Europol Urges Crypto Wallet Providers to Start Testing Post-Quantum Upgrades Now

Europol published two reports on Wednesday about the security risks of quantum computing, and the one on cryptocurrencies names wallets as the most exposed part of the system. The agency urged organizations, policymakers and the crypto industry to “begin preparing now.”

Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre wrote in its report that the keys controlling wallets and authorizing transactions are the “primary point of exposure.” A quantum computer with enough power could work out a wallet’s private key from its public key, letting an attacker spend the funds. The hash functions that secure the blockchain itself remain “largely resistant” to quantum attacks, Europol said in the report.

Such machines do not yet exist, and Europol said in its press release that the timing of those capabilities “remains uncertain.” Unchained reported in April that a Google paper put 2029 as the year quantum computers could crack the cryptography securing Bitcoin and Ethereum.

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The report concluded that “Cryptocurrencies will not collapse due to quantum computing,” adding that their long-term security “requires proactive defence.” Among its key findings: “Proactive adaptation, rather than systemic collapse, is the most likely outcome.”

Europol recommended that wallet providers “begin testing and deploying PQC-enabled wallets,” and that blockchain projects build post-quantum algorithms into their core protocols. Users should move funds to quantum-resistant wallets once those are available.

For wallets whose public keys are already exposed, “no cryptographic fix exists,” the report said. The only solution it offered is moving funds to new, unexposed wallets before any attack occurs.

Europol drew on a 2024 paper that put the minimum cumulative downtime for upgrading every bitcoin UTXO to post-quantum signatures at 76 days. As one example, Europol said the migration would take about 300 days if only a quarter of each block’s capacity were set aside for it.

Europol also said signatures from NIST-standardized post-quantum schemes are 10 to 120 times larger than ECDSA signatures, the signature scheme Bitcoin relies on, which it warned could “overload block space” and push up fees.

The second report examines attackers who store encrypted data now to decrypt it once more powerful computers exist. It was developed with University Carlos III of Madrid, and Europol said there is “no clear evidence” the technique is being used systematically at scale.

Related Listen: One Type of Post-Quantum Cryptography Is Most Popular. Why Is Crypto Trying Out Three?

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