A new report commissioned by Coinbase sounds a cautious, but urgent, alarm: Quantum computing won’t break crypto tomorrow, but the industry can’t afford to wait.

The 50-page paper, authored by an independent advisory board that includes prominent cryptographers and academics like Dan Boneh of Stanford University, Justin Drake of the Ethereum Foundation and Sreeram Kannan of Eigen Labs, concludes that while today’s blockchains remain secure, a future “fault-tolerant quantum computer” capable of breaking widely used encryption is increasingly plausible, and preparation must begin now.

In recent months, concerns around quantum risk have moved further into the mainstream. Google researchers have published estimates suggesting that a sufficiently advanced quantum computer could one day break Bitcoin’s cryptography.

Major crypto ecosystems have already started mapping out their responses. The Ethereum Foundation has proposed new types of digital signatures that are designed to be safe against quantum computers, while Solana and others are experimenting with quantum-resistant wallet designs.

The report stresses that current quantum machines are far from powerful enough to crack the cryptography underpinning Bitcoin, Ethereum and other networks. Breaking standard encryption would require vast computational overhead, a milestone still considered a major engineering challenge.

Still, the authors caution against complacency.

“We have high confidence that a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer will eventually be built,” the report states, adding that the timeline is uncertain but “clearly on the horizon.”

That uncertainty is exactly the problem, with estimates ranging from “a few years to a decade or more” and no reliable way to predict breakthroughs.

The urgency is reflected in guidance from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which recommends migrating to quantum-resistant cryptography by 2035, a timeline the report suggests may even prove optimistic.

“Waiting for it to be urgent is not a good idea,” the Coinbase paper says, emphasizing that transitions across blockchains, wallets and exchanges could take years to execute safely.

Some assets may be more vulnerable than others. For example, Bitcoin wallets that have already revealed their public keys could be targeted, while those still protected behind hash functions may be safer in the short term.

The good news: Quantum-resistant cryptography (PQC) already exists and is being standardized by NIST.

The bad news: It’s not an easy swap.

Post-quantum digital signatures can be tens to hundreds of times larger than current ones, which could dramatically increase blockchain data costs and reduce throughput. One estimate in the report suggests that replacing today’s signatures with quantum-proof alternatives could expand block sizes by up to 38 times.

There are also usability challenges, from migrating millions of wallets to deciding what to do with “lost” or inactive funds that never upgrade.

Rather than a single solution, the report outlines multiple transition strategies, including hybrid systems that combine existing cryptography with post-quantum updates or allow a gradual switch when needed.

For now, the authors recommend flexible approaches that avoid sacrificing current security or performance while enabling a rapid upgrade later.

“The time to begin preparing for it is now,” the report concludes.

Read more: Solana’s quantum-threat readiness reveals harsh tradeoff: security vs speed

Poland’s parliament, the Sejm, has yet to pass a domestic enabling act for the EU’s regulations on cryptocurrencies. 

The parliament has again failed to override a presidential veto on a key crypto regulation bill. President Karol Nawrocki defended his veto, citing concerns over excessive regulation that could harm small businesses. Opponents state that the lack of framework makes the Polish market vulnerable to fraud and free-for-all for illicit actors. The political path forward is unclear.

Outside the political arena, the reality is that Poland is the only EU member state left to implement the bloc’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework. The deadline for the transitionary period ends on July 1.

This already makes it difficult for local firms to stay competitive in Europe. But after July 1, if a solution isn’t forthcoming, it will be impossible. Some are already taking their business elsewhere and moving abroad.

Crypto industry, Polish president claim bill is burdensome

In November 2025, the Sejm passed the Crypto-Asset Market Act, which would update Polish law to comply with MiCA.

Local enterprise groups were not pleased with the result. In an October letter, the Warsaw Enterprise Institute, a business-focused think tank, outlined a few of the perceived problems with the law.

First was the length. Including draft secondary regulations, the total length was well over 300 pages. The Warsaw Enterprise Institute said that, while other EU member states were satisfied with just a few dozen pages, “the Polish law has several hundred articles and provides for additional regulations.”

It said the act introduces “a ban on marketing activities related to basic cryptocurrencies and the possibility of blocking websites by administrative decision, without the right to appeal to a court.”

“Such solutions are not justified by MiCA and put Polish companies in a worse competitive position compared to entities operating in other EU countries.”.

Of further concern was the role the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) would play under the new regime. Under the law, the KNF would be the sole regulator of the entire crypto market. It would have the power to levy heavy fines as well as maintain and enforce a blacklist of “unreliable” crypto domains that Polish ISPs would have to block. 

