Google Accelerated its PQC migration to 2029

Stefan Deiss, CEO and Co-Founder of The Hashgraph Group

Following Google’s decision to accelerate its post-quantum cryptography migration to 2029, Stefan Deiss, CEO and Co-Founder of The Hashgraph Group, the enterprise arm of the Hedera ecosystem, commented:

Google’s decision to accelerate its post-quantum cryptography migration to 2029 should be a wake-up call for the entire blockchain industry. Google’s research shows quantum computers are advancing far faster than anyone predicted - in 2012, breaking standard encryption was estimated to require a billion qubits. Today it’s under one million. That’s a 1,000x reduction in just over a decade, and the pace is accelerating. For crypto specifically, roughly $440 billion worth of Bitcoin sits in wallet types vulnerable to quantum attack.

Cybercriminals and bad actors are already harvesting encrypted blockchain data today, stockpiling it to decrypt once quantum hardware catches up. The US Department of Homeland Security, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, and the EU’s cybersecurity agency have all warned this is actively happening and urged organisations to act now.

The crypto industry needs to be on guard against complacency. Of the major Layer 1 networks, only a handful have made meaningful progress on post-quantum migration - Ethereum only elevated it to a strategic priority in January. Networks designed with this transition in mind hold a clear advantage. Hedera already uses SHA-384 hashing - quantum-resistant from day one - and was built so that upgrading to post-quantum signature schemes is straightforward once standards are finalised.

Post-quantum algorithms exist, but they take time, care, and coordination to implement. Investing that effort now will always be better than dealing with the consequences further down the line.