Your crypto wallet is protected by math that quantum computers are learning to break. Every Bitcoin and Ethereum wallet relies on elliptic-curve signatures, a scheme that was never designed for a world with quantum computers. A sufficiently powerful quantum machine running Shor’s algorithm could derive private keys from public ones. That’s not a wallet bug. That’s the foundation. And the threat isn’t waiting for the machine to exist. “Harvest now, decrypt later” is already a documented attack strategy: adversaries capture encrypted data today and simply wait. The institutions saw it coming. NIST finalized the first post-quantum cryptography standards in August 2024. Then 2026 was launched as the Year of Quantum Security, with the FBI, CISA and NIST at the table, treating quantum as operational, not theoretical. CISA now requires US agencies to buy only quantum-safe products in key technology categories. So the question was never if cryptography changes. It’s whether your chain changes with it or gets changed by it.