Quantum Won't Kill Crypto—It May Push Wall Street Onto Blockchain

The U.S. government wants the most critical digital infrastructure quantum-secure by 2030—a four-year timeline that is half of what SWIFT needed for a far less ambitious messaging-format upgrade, according to Chris Perkins, who leads crypto at Franklin Templeton.

In an op-ed originally published on Fortune.com, Perkins attacks what he calls the popular doomer narrative: that quantum computers will make public blockchains like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana their first targets, wiping out trillions of dollars. "While the threat is real, the conclusion–that quantum will kill crypto–is simply wrong," he writes.

The threat is bigger than crypto

Perkins points out that blockchains are not the exposed party. Much of the internet is vulnerable to "Q-day"—the moment quantum machines can pick the locks of the world's existing encryption. Hundreds of trillions of dollars in assets, plus sensitive private data, sit behind that cryptography. Bad actors have already launched "harvest now, decrypt later" schemes to strike when Q-day arrives, and governments have responded by mandating preparation plans.

The industry most alarmed by quantum advances, Perkins argues, is also the best equipped to fight. Public blockchains have faced constant attack because of their open-source ethos, and their builders "have learned to become survivors, constantly patching up vulnerabilities and both anticipating and responding to myriad other threats." Compared with other sectors, crypto's response to new cyberthreats has been "lightning fast," and many projects are already building defenses ahead of Q-day.

Legacy finance's record of delays

Legacy financial systems, by contrast, have a documented history of slow upgrades. SWIFT began modernizing its 1970s-era global banking-transfer messaging technology in 2018; the project took seven years to complete. Perkins grants that SWIFT coordinates 11,000 institutions across 200 countries, but he notes that updating a messaging format is simple compared with swapping out decades-old cryptography layers touching certificates, hardware, software, vendors and counterparties across the financial system.

Other examples follow the same pattern. A planned revamp of the Federal Reserve's high-value wire system began in 2015 and only crossed the finish line in July 2025—ten years. The Bank of England began planning an overhaul of its central ledger for interbank settlements in 2016, set a 2021 target, and did not finish until 2025, with aspects still ongoing.

Given that record, Perkins writes, expectations should be tempered that legacy financial services, governments and other industries will be ready when Q-day arrives.

Crypto moves first

Workable solutions are already emerging from the crypto industry's cryptographers, many of whom "already have gone on the quantum offensive," Perkins writes. Leading blockchain organizations have published comprehensive plans for post-quantum readiness well before 2030. The Stellar Development Foundation has released a quantum preparedness plan, and Ethereum—which Perkins describes as prioritizing decentralization over speed—has set 2029 as its quantum-ready date in the network's official roadmap.

A wave of new startups is building post-quantum picks and shovels, from wallets to payment infrastructure. "Resources and talent indeed are being marshalled in a profound way, and it increasingly looks as though the crypto industry might have just leapfrogged the traditional players in the broader pursuit of achieving quantum readiness," Perkins writes.

The adoption thesis

The counterintuitive result, in Perkins's view: quantum pressure could accelerate Wall Street's adoption of blockchain. A growing number of finance professionals see promise in blockchain networks and tokenization, and as they confront the enormous task of upgrading outdated legacy infrastructure, many will find it easier to switch to quantum-hardened blockchains rather than retrofit their own systems.

"Ahead of Q-day, whenever that actually is, I'm filled with the opposite of existential dread," Perkins writes. "I'm instead optimistic that blockchain technology most often portrayed as quantum computing's first casualty, could instead become one of the foundations on which the financial system rebuilds."

Perkins, a former fund manager and combat veteran, leads crypto at Franklin Templeton. If his read holds, the networks long treated as quantum's first victims would become the plumbing finance adopts to survive it.