Bitcoin's Real Quantum Threat Is the Data Already Being…

Andrew Gault, CEO of ZeroTier and founding partner of 7percent Ventures — whose portfolio includes British quantum startup Universal Quantum — argues the crypto industry is fixated on the wrong quantum risk. While debate has centered on the ~6.9 million BTC in addresses with exposed public keys, Gault says the more urgent exposure is the encrypted authentication data already being siphoned off the open internet today, ready to be decrypted the moment quantum hardware crosses the threshold.

The strategy is known as "harvest now, decrypt later": adversaries store interbank messages, payment authentication records, and digital signatures now, cheaply, and unlock them later. Citi modeled the bank-system version in February, estimating a quantum-enabled attack on a single top-five U.S. bank's Fedwire access could cascade into a $2–$3.3 trillion shock — a 10–17% real GDP decline.