Muneeb Ali says Bitcoin has about two years to start its post-quantum upgrade

Bitcoin has a deadline problem, and Muneeb Ali wants everyone to start counting. Speaking at Token2049 Singapore on October 8, 2026, the Stacks co-founder said Bitcoin has roughly two years to upgrade, then about two more years to move coins before quantum computing risks intensify. The four-year clock Ali’s keynote split the problem into two phases. Phase one is the upgrade itself: getting quantum-resistant signatures into Bitcoin. He put that window at approximately two years. Phase two is migration. Once the tools exist, holders still have to move their coins into addresses protected by the new signature schemes. Ali allotted about two additional years for that step. The timeline lines up with guidance from NIST, the US standards body. That guidance calls for phasing out vulnerable signature schemes such as ECDSA after 2030, with full retirement by 2035. ECDSA is the cryptography that currently proves Bitcoin owners control their coins. The capacity catch Swapping in quantum-safe signatures carries a cost. Ali warned that adopting them could cut Bitcoin’s effective transaction capacity to roughly 10% of its current levels. The research behind the keynote describes this as pushin...