Speaking on a recent podcast, Steve Orrin, Intel’s Federal Chief Technologist, warns that the quantum threat is "not a future problem, it's a today problem." "In my personal opinion, I think that from a risk perspective, 2030, 2031 is the right target. If we could do it earlier, we should, because the harvest now, decrypt later threat is already a risk. It’s already happening, and it has been happening. Every encrypted piece of data that’s been pulled off the net and waiting in some large database for when the quantum computer comes online — if you want that data to be protected after that, you need to have started post-quantum encrypting back when you created that data." - Steve Orrin, Intel’s Federal Chief Technologist The takeaway: start securing your data today to keep it safe in the quantum era. For decentralized systems, this means building on a blockchain that is quantum-safe from block 0.

In 2022, a signature was proof. In 2030, it's a question mark. It is a Wednesday morning in 2030. Maria underwrites title insurance for real estate transactions. Her firm started backing blockchain-recorded property titles in 2021, chasing the story every county recorder loved: no more lost deeds, no more forged paperwork, a permanent chain of ownership nobody could dispute. She is reviewing a claim on a commercial property in Ohio. The current owner bought it in 2022. The title transfer was signed on-chain, ECDSA, standard for the time. Nothing unusual. The chain of custody traces back nine sales, all the way to 1987, then digitized and anchored in 2021 as a single cryptographic root. The claim isn't about a lien anyone missed. It's about a signature. A forensic cryptographer flagged the 2022 transfer. The public key was exposed the moment the transaction posted. Someone with enough quantum compute could now produce a second signature for the same private key, mathematically valid, pointing to a different buyer. Not a hack. Not fraud in the traditional sense. A second, equally provable version of the truth. Maria's entire underwriting model assumes one signature means one fact. It was never built for a world with two. She adds a line to the claim file: "Pre-2024 on-chain signature. Cryptographic non-repudiation no longer assured. Escalate to legal." She has three more files on her desk with the same date range. Most chains signed their first block assuming ECDSA would hold for its lifetime. We signed ours assuming it wouldn't. Title insurers underwriting on-chain property records are now finding out which assumption their claims file depends on.