Bitcoin and Ethereum race quantum clock as U.S. backs $300 million hardware push

Bitcoin and Ethereum developers are stepping up efforts to transition their networks to post-quantum cryptography as advancements in quantum hardware accelerate. The development comes as the U.S. Commerce Department finalized CHIPS Act awards granting up to $100 million each to quantum computing companies Rigetti, D-Wave, and Quantinuum to support fault-tolerant quantum hardware manufacturing. Ethereum developers have targeted December 2029 to ensure base layer quantum resistance across execution, consensus, and data layers. Meanwhile, Bitcoin developers are advancing proposals including BIP-360 and BIP-361, which introduce post-quantum output types and outline a phased phaseout of legacy ECDSA and Schnorr signatures. While functional quantum threats to elliptic-curve cryptography are not expected before 2029 or 2030, migrating decentralized networks remains a complex multi-year coordination challenge. Bitcoin faces particular risks regarding exposed public keys, including roughly 1 million coins attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, which could be stranded if legacy addresses are restricted without proactive wallet migrations.