assume they are not concerned (corrections welcome if wrong).

Summary

Overall, most influential Bitcoin developers have not even acknowledged quantum risk. The few who have acknowledged the risk (except Jonas Nick) generally consider it theoretical, distant, or inoperable. Peter Todd and Adam Back explicitly deny the risk. Pieter Wuille acknowledges the issue, participates in discussions, but explicitly states that it is not a current risk or priority.

Without their buy-in, any Bitcoin upgrade will fail.

The current conclusion is straightforward: the most influential Bitcoin developers are not concerned about quantum risk.

Views of Other Bitcoin Developers

Luke Dashjr, December 2025

Quantum is not a real threat. Bitcoin has bigger issues to address.

Luke explicitly states that he does not see quantum as a threat. He has historically been one of the more influential and active Bitcoin developers, although he is now in conflict with the Core system.

Matt Corallo, March 2025

(In response to Jameson's "Against Allowing Quantum-Recovery Bitcoin") I think this provides a strong motivation for us to do "simple post-quantum cryptography (PQC)" today—it isn't the case that we need to make a decision on whether to take over non-PQC coins today, but we want to preserve the option to do so in the future. To make that option viable in practice, wallets should start embedding PQC public keys in their outputs at least ten years before a "takeover" event so that any longer period gives us a significant security margin. Thus, it seems like a good time to start adding the simplest form of what we can do with PQC—which is to add a very basic P_HASHBASEDSIG (likely SPHINCS+) into tapscript, allowing wallets to hide PQC keys (including multisig) in their taptrees.

Matt Corallo does care and does see the risk. However, he specifically denies my claim that "key developers don't care" and dismisses my criticism as "FUD." Perhaps Matt holds some insider information that I do not: perhaps behind closed doors, developers are indeed worried about the quantum issue. But in public, their demeanor is as though there is no risk at all.

Robin Linus, July 2025

Dogs are scarier than quantum computers.

Robin is the author of BitVM and a respected researcher in the field.

Mark Erhardt (Murch), November 2025

Of all the things that could keep me up at night, a quantum computer is definitely not one of them.
Most people who believe the quantum threat is imminent often just want more funding to "burn" on their research.
If we really see a CRQC within 20 years, feel free to laugh at me.

Antoine Poinsot, March 2025

(In response to my assertion that "influential BTC developers are downplaying the threat") I think this exaggeration actually weakens your (originally valid) point about "uncertainty."
It also exacerbates the real threat that I see looming over the next decade: the perception held by key stakeholders that the quantum threat is imminent.

Olaoluwa Osuntokun (roasbeef), July 2025

Laolu presented on hash-based post-quantum signatures at the Presidio Bitcoin Quantum Summit. He remained entirely technical and did not assess the level of risk.

Tadge Dryja, July 2025

(In response to Jameson's post-quantum proposal) Certainly, CRQCs could pose a risk. However, this proposal goes in the opposite direction: preemptively disabling key functionality and even burning coins for something that may never happen.

Tim Ruffing, July 2025

Tim has published a paper titled "Taproot as Quantum-Secure Commitment Scheme." However, to my knowledge, he did not directly address the risk itself. What is certain is that he has been researching this area for quite some time, even publishing papers on post-quantum secure transactions back in 2017.

Gregory Sanders (instagibbs), December 2025

(in response to Scott Aaronson's comments on quantum risk escalation) Evidence will speak for itself; I will naturally change my stance when that time comes. Until then, I remain skeptical.

Jeremy Rubin, July 2021

Fun fact: Satoshi Nakamoto removed Bitcoin's post-quantum security in a hard fork in 2010.

The good news is: By re-enabling OP_CAT or a similar mechanism, Bitcoin can once again become quantum-secure.

Jeremy's concerns about quantum issues predate those of most people.

Amiti Uttarwar, January 2026

I find the discussion on quantum threats very intriguing. There are several individuals whom I consider very bright and who have been engaged in the discussion for a long time, who believe that quantum poses an existential threat to Bitcoin.

Augustin Cruz, February 2025

In 2025, Augustin proposed a quantum-resilient address migration plan called QRAMP, which was later retracted.

Mikhail Kudinov, 2025

Mikhail co-authored "Hash-Based Signatures for Bitcoin," with a primary research agenda focusing on post-quantum cryptography, so it is reasonable to assume that he is deeply concerned about this.

Ethan Heilman, February 2025

I firmly believe that Bitcoin must transition to post-quantum signatures in the near future.

Ethan has proposed multiple post-quantum schemes for Bitcoin and has recently become one of the signatories of BIP360. He is one of the staunchest advocates for driving the post-quantum transition.

Jameson Lopp, July 2025

We aim to preserve the value of the UTXO set and minimize the incentive for quantum attacks. Bitcoin has never before faced a survivability threat to its cryptographic primitives. Once a quantum attack succeeds, it would bring severe economic chaos and disruption to the entire ecosystem. NIST has approved three post-quantum signature schemes for production use in 2024; some academic roadmaps even estimate that cryptography-relevant quantum computers could emerge as early as 2027–2030.

