Charles Edwards, founder of Capriole Investments, is sounding the alarm: the real danger of quantum computing for Bitcoin isn’t just stolen coins — it’s a collapse in trust.
In a recent post on X, Edwards laid out the threat from quantum computers, an emerging class of machines that, in theory, could break the cryptography securing networks like Bitcoin. The main technical worry is straightforward: older Bitcoin wallets that have revealed their public keys (for example, by spending from an address) could become vulnerable if a quantum attacker can derive the corresponding private keys and empty those addresses.
That puts a significant chunk of BTC at theoretical risk — including the coins attributed to Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Some commentators have focused on the market impact if those coins were suddenly dumped. Edwards pushes back on that narrow view: “For those who say it doesn’t matter if Satoshi’s coins get taken by a Quantum hacker, the risk is not his coins, it’s the contagion that follows,” he wrote.
To illustrate the contagion effect, Edwards pointed to the April 18 KelpDAO incident. The Ethereum liquid restaking protocol suffered a $290 million rsETH exploit; the attacker then used the compromised rsETH as collateral to borrow WETH from Aave. The resulting market panic did far more damage than the exploit itself — Aave’s token market cap plunged about 20% and roughly $12 billion flowed out of Aave’s TVL in days, a hit Edwards notes was “40X the hack.”
Edwards’ takeaway: even if the direct value of coins taken by a quantum attack is limited, the resulting loss of confidence could trigger a widespread “bank run” across crypto markets. That systemic risk, he says, is what the industry needs to plan for now.
Edwards has repeatedly raised the quantum threat both online and at industry events, urging the community to develop mitigations. Some proposals to counter quantum attacks have already been published, but whether they will be adopted into Bitcoin upgrades remains uncertain.
Meanwhile, market action continued: Bitcoin briefly topped $79,000 over the weekend before retracing to about $77,700 as the new week began.
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