What to know : Google’s research suggests Bitcoin’s elliptic-curve cryptography could be broken with about 500,000 qubits, far fewer than older estimates, but such machines do not yet exist. Quantum-resistant or quantum-aware tokens like QRL (+50%), Cellframe (+40%) have seen notable short-term gains, reflecting trader interest in potential long-term security.
The market appears to be reassessing long‑term technological risks in crypto following Google's major quantum computing research update on Monday.
While traditional assets like bitcoin and ether (ETH) have seen only modest price changes, certain cryptocurrencies associated with quantum‑resistant cryptography have experienced notable strength.
This outperformance of the so-called quantum-resistant tokens shows how quickly the market is pricing in potential technological risks, even if those are still theoretical. While quantum computers capable of attacking Bitcoin are still years away, traders are already signaling an appetite for "future-proof" assets.
Late Monday, Google’s Quantum AI team suggested that quantum computers could break the elliptic‑curve cryptography used by Bitcoin, with fewer than 500,000 quantum qubits, which is significantly less than previously estimated. This prompted some analysts to cite 2029 as a potential deadline for Bitcoin and the broader blockchain ecosystem to strengthen their defenses.
The study said that a sufficiently advanced quantum computer could attack Bitcoin within nine minutes. A separate report highlighted Ethereum’s vulnerabilities, identifying five potential attack vectors that could put an estimated $100 billion of assets at risk, including DeFi and tokenized holdings.
However, such machines do not exist and remain a threat that's still a few years away.
Still, over the past 24 hours, the market has shown increased interest in cryptocurrencies and projects that emphasize post‑quantum cryptographic designs, research into future‑proofing security, or that appear relatively more resilient than legacy chains.
Notably, Quantum Resistant Ledger (QRL) and Cellframe (CEL) have surged 50%, reflecting growing market attention to truly post‑quantum protocols, according to data source Coingecko. Other tokens in the category, such as Abelian (ABEL), have risen 25%, while Qubic (QUBIC) and QANplatform (QANX) have each gained 10%, and even the privacy‑focused Zcash (ZEC) has added nearly 7% in the same period.
The market cap of this group, comprising 20 coins, has increased by 8% to $4.66 billion over the past 24 hours. It's worth noting that ZEC is not yet truly quantum-resistant but is still included in the category by data sources because of its advanced cryptographic foundations, such as zero-knowledge proofs, and ongoing research into post-quantum secure ZK-SNARKs. These factors make it part of the “quantum-aware” narrative, even if it does not currently fully implement post-quantum cryptography.
While the risks remain largely theoretical, they have been influencing market behavior since last year. According to Charles Edwards, founder of Capriole Investments, concerns over quantum attacks contributed to Bitcoin’s decoupling from the rising stock market in the second half of 2025, with the cryptocurrency sliding from $126,000 to $80,000 in the final months of the year.
"We have already started to see quantum risk be priced into Bitcoin. It’s the primary reason Bitcoin is trading -50% against the S&P 500 and -90% against gold since the inaugural Bitcoin Quantum Summit seven months ago," Edwards said in a report in February.
Coincidentally, this was exactly the period when the quantum-resistant leader ZEC staged a sharp rally. ZEC surged by over 1,200% in the second half of 2025, hitting a high of $744.
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