Glassnode Report Finds Over 6M BTC Vulnerable To Quantum Threats As Key Exposure Returns To 2016 Levels

Roughly 6.26 million BTC, equal to 31.2% of Bitcoin’s complete provide, is at the moment held in addresses whose public keys are already seen on-chain and due to this fact uncovered to potential quantum computing assaults, in keeping with new knowledge printed by Glassnode co-founder Rafael Schultze-Kraft. 

The determine represents a notable improve from 24.8% in early 2021 and has returned to ranges final seen in 2016, whilst the overall provide grew by solely 64,000 BTC over the identical interval. Of the uncovered cash, roughly 4.33 million BTC grew to become weak by way of deal with reuse — that means the general public key was revealed in a earlier spend — whereas one other 1.94 million BTC are uncovered structurally by way of script sorts equivalent to Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) and Taproot. 

Within the structural class, 1.71 million BTC sits in P2PK outputs, of which 1.10 million is attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, and 222,000 BTC is held in Taproot addresses, the place the output secret is seen by design. Glassnode stresses that the statistics measure on-chain key publicity solely and don’t point out that any belongings have been attacked, nor do they represent an evaluation of the safety of any trade or custodian.

Exchanges and Institutions Show Sharply Divergent Exposure Profiles

The publicity is erratically distributed throughout the trade. Among recognized trade holdings, roughly 1.79 million BTC — or 57% of the overall — sits behind seen public keys, up from 55% in Glassnode’s May report. 

The variation between platforms is appreciable: Coinbase reveals roughly 10% uncovered balances, Binance 83%, and Bitfinex 100%, with seven of the fifteen largest trade balances above 99%. Among different giant holders, Fidelity experiences solely 2% publicity throughout its 375,000 BTC, whereas Grayscale stands at 49%, Revolut at 99%, and Robinhood at 100%. Government holdings within the United States, United Kingdom, and El Salvador present successfully zero publicity.

The findings arrive amid heightened debate over the sturdiness of the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), which secures Bitcoin and Ethereum. Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake lately urged the trade to start planning for what he termed “bunker mode,” recommending a managed migration of belongings to recent addresses whose public keys stay hidden behind hashes, whereas cautioning in opposition to panic and rushed transfers. 

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin largely concurred, warning that AI-accelerated mathematical progress may undermine not solely elliptic curves but in addition lattice-based schemes, and advocating hash-based cryptographic constructions the place possible. At the identical time, Buterin suggested holders in opposition to scrambling to maneuver funds, noting that botched migrations have traditionally triggered larger losses than hacks. Glassnode’s knowledge underscores that operational pockets hygiene, moderately than protocol design alone, stays essentially the most instant lever for lowering seen publicity.

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