Glassnode Says 31.2% of Bitcoin Supply Has Exposed Public Keys, Creating Potential Quantum-Attack Risk

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About 31% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply is held in addresses with exposed public keys, according to an analysis.

On October 8, Glassnode co-founder Rafael Schultze-Kraft said about 6.26 million Bitcoin are held in addresses whose public keys are visible on the blockchain. That amounts to 31.2% of the circulating supply. The share is up 6.4 percentage points from 24.8% in early 2021.

A public key is used to verify a Bitcoin transaction signature. It differs from a private key, which gives its holder the authority to move assets. Under current cryptographic systems, deriving a private key from a public key is difficult. The core of the potential risk is that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could reverse that process.