Wall Street Strategist Dumps Bitcoin Over Quantum Computer Threats—Here’s Why It’s Overblown

Another Wall Street suit gets spooked by sci-fi tech—and misses the real revolution.

Quantum FUD Hits Finance

A prominent strategist just publicly stepped away from Bitcoin, citing quantum computing risks. The move sent ripples through crypto circles—mostly eye-rolls from anyone who’s actually studied the timeline. Quantum machines capable of cracking Bitcoin’s encryption remain theoretical, with most experts pegging a real threat a decade out, if ever. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s developer community isn’t sleeping—post-quantum cryptography upgrades are already in active research.

Old Guard Meets New Fear

It’s classic institutional hesitation: fear the future you don’t understand, ignore the present you can profit from. The strategist’s exit reads less like prudent risk management and more like an excuse to avoid volatility. Traditional finance loves a good boogeyman—quantum computers join inflation, regulation, and “it’s a bubble” in the hall of fame.

Built to Adapt

Bitcoin’s core strength isn’t static code—it’s adaptive consensus. The network has survived hard forks, exchange collapses, and government bans. A coordinated upgrade to quantum-resistant signatures would be just another Tuesday for a decentralized system designed to evolve. Contrast that with the legacy financial infrastructure—still running on COBOL and praying no one notices.

Missing the Forest for the Qubits

Focusing on far-future quantum risks distracts from Bitcoin’s immediate value: a decentralized, borderless, sound-money protocol already working today. While Wall Street frets over hypotheticals, adoption rockets forward—nation-states, corporations, and millions of individuals are voting with their wallets.

Let’s be real—this sounds less like a strategic pivot and more like someone who bought the top and needs a sophisticated-sounding reason to sell. The real quantum leap? Watching traditional finance slowly realize they’re becoming the legacy system.

Wall Street economist bids bye to Bitcoin due to quantum computing threat

According to Wood, who closely tracks global asset allocation trends, the risk quantum computing carries “could only be a few years away rather than a decade or more.” He believes this predicted timeline rendered Bitcoin undependable for investors who’d like to hold on to it for the long term.

The Jeffries global head of equity strategy was an early institutional backer of Bitcoin, placing the crypto in his model portfolio in December 2020. Governments at the time were advocating for a pandemic-era stimulus in reaction to jitters over currency debasement. 

Wood later expanded his position on the king coin to a 10% weighting in 2021, which has now been entirely removed. He replaced the Bitcoin exposure with a 5% allocation to gold and another 5% to gold-mining equities.

The strategist said any credible threat to Bitcoin’s cryptographic foundations WOULD undermine its investment thesis, and risks to the mining and transaction validation system are “potentially existential as it undermines the concept of Bitcoin as a store of value and therefore as a digital alternative to gold.”

Why blockchain is facing trouble from quantum computers

Traditional computers process information using bits that exist in one of two states, zero or one. Quantum computers use qubits instead, which can exist as zero, one, or both at the same time through a property known as superposition.

This helps quantum systems evaluate many possibilities simultaneously, which peaks the sequential problem-solving computers do now. Moreover, the increase in computing power grows as more qubits are added, where two qubits can represent four values at once, three can represent eight, and the capacity continues doubling with each qubit.

Another problematic discourse for blockchain developers is entanglement, a phenomenon where qubits are linked so that measuring one instantly reveals information about another. Combined with superposition, entanglement could help quantum computers tackle complex mathematical problems and protect cryptographic systems.

Bitcoin uses cryptography to secure wallets, authorize transactions, and govern mining, and so far, breaking that cryptography is practically impossible. Quantum computers, however, could change that by enabling attackers to derive private keys from publicly visible ones on the blockchain.

If a private key can be reverse-engineered, hackers could theoretically MOVE funds without the consent of the wallet owner. Coinbase global head of investment research David Duong estimated that 32.7% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply could be vulnerable to quantum attacks, Cryptopolitan reported.

“Bitcoin’s long-term security may be entering a new regime as quantum computing advances,” Duong wrote on LinkedIn. His research suggests that approximately 6.51 million BTC on block 900,000 might be exposed due to public keys already visible on the blockchain.

Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures, said in a December post on X that Bitcoin developers are “in denial” about quantum computing risk. “Capital is concerned and looking for a solution. Devs are mainly in complete denial. Inability to even acknowledge quantum risk is already weighing on the price,” he wrote.

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