Jameson has also been very proactive in sounding the alarm on quantum risk: both driving formal migration proposals and fostering public discussions around "how Satoshi's coins should be handled." While not strictly a Core developer, he is undoubtedly one of the most fervent advocates for driving the transition.

Jonas Schnelli, December 2025

(In response to a tweet saying: "Quantum computers are not coming tomorrow") "To all predicting quantum doomsday, read this article."

Jonas is an influential former Core maintainer who has since stepped back from Bitcoin development. He tends to downplay risks.

Anthony Milton

Anthony is a low-profile but highly active Bitcoin post-quantum researcher. He co-authored the pivotal "Bitcoin and Quantum Computing" report for Chaincode and operates PQ-Bitcoin.org, advocating for Bitcoin upgrades.

Clara Shikhelman

Clara is the head of research at Chaincode, co-authored the quantum report with Anthony Milton, and co-operates PQ-Bitcoin with him.

Hunter Beast, December 2025

The industry roadmap, led by companies such as IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Intel, among others, suggests that quantum computers could break the ECDSA encryption scheme used for Bitcoin public-private key cryptography within 2–5 years.

Hunter is the Chief Researcher of BIP360 — currently the only named BIP explicitly aimed at advancing quantum transition.

The following influential figures have not recently commented on quantum risk

Satoshi Nakamoto (Last discussed: 2010)

Gavin Andresen (Last discussed: 2010)

Hal Finney

Mara Van Der Laan (Last discussed: 2015)

Marco Falke

Michael Ford (fanquake)

Hennadii Stepanov (hebasto)

Ryan Yanofsky (ryanofsky)

TheCharlatan

Alex Morcos

Ava Chow (Last discussed: 2019)

Suhas Daftuar

Neha Narula

Samuel Dobson (meshcollider)

Rusty Russell

Gleb Naumenko

Cory Fields (cfields)

Overall Question: How do Bitcoin developers collectively view quantum risk?

Based on the initially influence-ranked list of developers and the compiled public statements above, we can now finally address this question: overall, how concerned are Bitcoin developers about quantum risk when weighted by influence?

This is the conclusion to be drawn next.

Unfortunately, the top-tier key developers who truly decide whether Bitcoin undergoes updates almost unanimously believe there is no imminent threat, with the only exception being Jonas Nick.

As a bona fide "core" key developer, Pieter Wuille has participated in discussions on quantum issues multiple times, but he also believes that there is currently no real-world risk.

Among developers in the medium-impact category, a fairly diverse range of positions can be observed. On one hand, there is a group of researchers focused on quantum issues, such as Hunter Beast, Jameson Lopp, Clara Shikhelman, Anthony Milton, Ethan Heilman, Mikhail Kudinov, Augustin Cruz, Laolu, and Tim Ruffing.

On the other hand, there are also some Core maintainers with actual power who remain silent on this threat; or some well-known developers—such as Luke Dashjr, Greg Sanders, Jonas Schnelli, or Tadge Dryja—who explicitly downplay or even deny the quantum risk.

Although the work of researchers like Hunter Beast, Anthony Milton, Jonas Nick, and Jameson Lopp is crucial, these achievements have not gained any substantial traction among the top-tier, most elite "gatekeeper" developers. Don't believe it? Just look at the reaction on the mailing list when Hunter announced a major update to BIP360—only one reply. The roadmap proposed by Hunter similarly received polite responses but no follow-up action. Nothing will happen until the most influential developers formally express support for a proposal.

Summary

If you've read this far, the conclusion should be very clear: in those developer groups that truly decide whether the protocol changes, the quantum issue is seen as a theoretical, distant, even speculative issue, rather than a real problem occurring now that needs to be engineered.

Peter Todd, Adam Back, and Luke Dashjr explicitly deny its feasibility or relevance; Pieter Wuille, Gloria Zhao, and Adam Back define the quantum issue as a concern that will need to be addressed at least 30–50 years from now; Van der Laan, Poelstra, Maxwell, Towns, Morcos, Falke, and others either have not taken a stance or refuse to engage in public discussions.

In the most critical group of people, only Jonas Nick has expressed concerns.

A truly serious focus exists below the power line. Researchers like Heilman, Shikhelman, Milton are earnestly engaged in this work; Lopp is also consistently and rationally driving the discussion forward—this is a point I sincerely acknowledge. Hunter Beast and their team are the most practically involved party, attempting to address a specific aspect of the issue through a named BIP (the quantum vulnerability of Taproot signatures). However, up to now, what BIP360 has encountered from the "decision-makers" is still utter indifference.

Do not be misled by Adam Back or Matt Corallo's statements. Among the most influential Bitcoin developers, there is indeed a pathological indifference. Despite a few bright spots, overall, quantum migration is clearly not a priority for Bitcoin Core and its main development funding institutions.

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