Europol Warns Over 6 Million Bitcoin in Quantum-Vulnerable Wallets Require Manual Migration

Approximately 6 million to 6.9 million Bitcoin, or roughly 30% of total supply, face decryption risks from quantum computing due to exposed public keys, Europol warned. In reports assessing crypto threats, the agency affirmed that underlying blockchain hash functions like SHA-256 remain quantum-resilient and will not collapse the network. However, quantum computers could derive private keys from addresses with exposed public keys, which lack any retroactive cryptographic patch. Europol urged proactive user migration to post-quantum cryptography, noting that a full network transition could require between 76 and 300 days of block processing capacity.