TL;DR
- IBM CEO Arvind Krishna expects quantum computing to measurably affect revenue and earnings by 2028 or 2029, with $1 trillion projected.
- Google research cut the qubits needed to break elliptic curve cryptography roughly 20-fold, while 6.8 million BTC remain exposed through revealed public keys.
- Bitcoin lacks an agreed migration path, although Galaxy, Coinbase and the Bitcoin Security Consortium have committed grants, advisory work and $15 million toward quantum readiness.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna expects quantum computing to begin making a measurable contribution to the company’s revenue and earnings in 2028 or 2029, placing a commercial deadline on technology long treated as distant by investors. He also projected that quantum systems could create $1 trillion in value by the end of the 2030s. The striking shift is that quantum computing now carries an earnings timetable, not merely a research roadmap. His comments arrived as IBM and Algorithmiq reported a trusted quantum advantage, saying a quantum computer outperformed leading classical methods on a specific simulation task.
IBM’s commercial timeline sharpens Bitcoin’s quantum-security debate
That forecast does not mean quantum machines can break Bitcoin today, but it intensifies the security planning already surrounding the network and its most exposed legacy balances. Research from Google Quantum AI reportedly reduced the estimated qubits needed to defeat elliptic curve cryptography by roughly 20-fold, bringing the figure below 500,000. The danger remains theoretical, yet the estimated distance to a capable machine has narrowed sharply. More than 34% of Bitcoin’s supply sits in addresses with revealed public keys, representing about 6.8 million BTC worth approximately $437 billion at the reported market price.
Bitcoin still lacks an accepted migration route for protecting exposed coins. Developers added BIP-360 to the proposal repository in February, while the broader BIP-361 draft remains disputed. Institutions have nevertheless started preparing. Galaxy Digital launched a Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative on July 21 with up to $5 million in developer grants, and Coinbase formed an independent advisory board. Preparation is beginning before consensus exists on the technical escape path. Both firms also joined seven other founding members of the Bitcoin Security Consortium, which secured $15 million in pledges alongside BlackRock, Fidelity Digital Assets and Strategy.
IBM’s timeline therefore creates an uncomfortable contrast between commercial optimism and cryptographic urgency. A measurable earnings contribution in 2028 or 2029 is not the same as a machine capable of stealing Bitcoin, and the report makes clear that such an attack is not possible today. Still, commercialization can accelerate investment, experimentation and hardware progress much faster than network governance usually moves. The unresolved question is whether Bitcoin developers and holders can coordinate protections for vulnerable addresses before quantum capability advances from specialized demonstrations to systems powerful enough to threaten widely used public-key cryptography in practice.