Vitalik Buterin warns that Bitcoin will be cracked by 2028: it needs to upgrade its quantum defense within four years before the US elections.

Vitalik Buterin predicted at the Devconnect developer conference held in Istanbul in November that Bitcoin is about to be cracked by 2028, possibly before the next U.S. presidential election, calling on the community to participate in Ethereum's quantum defense upgrade (Background: Raoul Pal warned: The Federal Reserve will face “liquidity shortage” if it stops printing money and may repeat the 2018 repurchase market financial crisis) (Context: The U.S. will release the September non-farm payroll report next week, and the market is closely watching the impact of the Federal Reserve (Fed)'s interest rate cut) Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin dropped a bombshell at the Devconnect developer conference in Istanbul in November, telling a room full of developers that quantum computers could potentially crack Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) before 2028, making the traditional “mathematical trust” system completely ineffective, with only four years left for the blockchain community's buffer period. The quantum decryption day is approaching sooner than expected. According to the latest estimate from the Quantum Doomsday Clock, as early as March 8, 2028, quantum hardware could instantly derive private keys using the Shor algorithm. Vitalik pointed out that Google and IBM are making progress in the number and stability of qubits (qubit) faster than Moore's Law, meaning that the few minutes between transaction broadcast and on-chain confirmation will become the “golden moment for hijacking.” He bluntly warned, “If you believe in asset security, it’s best to provide evidence within four years.” Current blockchain security is based on the computational assumption that “public keys cannot be used to reverse-engineer private keys.” Once quantum computing power crosses the critical point, this assumption will no longer exist, and wallets will be like glass display cases, rendering even the most complex verification steps meaningless. In the face of this crisis, Bitcoin and Ethereum have diverged in their paths. Bitcoin's architecture is akin to stone carvings, requiring consensus and time to modify the core protocol. Vitalik has moved the defense line to the account layer, emphasizing the value of EIP-4337 account abstraction: users do not need a hard fork; as long as they change the wallet signature algorithm to a quantum-resistant solution (such as Dilithium), the upgrade can be completed. This “core freeze, edge flexibility” strategy allows the first layer to remain stable while giving users the ability to quickly replace the lock core. Vitalik called on stage: “We cannot wait for an attack to occur before patching the vulnerabilities. We must open the upgrade channel now and complete the migration within four years.” Invisible attacks have already begun. Security researchers warn that the “collect first, decrypt later” initiative has already started. Hackers continue to collect on-chain encrypted traffic and store it encrypted, waiting for quantum hardware to mature to unlock it all at once. This means that today’s communications may be publicly transparent tomorrow. A large amount of Bitcoin and Ether stored in old P2PKH addresses is similarly exposed to risk because those addresses directly reveal public keys, effectively preparing coordinates for attackers. If holders do not move their assets to new wallets using post-quantum cryptography (PQC) before 2028, private keys may be calculated in milliseconds, with funds transferred instantly and unable to be recovered. The four-year coordination period tests the entire ecosystem. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has selected multiple post-quantum encryption standards, but replacing decentralized finance (DeFi) and thousands of protocols one by one is no easy task, akin to changing engines in mid-flight. The time pressure overlaps with political timelines: the 2028 U.S. election will heighten geopolitical and policy uncertainties, and any vulnerabilities in encryption could become breakthrough points for regulation or attacks. The return of the Trump administration to the White House a year ago has already made the market feel policy shocks; if the quantum threat erupts on the same timeline, the trust chain of crypto assets may face a dual test from both technology and politics. Vitalik's message is aimed not only at developers but also at all holders and financial institutions: compared to price fluctuations, quantum risks are the bigger “black swan.” With less than four years until 2028, the blockchain world is entering the post-quantum upgrade period. Whether coordination is achieved and standards are accelerated will determine who can maintain a secure defense line in the next decade and who will be written off as a footnote in history. Related reports The Federal Reserve's mouthpiece warns: There is no consensus on rate cuts in December, and the information black box has become a ticking time bomb. Morgan Stanley warns: The end of QT by the Federal Reserve does not equal the restart of QE; the U.S. Treasury's bond issuance strategy is the key. The Federal Reserve's hawkish stance | Bostic, who advocates “no rate cut in December,” suddenly announced his retirement in February next year. <Vitalik warns that Bitcoin will be cracked by 2028: it will happen before the U.S. election, and Ethereum needs to upgrade quantum defense within four years> This article was first published in BlockTempo, the most influential blockchain news media.