Quick Insights

  • Security researchers warn that AI is accelerating quantum computing development, compressing the timeline for when quantum machines could break the encryption securing blockchains.
  • Most blockchains rely on elliptic curve cryptography, the same scheme used across the internet, which a powerful quantum computer could theoretically use to derive private keys from public keys.
  • A "harvest now, decrypt later" strategy means adversaries may already be collecting encrypted data today to decrypt once quantum hardware matures.
  • Ethereum, Solana, Zcash, Ripple and NEAR are all researching or implementing post-quantum migration, though experts remain divided on how soon the threat becomes real.

The crypto industry has spent years debating whether quantum computing poses an existential threat to blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum. A growing group of researchers now believes artificial intelligence is accelerating that timeline, and forcing a broader rethink of how digital security works. The concern is no longer just quantum computing on its own. It is the compounding effect of AI and quantum advancing together.

AI Is Now Part of How Quantum Computers Get Built

The core argument is that AI has become an accelerant for quantum research itself. Machine learning systems are already being used to optimise quantum error correction, one of the field's biggest engineering bottlenecks, and to assist in the materials discovery that underpins better quantum hardware.

"AI is definitely being used to accelerate the development of quantum computing. You have these AI models that are able to find either implementation bugs in the underlying cryptography or, increasingly, break the cryptography itself."

Alex Pruden, CEO, Project Eleven

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol and a former Google AI researcher, described a self-reinforcing loop. "It might be that the next generation quantum computer will be built with AI and quantum computers of this generation," he said. "It's feeding into itself." Polosukhin pointed to his time at Google in 2016, when machine learning was already being used to discover new materials, and argued the rate of research is accelerating faster than most expected.

That acceleration has shown up in concrete results. In April 2026, an independent researcher broke a 15-bit elliptic curve cryptography key using publicly accessible quantum hardware, claiming a 1 BTC bounty from quantum security firm Project Eleven. That is a 512-fold improvement over a comparable demonstration just seven months earlier. Bitcoin uses 256-bit cryptography, so the network is nowhere near vulnerable, but the rate of improvement is the part researchers find notable.

The "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later" Problem Is Already Live

The threat is not purely about the future. Security researchers increasingly believe that governments and sophisticated actors are already collecting encrypted internet traffic today, betting that future quantum computers will eventually decrypt it. The strategy is known as "harvest now, decrypt later."

Why Crypto Is Especially Exposed
  • Shared cryptography: most blockchains use elliptic curve cryptography, the same scheme securing the broader internet
  • Public keys are visible: a powerful quantum computer could theoretically derive private keys from the public keys already on-chain
  • Long-lived keys: custody services and wallets that reuse addresses for years are the most exposed to harvest-now-decrypt-later
  • Immutable history: data written to a blockchain is permanent, so anything decryptable later is already public forever

Polosukhin put the implication bluntly. "Everything we're putting on the internet, if you're identifiable as a person of interest, you can assume will be decrypted in two years," he said, adding that the harvesting is "most likely happening already." For crypto specifically, the risk is acute because most networks rely on the same elliptic curve cryptography used across the internet, and a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could derive private keys from public keys to drain vulnerable wallets.

Not Everyone Buys the Urgency

The timeline remains genuinely contested, and it would be misleading to present the alarmed view as consensus. Wall Street has started paying attention. Citi warned in May that quantum breakthroughs are arriving faster than expected, and singled out Bitcoin as more exposed than Ethereum because its conservative governance makes upgrades slower to ship. Google researchers have published findings suggesting a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could crack Bitcoin's cryptography in under nine minutes.

On the other side, Blockstream CEO and veteran cypherpunk Adam Back has argued that a cryptographically relevant quantum threat is likely 20 to 40 years away, not a few years. Back notes that jumping from today's roughly 1,500-qubit machines to the millions of stable qubits needed to break Bitcoin within a year is physically implausible, and that Bitcoin has ample time to integrate NIST-standardised quantum-safe signature schemes when needed. The honest summary is that credible experts disagree on the timeline by decades.

Blockchains Are Already Starting to Move

Regardless of the exact timeline, the response is underway. Several major ecosystems, including Ethereum, Zcash, Solana, Ripple and NEAR, are researching or implementing post-quantum migration strategies. NEAR recently announced plans to build post-quantum cryptography directly into its account infrastructure, letting users rotate cryptographic schemes without migrating assets to entirely new wallets. Ripple is running a hybrid quantum-resistant rollout with a "Quantum-Day" contingency plan, working with Project Eleven on validator testing.

The transition is technically hard. Post-quantum cryptographic systems are significantly larger and slower than current standards, which is a real performance cost for high-throughput networks. As Polosukhin noted, "the cryptography that's currently standardised for post-quantum is very big and slow."

The deeper shift researchers describe is conceptual. For decades, encryption could be treated as static infrastructure that gets upgraded once a decade. The combination of AI and quantum is undermining that assumption. "Nothing is going to be as static as it's been in the future," Pruden said. "Either a quantum computer comes online to break some fundamental assumption, or AI gets smart enough to break that assumption too." Whether the breaking point arrives in two years or forty, the networks that survive will be the ones that treat security as something they upgrade continuously rather than once a generation. For a deeper look at how the major chains are preparing, the migration question is becoming one of the defining infrastructure debates of the decade.

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