Michael Saylor rallies Wall Street to confront Bitcoin’s quantum threat

Michael Saylor’s Strategy has joined eight financial firms in pledging $15 million over three years to protect Bitcoin, starting with preparations for potential quantum-computing threats.

Strategy announced the Bitcoin Security Consortium in a press release, naming Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets and Galaxy Digital as its other founding members.

Drawn from several parts of the institutional Bitcoin market, the coalition includes exchange-traded fund issuers, custodians and infrastructure companies. BlackRock, Fidelity and ARK Invest issue spot Bitcoin ETFs, while Anchorage Digital and Coinbase provide custody services. Block, Blockstream and Galaxy Digital operate businesses tied to Bitcoin infrastructure and financial products.

Rather than combining the $15 million under a central fund, each founding member will choose which developers, researchers and organizations receive its share, according to Strategy. The model allows the companies to finance different projects while coordinating their security work through the consortium.

Brink Executive Director Mike Schmidt will coordinate the consortium’s daily operations in a volunteer capacity, Strategy stated. Addressing concerns about his independence, Schmidt wrote on X that he will receive no compensation and will continue running Brink separately from the founding firms.

“I continue to run Brink, independent of any Consortium member. I’ve committed to a year in this role, maybe I’d do two, but ultimately I see it as a seat that should rotate to other participants over time. My commitment is to Bitcoin, and that doesn’t change.”

Wall Street funding targets Bitcoin security research

Under its initial plan, the consortium will support developers and researchers already working on Bitcoin security, with quantum readiness serving as its first focus, according to Strategy. Schmidt added that the group could finance other security projects if the initial program proves effective.

Protocol decisions will remain outside the consortium’s control. In his X post, Schmidt stated that the group will not adopt collective positions on Bitcoin upgrades, leaving members to direct their funding independently while developers use the network’s existing review process.

Galaxy Digital had committed separate funds to the field before joining the consortium. As crypto.news reported earlier this week, the company opened applications for a $5 million Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative supporting quantum-resistant signatures, wallet migration tools and independent security audits.

According to Galaxy, introducing post-quantum protections would require years of cooperation among Bitcoin Core developers, exchanges, wallet providers, infrastructure companies and users. Its grant program also invites other institutions to contribute money and research to the effort.

Galaxy’s initiative and the consortium pledge have placed $20 million behind the two disclosed programs. The commitments remain separate, however, as Strategy’s consortium allows every member to control its own grants.

Bitcoin’s quantum exposure carries a market cost

Future quantum computers could threaten Bitcoin if they become capable of breaking the elliptic curve cryptography that protects its wallets, according to the companies and researchers behind the programs. Galaxy noted that current machines cannot perform such an attack and most experts do not expect an immediate danger.

Despite the uncertain timeline, Galaxy argued that preparations must start early because deploying new protections across Bitcoin could take years. The company has prioritized alternative signature algorithms, tools that help users transfer funds into safer wallets and audits that test proposed defenses.

CryptoQuant research cited by Galaxy estimated that around 6.9 million BTC could become exposed if a sufficiently powerful quantum computer broke Bitcoin’s existing cryptography. Using market prices from its announcement, Galaxy valued those potentially vulnerable holdings at about $461 billion.

Citi has reached a similar estimate, according to an earlier crypto.news report. The bank calculated that between 6.5 million and 6.9 million BTC may already have public keys visible on-chain, creating a pool of coins that researchers consider more vulnerable to a future quantum attack.

Lost wallets pose another problem because their owners cannot transfer the coins to addresses protected by updated cryptography. Quantus warned in a previously reported assessment that quantum development may be advancing faster than earlier estimates, which could leave dormant and inaccessible holdings without a practical migration route.

Concern over the issue has also entered Bitcoin valuation models. As crypto.news reported in early June, Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards estimated that Bitcoin was trading at a 28% “quantum discount” compared with his projected valuation path toward $120,000.

Bitcoin traded near $62,099 following a sharp selloff when Edwards presented the model. He attributed the discount to investor concern over what he described as slow progress among Bitcoin Core developers on post-quantum signature planning.

Prediction-market traders remain less worried about the immediate timeline. Polymarket data placed the probability of quantum computing breaking Bitcoin by December 2027 at 14%.

With Strategy coordinating institutional participation and Galaxy already accepting grant applications, the funding gives researchers additional resources before quantum computers pose a proven threat. The consortium’s first test will be whether independently directed grants produce usable security tools without influencing Bitcoin’s protocol governance.