Bitcoin's 1.7 Million BTC in Legacy Outputs Face Future Quantum Risk
Photo: TokenPost
A June 2026 estimate identified about 1.7 million Bitcoin (BTC) in legacy pay-to-public-key outputs, highlighting the coins' exposure if a future quantum computer can derive private keys from public keys. The estimate covered roughly 20,000 public keys. Pay-to-public-key, or P2PK, is an early Bitcoin output format that displays a public key on-chain before the coins move. A private key creates the signature that authorizes a Bitcoin transfer, while a public key lets the network check it. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could potentially derive a private key from a visible public key and use it to authorize a transfer.
Source: TokenPost
