Coinbase’s Independent Advisory Board on Quantum Computing and Blockchain has published a 50-page document containing a coordinated stance. This means that while there are currently no quantum computers capable of cracking the codes that secure Bitcoin or Ethereum, if that capability does exist, the transition will take years and the industry needs to prepare now.
he paper The document, released on April 21 of this year, was signed by cryptographers from Stanford University, the Ethereum Foundation, Eigen Research Institute, the University of Texas, and others. We report in detail the rationale for simply replacing the current signature scheme with a post-quantum alternative. not a direct solution.
Therefore, be careful to replace the standard ECDSA signature with ML-DSA, a network-based scheme already standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Transaction data size increases by up to 38x In certain scenarios. This means blocks will get heavier, fees will rise, and on-chain storage will explode.
Recommendations paper This is a “1 of 2” strategy. Maintain the current elliptic signature, but prepare a post-quantum signature in parallel to be activated as needed, without incurring any additional cost until then.
The same logic applies to the consensus layer. Ethereum has around 1 million validators, and all those nodes must sign blocks every few minutes. There is currently no post-quantum equivalent to BLSwhich is the aggregate signature scheme currently used by Ethereum and has the same level of efficiency. he paper Frankly speaking, there is no alternative solution plug and play Available.
Networks are also faced with decisions that no one wants to make: what to do with abandoned wallets that are not migrated in time. However, the core issue only affects addresses where the public key is publicly available. In that sense, this report It is estimated that approximately 6.9 million BTC resides at the address where the public key was published.
Announce a deadline by which those funds will no longer be available Ensuring that some users lose their assets without knowing it. By not announcing, these funds become permanent targets. The researchers acknowledge that there is uncertainty in this decision. Investment in this area has already been stopped.urges the chains to take a public stance as soon as possible.
he paper It also points out that NIST recommends Complete the post-quantum transition by 2035. The document itself warns that this deadline may be optimistic given recent work to reduce the development time of related quantum computers.
This document is Coinbase’s response to Google.
The publication comes at a time when the debate over quantum threats to ecosystems is fueled by more noise than fact. This is the first publication of Coinbase’s Independent Advisory Board on Quantum Computing and Blockchain since its establishment in January 2026. It also includes Coinbase’s own Cryptocurrency Officer, although the agency claims to be independent.
The document will look like this: Measured technical response This comes in response to a debate that heated up in March following a Google Quantum AI report that reduced estimates of the resources needed to decrypt Bitcoin. At the time, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced that he would dedicate personal time to this issue.
Reactions were mixed, with some drawing attention and others questioning the motives. Samson Mo recalled that the last time Armstrong intervened in the Bitcoin technology debate, a block size war broke out.
he paper This is partially an organizational response from Coinbase That nasty debate. While some are adamant that the threat is still far away and others say time is running out, the central message of this exchange is that the risk is real. but not imminente, and that the urgency of panic is just as dangerous as doing nothing.
(Tag translation) Bitcoin (BTC)
