If Bitcoin ever implodes after reaching true institutional scale, it could spark a global liquidity crisis, shake faith in U.S. financial judgment, and potentially accelerate the erosion of American economic dominance. In other words, if you thread a volatile protocol too tightly into the most systemically important investment vehicles — like 401(k)s — and it fails, the damage might not be containable.

Bitcoin’s core security is built on cryptographic assumptions that may not hold in the near future. At the heart of Bitcoin lies SHA-256 hashing and ECDSA digital signatures—techniques once thought unbreakable. These methods rely on the idea that you can’t reverse-engineer a hash or derive a private key from a public one. But quantum computing changes the game.

Grover’s Algorithm could dramatically reduce the effort needed to attack the SHA-256 hash function, while Shor’s Algorithm can outright crack ECDSA, threatening Bitcoin wallets that have already exposed public keys—especially those used in past transactions.

The danger isn’t hypothetical—it’s already baked into Bitcoin’s history. Over 89% of Bitcoin has public keys visible on-chain, meaning a future quantum computer could eventually seize control of those funds. Even legendary wallets like Satoshi’s are vulnerable.