Nobel laureate in physics warns: The window of opportunity for Bitcoin to face the threat of quantum computing is closing in.

John Martinis, former head of Google's quantum hardware and 2025 Nobel laureate in physics, warned that Bitcoin could become one of the first real-world targets of quantum computing attacks. He stated that recent Google research shows advanced quantum computers could derive Bitcoin's private keys in minutes, significantly lowering the computational security barriers currently relied upon by the network. Because Bitcoin relies on elliptic curve cryptography and its network upgrades are slow and decentralized, quantum threats are more difficult to counter than those of traditional financial systems. The public key exposure window during Bitcoin transaction broadcasts could be exploited by quantum computers to intercept funds before final confirmation. Martinis emphasized that while building such quantum computers remains an extremely challenging engineering task, the community cannot afford to be complacent and recommends planning quantum-resistant upgrades as early as possible, anticipating that related threats will gradually emerge over the next 5 to 10 years. (CoinDesk)