Overview
- Galaxy Digital announced the Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative on Tuesday, committing up to $5 million in milestone-based grants while also launching a research arm and an expert advisory council.
- The grant program will fund post-quantum signature work, wallet and custodian migration tools, and formal security audits with applications accepted immediately via the firm’s contact channel.
- Galaxy named three inaugural Quantum Advisory Council members — Barry Sanders, Damien Bérubé, and Eran Tromer — to review proposals and guide research priorities.
- Researchers warn of a ‘Q-Day’ risk where a quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm could derive private keys from exposed public keys and drain legacy or reused addresses, with roughly 6.9 million BTC estimated as potentially exposed; proposed fixes include migration to quantum-resistant address types and BIP-360/BIP-361 style signature changes.
- The initiative formalizes private-sector funding and invites co-funders as experts and U.S. policy moves are compressing timelines, so the key near-term tests will be whether wallets, exchanges, and Bitcoin protocol developers can agree on designs and deploy migration tooling at scale.