I used to wave away quantum computing (QC) risks to Bitcoin as far-fetched. I don’t anymore. The usual pushback goes like this: QC isn’t a threat for years, and if it is, then the whole financial system is in trouble anyway. That line of nihilistic thinking may be comforting to some, but it misses the point. Big banks aren’t sitting idle. They’re already investing in quantum research, building internal teams, partnering with QC developers, and thinking about how to harden their systems over time. They’re not “quantum-safe” today — but they’re not starting from scratch either. Bitcoin is different. It can upgrade, technically. But doing so requires slow, messy coordination across a decentralised network. There’s no risk committee, no mandate, no one who can just say “we’re switching now.” So this isn’t about panic or pretending I know the precise timelines. Maybe QC is five years away. Maybe it’s fifteen. The problem is that quantum risk is low-probability but massive-impact — and those are exactly the risks decentralised systems struggle to deal with early. Add AI into the mix, and it’s at least plausible that timelines compress rather than extend. What’s interesting is the growing gap between developer confidence and institutional behaviour. Even if developers think there’s a zero percent chance of a quantum threat in the next five years, some institutions are clearly pricing it higher. The recent decision by CLSA strategist Chris Wood to remove BTC from his widely followed portfolio due to QC risk may look like “paper hands,” but it matters. It signals that quantum risk is entering institutional risk frameworks — even if views differ widely. And those views do differ. There’s plenty of counter-evidence. Harvard’s reported decision to increase its exposure by roughly 280% shows institutional support for Bitcoin isn’t disappearing. What’s changing isn’t demand, but dispersion — my guess is that institutional alignment on how to price tail risks diverges further as the QC threat rises. It’s also plausible that Harvard’s decision had nothing to do with quantum risk at all. Falling volatility alone, consistent with their asset-allocation framework, would justify a higher weighting. There’s nuance and a lot of in-depth technical understanding, which I’m still working through. But asking these questions is reasonable. @caprioleio has been pushing on this for a while, and he’s right to challenge the shrug-it-off attitude. What is unreasonable is pretending that JPMorgan and Bitcoin face the same problem. One can prepare in advance and mandate change. The other has to convince everyone, in advance, that a future threat is worth acting on. Which brings me to the incentive problem. As Bitcoin’s price rises, confidence rises — and the willingness to push through disruptive, precautionary upgrades falls. The system feels safest exactly when it is least incentivised to prepare. Quantum risk doesn’t move with price, but the gap does.