 
 
El Salvador, the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, has overhauled how it stores the nation’s Bitcoin (BTC).
The Central American nation moved its entire BTC reserve holdings out of a single wallet and split them into 14 new wallet addresses as part of a precaution to boost security and protect against quantum-computing attacks that could emerge in the future.
Making BTC Holdings Resistant To Quantum Attacks
The country’s National Bitcoin Office (ONBTC) stated that quantum computers could theoretically break public-private key cryptography using Shor’s algorithm, which affects not only Bitcoin but also banking, email, and communications systems.
“By splitting funds into smaller amounts, the impact of a potential quantum attack is minimized,” the Bitcoin Office posited in the Friday X post, adding that each address holds up to 500 BTC.
The Bitcoin Office elaborated that once funds are spent from a Bitcoin address, its public keys are exposed and vulnerable — making it a target for quantum computing attacks.
 
“When a Bitcoin transaction is signed and broadcast, the public key becomes visible on the blockchain, potentially exposing the address to quantum attacks that could discover private keys and redirect funds before the transaction [is confirmed],” ONBTC stated.
At press time, El Salvador held over 6,283 BTC worth around $682 million, according to data from BitcoinTreasuries.NET. The Latin nation has not acquired more BTC since February 2025, when its loan deal with the IMF kicked off.
Discussions of quantum threats have circulated in the cryptosphere for years, but became more amplified this year after Google launched Willow, a quantum supercomputer it claimed was capable of performing certain computational tasks in the span of just minutes.
A successful quantum attack on Bitcoin would lead to significant economic disruption and damage across the entire ecosystem.
But it isn’t all doom and gloom yet.
The crypto community has already started working on quantum-resistant solutions. Solana developers unveiled a quantum-resistant vault that uses a decades-old cryptographic technique to protect users’ funds from potential quantum computer attacks, while Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed forking the code of current blockchains to defend against quantum threats.
Meanwhile, Strategy co-founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said quantum computing’s threat was a mere marketing ploy to pump quantum-branded tokens, adding that if it ever became a serious problem, the protocol’s core developers and hardware manufacturers would implement software upgrades.
“It’s mainly marketing from people that want to sell you the next quantum yo-yo token,” Saylor told CNBC’s Squawk Box at the time. “Google and Microsoft aren’t going to sell you a computer that cracks modern cryptography because it would destroy Google and Microsoft — and the U.S. Government and the banking system.”
Source: https://zycrypto.com/el-salvador-redistributes-bitcoin-holdings-across-multiple-wallets-to-fend-off-quantum-threats/
