According to Charles Edwards (@caprioleio), quantum computing is Bitcoin’s biggest existential threat and, once a replacement is selected, the ecosystem would have roughly 12 months to migrate, placing urgency on protocol choices that traders should monitor; source: Charles Edwards on X, Aug 21, 2025. Bitcoin relies on ECDSA over secp256k1 for transaction signatures, which is vulnerable to sufficiently powerful quantum attacks such as Shor’s algorithm, making signature replacement the core mitigation; source: NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography program and Bitcoin.org Developer Guide. NIST has standardized post-quantum signature schemes including CRYSTALS-Dilithium and SPHINCS+, offering candidate pathways for migration that Bitcoin developers could evaluate; source: NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography standards 2022–2024. Traders should watch for any Bitcoin Improvement Proposal introducing post-quantum signatures and activation timelines, as protocol changes require broad consensus and staged rollout; source: Bitcoin Improvement Proposals repository. Coins reveal public keys when spent, so UTXOs with exposed public keys carry higher quantum-theft risk under a breakthrough, informing on-chain risk assessment; source: Bitcoin.org Developer Guide and Bitcoin Wiki.