Trump accelerates quantum push, highlights $449B Bitcoin risk

On June 22 President Trump signed two executive orders that accelerate federal quantum computing development and require civilian systems to adopt post-quantum cryptography on a tight timetable. The actions aim to push the Department of Energy to build a quantum computer for scientific use and force civilian agencies to begin migrating away from vulnerable cryptography.

One order directs federal high-value assets and high-impact civilian systems to use post-quantum algorithms for encryption key establishment by December 31, 2030, and for digital signatures by December 31, 2031. National security systems are excluded from those civilian deadlines and will follow a separate classified process. The order also creates the Quantum Computer for Application Development and Discovery Science program and instructs the Energy Department to define technical specifications within 90 days and report costs, partnerships and delivery timelines within 180 days.

A related provision asks the secretaries of Commerce, Defense and Energy, together with the NASA administrator, to plan deployment of quantum-enabled sensors and networks within five years. The administration also indicated industrial backing: the Commerce Department has letters of intent for just over $2 billion in manufacturing investments for nine firms, including $1 billion to IBM for a superconducting wafer foundry and $375 million to GlobalFoundries for a multi-architecture fabrication plant. The orders reconstitute the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee, expand a Quantum Counterintelligence Protection Team and call for workforce measures such as expanded apprenticeships and National Quantum Workforce Development Institutes.

Market observers said the timetable compresses both offensive quantum development and defensive cryptography work. Alex Pruden, chief executive of Project Eleven, noted that federal planners now view quantum attack capability and migration to post-quantum cryptography on a roughly five-year horizon.

The orders renewed focus on cryptocurrency security because public-key cryptography used by Bitcoin can be broken by a sufficiently powerful quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm. Analysis shows roughly 65% of Bitcoin is not immediately exposed because the network does not reveal public keys until coins are spent. About 7 million BTC, worth approximately $449 billion at current prices, sit in outputs whose public keys are already exposed on the blockchain and could be targeted if a capable quantum computer appears.

Address reuse is a major cause of exposure; roughly 70% of the exposed supply stems from wallets that repeatedly use the same address, permanently revealing the public key. The exposed coins are concentrated: about 84.5% of that supply is held in 4,079 wallets, and roughly 80% of those wallets carry no public label.

A distinct subset comprises about 1.08 million BTC mined in 2009 that remain unmoved. Those early outputs were created with Pay-to-Public-Key scripts that put the public key on-chain by design. Migration from permanently exposed addresses has been slow; analysts estimate roughly 500 BTC are being migrated each month at present, a pace that would require nearly 300 years to move the entire legacy stock.

Karim AbdelMawla, a senior analyst at a digital-asset firm, warned that activity from long-dormant, exposed coins could prompt an immediate market repricing of Bitcoin’s security when those coins move.

Developers and researchers are debating technical and protocol responses. One proposal, BIP-361, would prevent new funds from being sent to vulnerable addresses and introduce a quantum-safe rescue process. After a long transition, addresses that cannot meet new cryptographic conditions could become unspendable, which would freeze some coins permanently.

Researchers note that large-scale quantum hardware remains years away. Current quantum devices have physical error rates far above what would be needed for cryptographic attacks; estimates put error rates roughly 10 million times too high for such an attack. A March research report described methods that cut the physical resources required for an attack by a factor of twenty. Some researchers estimate a non-negligible probability of a cryptographically relevant machine by the early 2030s.

The operational challenge is moving millions of independent holders and large, often anonymous wallets into quantum-safe addresses before capable hardware appears. Historical upgrades have taken years to reach wide adoption: Segregated Witness, activated nine years ago, now covers under half of Bitcoin’s supply. Charles Edwards, founder of Caprioles, called quantum computing “probably the most undervalued asset class in the world by orders of magnitude,” noting why both offensive and defensive federal efforts are being accelerated.