Quantum and AI: The Silent Threat That Could Break Bitcoin

At just 13 years old, David Carvalho began his journey into cybersecurity as a teenage hacker sending out spam emails—not for scams, but to attract attention and job offers. That early curiosity eventually evolved into a career defending digital systems rather than probing them. Today, as the CEO of Naoris Protocol, a post-quantum infrastructure company, Carvalho has a stark warning for the crypto industry:

“Quantum is coming for it all, like meteors came for the dinosaurs.”
According to Carvalho, the cryptographic foundations of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and nearly every major blockchain are outdated—and dangerously vulnerable to future threats posed by quantum computing.

Quantum computing has long been treated as a far-off concern for blockchain security. Many developers argue there’s still ample time to prepare. Carvalho strongly disagrees.

Efforts are underway to implement quantum-resistant signatures, but adoption is slow. Most of the industry lacks the urgency the situation demands.

“The cryptography behind nearly every chain is as weak as the rest of the world’s cryptography,” Carvalho told Cointelegraph.
“Harvest Now, Decrypt Later”: Today’s Quiet War

Quantum computers can’t yet crack Bitcoin’s SHA-256 hashing algorithm or its Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). But that hasn’t stopped state actors and cybercriminals from preparing for what experts call a “harvest now, decrypt later” approach.

Encrypted blockchain data is being quietly collected—stored away until future quantum breakthroughs make it readable in minutes. U.S. agencies, including NIST and the NSA, have already urged a shift to post-quantum cryptography, with migration deadlines set as early as 2035 for federal systems.

“The adversaries collecting encrypted blockchain data right now aren’t waiting to attack today,” said Carvalho. “They’re building data sets for tomorrow.”
AI + Quantum: A Stealthy, Unstoppable Combo

While most fears center on quantum’s ability to brute-force private keys, Carvalho believes the real threat lies in the fusion of quantum computing with artificial intelligence. Together, he warns, they could enable silent, asymmetric attacks—far more dangerous than a noisy, brute-force assault.

AI can already identify subtle vulnerabilities in smart contracts, wallets, and consensus mechanisms. Now imagine it working alongside quantum hardware to crack elliptic curve keys and simulate validator behavior—all without triggering alarms.

“Everyone’s waiting for a countdown that won’t come. You won’t get a warning that a 10-year-old Bitcoin wallet has been cracked,” Carvalho cautioned. “You’ll just see funds moved, and no one will be able to prove how or by whom.”

This is not just a theoretical scenario. AI-driven testing has already uncovered bugs that conventional security tools miss. A quantum-capable, AI-powered attack wouldn’t just steal funds—it could undermine the very trust that blockchains are built on.

Bitcoin may be decentralized by design, but its real-world infrastructure often isn’t. Carvalho points to centralized cloud platforms, mining pools, and validator networks as prime targets for sophisticated attackers.

“Decentralization is great on paper, but if everyone’s routing through the same few backbones or trusting a handful of third-party APIs, the game’s already lost.”
A breach in a single cloud provider hosting hundreds of full nodes could destabilize the network, regardless of protocol-level decentralization.

Hope on the Horizon: Building a Post-Quantum Future

Despite the warnings, there’s a growing movement to defend against the looming quantum threat:

Naoris Protocol is developing post-quantum infrastructure based on national security frameworks.
Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) like BIP-360 are exploring quantum-resistant key formats.
Other projects are investigating zero-knowledge rollups, post-quantum encryption, and innovations like STARKs for quantum-safe scalability.
The tools are emerging. What’s missing is the will to act with urgency.

Final Thoughts: A Choice Between Complacency and Preparedness

Carvalho’s message is clear: Quantum computing and AI won’t break Bitcoin all at once—they’ll erode it silently, piece by piece. If the crypto community continues to treat these risks as distant threats, it could sleepwalk into a crisis.

“This isn’t just about stealing coins,” Carvalho said. “It’s about eroding trust invisibly.”
The question isn’t whether quantum and AI will pose a threat—it’s when. And whether the blockchain world will be ready when that moment arrives.