Charles Guilmet, Ledger’s chief technology officer, warned that Bitcoin has the cryptographic algorithms needed to resist quantum computer attacks, but the network’s decentralized governance structure prevents coordination of their implementation. The statement was made on Tuesday, June 9, during an episode of the Ledger podcast, where Guilmet spoke with the space’s host Mo El-Sayed.
According to Guillemet, the problem is not technical. Cryptographers in the ecosystem know which methods to adopt: SPHINCS+, ML-DSA, and Falcon were all standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2024. The obstacle, he argues, is that Bitcoin is designed to make governance expensive, a quality that guarantees its neutrality but makes a coordinated transition difficult.
Management places this discussion in the context of risk acceleration. According to their analysis, recent estimates indicate that Quantum computers are more likely to break ECDSA Increase the use of Bitcoin to 50% of digital signature schemes by 2032. Google is paper This shows that Shor’s algorithm requires fewer resources than previously assumed, and that the open source community was able to reproduce the results in just two days using a reinforcement learning loop.
Technical options come at a cost
Guillemet explains the efforts involved in each of the available alternatives. Although hash function-based signatures such as SPHINCS+ are conservative and well-analyzed, their size reduces Bitcoin’s throughput from approximately 7 transactions per second to less than 1 transaction per second. Lattice-based signatures such as ML-DSA and Falcon are more compact, but public cryptanalysis only lasts 25 years, compared to decades with current solutions.
According to the CTO, both options: They also influence the modern custody system. Threshold signatures and multiparty computing (MPC) protocols that underpin much of today’s institutional storage are difficult or infeasible to implement in post-quantum schemes.
Guilme’s analysis identified another point of friction: dormant funds. Wallet with missing keys and 1 million bitcoins allegedly belonging to Satoshi Nakamoto complicates forced migration processas reported by CriptoNoticias. With this in mind, executives are proposing three possible scenarios. Those funds can be left alone, burned on an accounting basis, or frozen and redistributed as block rewards over time. Guillemet believes this last option is the least harmful of the three, but recognizes that none of them are politically neutral.
Fork as a possible outcome
Given the difficulty in reaching a unified consensus, Guilme said that different groups within the ecosystem Choose different algorithms to promote your own forktransition period and inactive fund positions. In that scenario, he argues, it would be the market, including miners, exchanges, custodians, and exchange-traded funds, that would decide which chain would be consolidated as “real Bitcoin.”
Ledger’s CTO does not rule out the possibility of an orderly outcome. There are top cryptographers in the ecosystem, and the transition, although difficult, is technically possible. But Guilmet warns that the biggest risk is not that quantum computing arrives sooner than expected, but rather that the ecosystem reacts more slowly than necessary.
Guillemet is not proposing a scenario of imminent collapse, but his central warning is accurate. Encryption doesn’t fail the day a threat arrives, it fails the day the threat is no longer reliable. In the case of Bitcoin, That threshold could be reached long before quantum computers exist. Ability to destroy ECDSA.
Ledger’s CTO recognizes that the ecosystem has the technical resources and crypto talent to execute the transition. According to your diagnosis, what you are missing is It’s a coordination mechanism to make sure it’s done on time.. And in systems where governance is intentionally costly, the gap between technical capabilities and collective action is the most tangible risk at this point.
(Tag translation) Bitcoin (BTC)