Not only would the KNF be incredibly powerful, but it is already notoriously slow. According to a payment institution peer review by the European Banking Authority, the KNF’s authorization times were the slowest in Europe. In an October letter, the Warsaw Enterprise Institute claimed that the KNF has only issued two licenses for brokerage houses in the last 10 years. In the same time period, it has only issued one electronic money institution license, while Lithuania has registered over 100. 

Related: EU crypto firms turn to legal support as deadline for MiCA compliance nears

On Dec. 1, 2025, Nawrocki vetoed the law, citing bloated regulation. The government failed to override the veto, and then reintroduced the exact same bill. Nawrocki vetoed the bill for a second time in February, and on April 17, the Sejm repeated itself in failing to overrule the veto.

Polish parliament struggles to find path forward for MiCA

The battle over the crypto bill shows no signs of stopping. 

Firstly, for Nawrocki, passing the bill after being reintroduced in the same form would have presented a political problem.

Piech told Cointelegraph, “Once the president had already argued that the bill breached constitutional principles and contained excessive, disproportionate and vague provisions […] signing a near-identical version would have meant contradicting his own stated reasoning.”

“In that sense, the second push looked less like compromise and more like an attempt to pressure the president into a constitutional U-turn.”

Some in the crypto industry hailed the veto as Nawrocki sticking to his pro-crypto, sound regulatory principles.

“The veto is not anti-regulatory, it brings common sense back into the law-making process. […] The industry did not ask for privileges. It asked for proportionality,” said Sławomir Zawadzki, co-CEO of Kanga Exchange.

Different coalitions and groups have attempted to introduce their own versions. According to Piech, Finance Minister Andrzej Domański said that the government started work yesterday on solutions for a new crypto-asset bill. 

In December, after the first veto, the Polska 2050 political party announced “an improved draft that is a step forward from the President’s arguments, which, although far-fetched, are perhaps worth considering.”

Nawrocki himself has said he would submit a draft but the speaker in the Sejm has blocked the introduction of presidential proposals. 

The Confederation of Liberty and Independence and the Law and Justice have filed versions, while another political coalition, the Center Club, announced it would prepare another draft. 

Overall, Poland’s political class is “still deeply split on crypto.”

“This is no longer just a technical argument about implementing MiCA. It has become a broader fight over whether crypto should be brought into a normal legal framework, or treated as a politically suspicious sector that can be overregulated, stigmatised or used as a proxy battlefield after the Zonda Crypto controversy,” he said.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, himself a member of the Civic Coalition, has accused local exchange Zonda Crypto of illicit funding and ties to Russian criminal networks. It has undergone a funding crisis, pausing withdrawals, and has reportedly lobbied against the bill. 

Related: Zonda exchange says 4.5K BTC wallet inaccessible amid withdrawal crisis

Tusk also claimed that it “sponsors political and social events in Poland and promotes very specific political forces,” including the opposition far-right Law and Justice party, of which Nawrocki is a member.

Zonda Crypto did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment. 

Polish crypto companies look abroad

For companies in Poland, passing a new law by the end of the MiCA transitional period on July 1 may be a case of shutting the barn doors after the horses have bolted. 

Said Piech, “A new law may still matter institutionally, especially for banks and larger financial institutions that may want to enter crypto once there is a clear legal path. But for all existing Polish crypto firms, it is already very late.”

Some domestic crypto firms are already looking abroad. Crypto exchange Kanga is considering a move to Latvia, “a country whose representatives have openly used conferences in Poland to attract crypto firms, offering a MiCA-friendly regime, faster procedures and relatively low supervisory fees,” per Piech. 

Robert Wojciechowski, president of the Polish Chamber of Commerce for Blockchain and New Technologies, said, “Since we founded the chamber, about 70-80 percent of companies have sailed abroad. Now my colleagues say they are talking to the Czech Republic to move their business there.”

The Chancellery of the President has itself raised the alarm, stating that, “Overregulation is a guaranteed way to push companies abroad — to the Czech Republic, Lithuania or Malta — instead of creating conditions for them to operate and pay taxes in Poland.”

Zonda Crypto CEO Przemysław Kral has previously told Cointelegraph, “Although we are a company with Polish roots and the largest player in the crypto industry on the Polish market, we have been operating outside Poland for years.”

“We are confident that we will remain a key player on the market. However, many small Polish crypto companies will lose the opportunity to operate on the market,” he said.

Now it’s a race against the clock, as July 1 draws closer. Piech doesn’t see a “realistic chance” for a bill to pass, and if it doesn’t, “domestic firms without a functioning Polish route are left at a structural disadvantage.”

Magazine: Adam Back says current demand is ‘almost’ enough to send Bitcoin to $1M