The cryptocurrency exchange is pulling together some of the brightest minds in academia and blockchain to tackle a challenge that could upend digital asset security sometime in the next decade.
Coinbase announced on Wednesday that it is forming an independent advisory board to evaluate how quantum computing might affect blockchain networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum. The company laid out the plan in a blog post, stressing that preparation needs to start now even though the actual threat is still years off.
The panel comprises prominent figures in the fields of cryptography and quantum research. Scott Aaronson, who runs the Quantum Information Center at the University of Texas at Austin, is joining up with Stanford’s Dan Boneh, a heavyweight in cryptography circles. Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake is also a part of it, along with Sreeram Kannan from EigenLayer, Yehuda Lindell, who heads up cryptography at Coinbase, and Dahlia Malkhi from UCSB’s Foundations of Fintech Research Lab.
Getting Ahead of Tomorrow’s Problems
The board won’t answer to Coinbase management. Instead, it will focus on research that benefits the whole industry. The experts will put out position papers breaking down quantum computing developments, give practical advice to developers and companies, and weigh in when major breakthroughs happen. Their first paper should land in early 2027 with a baseline look at what quantum computers could actually do to blockchain security.
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Right now, Bitcoin and Ethereum rely on elliptic-curve cryptography, which holds up fine against regular computers. But a powerful quantum machine can get past the protection by working backwards from available public information to find out private keys.
Nobody Agrees on When This Matters
The crypto world is worried about the quantum computer threat. Last Friday, Christopher Wood, a strategist at Jefferies, removed Bitcoin from his portfolio, citing concerns that quantum progress could jeopardize its future as a value store. Adam Back from Blockstream sees it differently—he thinks there’s no real danger for at least 10 years, pointing out that encryption is only one part of how Bitcoin stays secure.
Mark Thompson at PsiQuantum told the media in November 2025 that quantum computers with tens of millions of qubits will be needed to break the encryption. The world is nowhere close to that. He says the technology will develop slowly enough, and blockchain networks can switch to quantum-proof security well before anything bad happens.
Coinbase will publish the board’s first position paper in early 2027, which will include a baseline assessment of quantum-related risks and possible solutions for resilience.
