Bitcoin Axed By Top Wall Street Strategist On Quantum Fears

Jefferies strategist Chris Wood has eliminated Bitcoin from his long-term mannequin portfolio, citing quantum computing as a threat that weakens Bitcoin’s store-of-value framing for pension-style allocations. VanEck head of analysis Matthew Sigel flagged the change on X, calling it a notable “downgrade” from one of many Street’s most generally adopted world strategists.

Veteran Strategist Chris Wood Exits Bitcoin

Wood wrote that he’s not positioning for an imminent worth shock, however that the long-duration mandate is the place the quantum query bites. “While GREED & concern doesn’t consider that the quantum situation is about to hit the Bitcoin worth dramatically within the close to time period, the shop of worth idea is clearly on much less stable basis from the standpoint of a long-term pension portfolio,” Wood wrote. “For that cause, GREED & concern will take away the ten% allocation to Bitcoin this week with 5% reallocated to gold and 5% reallocated to gold-mining shares.”

The transfer is framed as threat administration quite than a retrospective efficiency critique. Wood famous that regardless of gold’s current outperformance versus Bitcoin, Bitcoin remained effectively forward since his mannequin first added it: Bitcoin had risen 325% since December 17, 2020, whereas gold bullion was up 145% over the identical interval.

In a word dated January 15, 2026, Wood described how the quantum dialogue has moved from summary idea into one thing asset allocators are being requested to underwrite. “GREED & concern isn’t any pure mathematician,” he wrote, including that he has discovered himself pulled into conversations about “elliptic curves” due to “the rising focus in current months on the menace posed to the Bitcoin system by the arrival of quantum computing.”

His core declare is that the perceived timeline is compressing. He referenced rising concern that cryptographically related quantum computer systems might arrive “a number of years away quite than a decade or extra,” and argued that any credible menace to Bitcoin’s safety mannequin is “doubtlessly existential” as a result of it undermines the store-of-value idea that underpins the “digital alternative to gold” narrative.

Wood’s mechanism is easy: what’s computationally infeasible in the present day might grow to be tractable underneath CRQCs. He wrote that the present asymmetry, straightforward to derive a public key from a non-public key, successfully unimaginable to reverse, might collapse, with the time to derive a non-public key from a public key shrinking to “mere hours or days.”

Wood mentioned the trade is already debating potential responses, together with whether or not to “burn” quantum-vulnerable cash to guard system integrity or to do nothing and settle for the chance that weak cash could possibly be stolen by entities with CRQCs. He offered the dispute as a battle between preserving Bitcoin’s property-rights ethos and avoiding a coverage alternative that appears confiscatory, including that one laptop scientist he spoke with described the do-nothing stance as a “suicidal delusion.”

Wood mentioned his pondering was knowledgeable by discussions with educated events and pointed to a Chaincode report as background studying, with out treating it as a near-term buying and selling set off.

VanEck’s Sigel Responds

Sigel’s takeaway was much less about whether or not quantum threat exists and extra about how totally different methods reply. When one consumer argued that quantum would wipe out financial institution accounts, e mail, and brokerage methods as effectively, Sigel dismissed that as “not a ample take anymore,” drawing a pointy distinction between improve paths and reversibility.

“Banks improve top-down; BTC requires years of consensus,” Sigel wrote. “Banks have an ‘undo’ button; BTC is finality-first.”

Sigel additionally linked the controversy to a well-known fault line inside Bitcoin governance. Asked how consultant Wood’s view may be, Sigel mentioned that within the “Adam Back vs. Nic Carter” debate he’s “on Nic’s facet,” and described Wood’s determination as supporting proof. At the identical time, Sigel emphasised course of: he met Wood in New York earlier than the word was printed and mentioned that though he disagreed with the conclusion, Wood “got here to it truthfully.”

On positioning, Sigel mentioned he has “added quantum publicity” beforehand to VanEck’s Onchain Economy ETF (NODE) and made small hedges, with a choice for “diversified” AI miners over “DATs / leveraged BTC,” whereas retaining spot BTC by way of an ETF as the biggest holding. He framed the quantum situation as “solvable” and akin to a “wall of fear like blocksize wars,” quite than a thesis-breaker.

At press time, BTC traded at $90,941.