Europol says quantum computing won't break Bitcoin, but some wallets are exposed

Europe's top police agency has weighed in on crypto's favorite doomsday scenario. Its verdict: the sky is not falling.

On October 7, 2026, Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) published two reports on how quantum computing could affect crypto and encrypted data. The key finding was blunt.

"Cryptocurrencies will not collapse due to quantum computing."

Still, "will not collapse" is not the same as "nothing to worry about." The reports draw a sharp line between the blockchain itself and the wallets people use to hold their coins.

The primary report carries a title only a policy committee could love: "Quantum Computing and Cryptocurrencies – Bridging Technical Expertise and Decision-Making."

Its core argument splits crypto security into two layers. The vault is the blockchain. Europol says its integrity holds because it relies on hash functions, such as Bitcoin's SHA-256, which the agency describes as largely resistant to quantum attacks. The report calls wallets built on public-key cryptography the "primary point of exposure."

The concern is specific. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could work backward from an exposed public key, derive the matching private key, and then sign transactions the owner never approved.