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Europol urges crypto industry to prepare for quantum-resistant upgrades
Europol said cryptographic keys are the main exposure and warned a coordinated wallet and protocol migration could take years.
Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, is urging the cryptocurrency industry to start preparing wallet and protocol upgrades to address potential quantum threats, saying a coordinated migration could take years. In a report published Oct. 7, the agency pointed to the cryptographic keys that control access to funds as the primary exposure.
The report recommends a phased transition to quantum-resistant cryptography, intended to withstand attacks from future quantum computers. Europol said it separates the cryptography used to control funds from the hash functions that support important aspects of blockchain integrity.
Europol also urged users to migrate funds to quantum-resistant wallets as those wallets become available, while outlining different roles for blockchain developers, wallet providers, and network users. It noted that quantum computers powerful and reliable enough to break the relevant cryptography do not yet exist and that their arrival remains uncertain, making early preparation important.
The European Cybercrime Centre, known as EC3, said upgrading millions of wallets and nodes depends on both technical changes and agreement across decentralized networks. Europol framed the warning as a concern about future capability rather than an immediate break of today’s cryptography.