Stacks founder Muneeb Ali says that fears surrounding quantum computing are already restricting institutional capital flows into Bitcoin (BTC), and that the network will not recover the full confidence of large buyers until it puts forward a credible upgrade roadmap. Institutional participation has become a more prominent theme for Bitcoin since U.S. regulators approved spot exchange-traded funds in January 2024, giving large allocators a regulated route into the asset.

"There is already a ceiling on the growth of Bitcoin…"

Ali's comments add to a long-running debate over how quantum computing could affect the cryptography underpinning Bitcoin. The network currently relies on the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), implemented on the secp256k1 curve, to control the spending of funds, alongside the SHA-256 hash function. In theory, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer running Shor's algorithm could derive private keys from publicly visible keys, which is why the prospect of such machines has drawn sustained attention from cryptographers and policymakers. Hardware momentum has kept the topic in focus: major quantum programs, including those at IBM and Google, have reported advances in qubit counts and error correction in recent years.

No quantum computer available today operates anywhere near the scale required to break these schemes. Even so, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finalized its first post-quantum cryptography standards in 2024, and organizations across industries that depend on public-key cryptography have since been evaluating migration paths.

Because Bitcoin's protocol is maintained through decentralized, consensus-based development, researchers have long discussed how a transition to quantum-resistant signatures could be coordinated if it ever became necessary. Proposals to date remain at the research and discussion stage, with no upgrade activated on the network. The clearest signal of a migration path taking shape would be one of these research efforts advancing into a formal Bitcoin improvement proposal, the process through which Bitcoin protocol changes are drafted and reviewed.

Ali co-founded Stacks, a layer network built on Bitcoin that enables smart contracts and decentralized applications secured by the Bitcoin blockchain. In his view, a credible quantum-resistance roadmap is a prerequisite for renewed institutional participation in the Bitcoin market rather than a distant technical question.

This report was first published by COINOTAG: Stacks Founder Muneeb Ali Says Quantum Fears Cap Bitcoin (BTC) Growth Before 2028