Re: [bitcoindev] Algorithm Agility for Bitcoin to maintain security in the face of quantum and classic breaks in the signature algorithms

Matt Corallo
2026-02-13T16:21:32Z

On 2/12/26 10:35 AM, Alex wrote:
> > wallets aren't going to have a lot of incentive to adopt technologies that make things marginally
> more expensive.
>
> This claim is not rooted in reality. We literally just now saw Trezor market their Safe 7 as Quantum
> Ready and they had a major ad campaign specifically for this. There is major incentive for wallets
> to "sell" the quantum threat as a problem to fix, and therefore sell more wallets or claim
> compliance to gain market share. The quantum threat is mainstream. Retail knows about it, talks
> about it all the time.
>
> > many bitcoiners writing off the quantum threat
>
> Yes because psychologically, the most successful Bitcoiners are those who never reacted to any FUD
> and therefore never sold. And so they are essentially naturally selected by their history of never
> reacting to FUD. We've basically evolved the most non-reactant people and so obviously they are not
> going to react to the quantum threat because why would they change their strategy of never reacting
> if it worked so well so far?

Well you contradict yourself here :).

Yes, I fully anticipate wallets attempting to market themselves as "quantum secure". I do not
anticipate most "mainstream wallets" will care at all - if I search the app store right now for
"bitcoin wallet" I get bitcoin.com, coinbase, and trust wallet as the top three - all of which have
objective histories of taking 5-10 years to adopt incredibly basic bitcoin technologies and never
adopting best practices or marginally more complicated technologies.

And, indeed, as you point out, a large subset of the bitcoin community is unlikely to care until the
threat is imminent, at which point migration is much too late. It doesn't matter if some set of
people migrate, if a large number haven't its the same net impact.

Matt

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