June 22, 2026 Trump signed the decree «Protection of the nation from advanced cryptographic attacks», mandatory for all US federal agencies to switch to post-quantum encryption standards. For the most sophisticated systems, a deadline of December 31, 2030 has been set - for key protection, and December 31, 2031 - for digital signatures. Government contractors also expect to agree on a new standard by 2030.

The reason for urgent measures was not to include a future scenario, but very specific calculations. A study prepared in collaboration with researcher Ethereum Foundation Justin Drake and Stanford cryptographer Dan Boneh, showed: to hack elliptic cryptography, based on Bitcoin and Ethereum, less than 500,000 physical qubits can be detected - this is 20 times less than previous estimates. In 2029, Google set a small internal deadline to switch to post-quantum protection.

For Bitcoin, the situation is special. The presidential decree is an order for government structures, but the decentralized distribution network is not updated from the White House. The main vulnerability of BTC — not mining, but the mechanism of digital signatures: if a quantum computer learns to recover a private key from a disclosed public one, old addresses will be threatened. According to BIP-361, about 34% of the total volume of BTC - about 6.5-6.9 million coins - is located at addresses with a vulnerable type of encryption.

Good news: the community agreement is already working on the opinion. BIP-360, describing quantum-resistant P2MR addresses, was included in the Bitcoin BIPs repository in February 2026. Later in 2026, BIP-361 will be implemented - a three-stage plan for conversion and gradual withdrawal of vulnerable addresses from circulation. Both proposals are built according to NIST standards, finalized back in August 2024.

Transition requires broad consensus: developers, miners, exchanges, wallets and large holders must agree on a single path. This is not a quick process - but this is how a decentralized system works, which cannot be changed by a single decision. And in this, paradoxically, lies its main strength: any update goes through the widest possible agreement and verification.

The quantum threat is real, but not catastrophic with significant current actions. Bitcoin has already adapted to many challenges in its history - the post-quantum transition becomes another stage in the maturation of technologies.

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