Quantum computing poses a risk to Bitcoin, but the community recognizes the issue and is working to address it, according to Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at asset manager VanEck.

Speaking to CNBC on Friday, Sigel said that progress on tackling the threat may be slow because of the crypto network's decentralized nature, but that the community was actively working on it.

The crypto community has sounded the alarm about hypothetical advancements in quantum computers that could in the future be capable of breaking Bitcoin's cryptography — the digital signatures that authorize every movement of bitcoin on the network. Some in the space — including Bitcoin developers — have already started preparing for a post-quantum future by testing quantum-resistant signatures on live sidechains.

"It's a risk," Sigel said. "But the community has recognized the scope of the issue. There's a lot of talent that's now come together with a framework of how to upgrade the system."

He added: "The upgrades don't happen as fast because there's no CEO who can tell the devs, 'hey, do it now.' There's a governance process — it takes more time, it's a little bit messier, but there are technological paths for quantum resistance, and I think you'll see more of that over the next couple of years."

The governance process Sigel describes is built into Bitcoin's design: protocol changes must win broad consensus among developers, miners, and node operators, any of whom can decline to run software they don't support. That bar makes upgrades slow and contentious, but it also means the network's security assumptions cannot be rewritten by any single party.

Quantum computers do exist, but they are error-prone; a machine capable of breaking Bitcoin's cryptography does not currently exist. Bitcoin is the biggest computer network in existence.

Major companies in the space — including Coinbase, America's biggest crypto exchange, and Bitcoin infrastructure firm Blockstream — are already working on solutions. In July, Coinbase said it plans to deliver a post-quantum signing pipeline using secure enclaves and threshold cryptography.

A Bitcoin Security Consortium — made up of BlackRock, Fidelity Digital Assets, Block, and others — formed in July and donates funds and dedicates engineers to open-source work supporting proposals such as BIP-360, which aims to introduce a new transaction output type designed to reduce long-exposure quantum computing risks. How BIP-360 and similar proposals fare in that consensus process is a concrete marker to watch as the post-quantum effort plays out over the timeframe Sigel described.

This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and was written by Mathew Di Salvo.