Quantum Threat? BlackRock Flags Future Risk in Bitcoin ETF Filing
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Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure BlackRock has added a warning about quantum computing to its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) filing. Based on reports, the asset manager sees a future risk that ultra-powerful machines might crack the math securing Bitcoin. This is the first time BlackRock has flagged this concern in its spot Bitcoin ETF paperwork. BlackRock Flags Quantum Risk According to the updated regulatory filing on May 9, BlackRock now lists “quantum computing” among possible threats to its Bitcoin ETF. The trust holds about $64 billion in net assets, making it the largest spot Bitcoin fund on record. Company lawyers say that if quantum processors become strong enough, they could decrypt private keys and put wallet security in jeopardy. It’s a standard move in ETF filings to note every conceivable risk, even if it feels far-off. BlackRock lists “quantum computing” as one of the possible threats to its Bitcoin ETF. Source: BlackRock SEC IBIT filing. Quantum Chips Raise Alarms Based on reports, worries kicked up last December when Google unveiled Willow, a chip claimed to solve certain tasks in minutes that would take today’s supercomputers 10 septillion years. A few months later, Microsoft introduced Majorana 1 to tackle long-standing scaling hurdles. Those announcements set off alarm bells in the crypto world. In theory, a quantum device running Shor’s algorithm could factor the large numbers behind Bitcoin’s elliptic-curve signatures. In practice, we’re still in the early, error-prone “NISQ” era, so real attacks remain at least years away. BTC is now trading at $103,747. Chart: TradingView Questions Over Lost Bitcoin Tether’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, surfaced another angle in February. He suggested that once quantum hackers can break old private keys, they might recover Bitcoin from the roughly 3.7 million coins considered lost forever. Ardoino…
