Galaxy funds $5M Bitcoin quantum defence amid 30% supply risk
Galaxy Digital is committing $5 million to fund post-quantum cryptography for Bitcoin, a move that highlights growing institutional concerns over a vulnerability that could expose nearly a third of the cryptocurrency's total supply.
Galaxy Digital has pledged up to $5 million in grants for open-source developers building post-quantum cryptography for Bitcoin. The capital will specifically fund quantum-resistant upgrade proposals, new signature schemes, wallet and custodian migration tooling, and formal security audits. To direct the spending, the firm established a quantum advisory council under its Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative, enlisting University of Calgary professor Barry Sanders, MIT fellow Damien Bérubé, and Boston University professor Eran Tromer.
The programme is designed to address a critical vulnerability highlighted by analytics provider Glassnode. If cryptographically relevant quantum computers emerge, roughly 30% of Bitcoin’s total supply could be exposed to theft. Glassnode categorises 10% of this supply as "structurally unsafe" due to its output type, while the remaining 20% is "operationally unsafe" because of poor key or address management practices by holders.
For investors, the exposure of nearly a third of the asset's supply represents a severe tail risk. However, the financial and technology sectors are locked in a fierce debate over the actual timeline for this threat. Blockstream CEO Adam Back asserted in November 2025 that Bitcoin faces no meaningful quantum threat for at least 20 to 40 years, arguing the network has ample time to adapt.
Wealth management firm Bernstein presents a far more urgent outlook. In an April report, the company warned that Bitcoin has approximately three to five years to execute a post-quantum security upgrade. This discrepancy in threat assessments leaves institutional investors weighing whether the network's decentralized governance can move fast enough if the shorter timeline proves accurate.
A technical foundation for an upgrade already exists. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published three post-quantum cryptography standards for key establishment and digital signatures in August 2024. Expanding on those standards, Blockstream Research released a paper in December 2025 proposing a hash-based signature scheme as a replacement for Bitcoin's current ECDSA and Schnorr signatures, a shift that would base network security solely on cryptographic hash functions.
By committing capital to developer grants, Galaxy is effectively betting that preparation cannot wait for a scientific consensus on the quantum timeline. Upgrading a decentralized financial network requires years of open-source development, security auditing, and industry-wide coordination to ensure custodians and individual users can safely migrate their funds.
