Samson Mow, Bitcoin advocate and Jan3 founder, pushed back against calls from Coinbase executives to accelerate Bitcoin’s move to post-quantum cryptography, warning that speed could create more problems than it solves.
The pushback came after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and chief security officer Philip Martin urged the industry to begin preparing for quantum computing threats sooner rather than later.
The core concern
Mow’s argument centers on the trade-off between future-proofing Bitcoin against quantum computers and maintaining its security against threats that exist today.
He stated on X:
“Simply put: make Bitcoin safe against quantum computers just to get pwned by normal computers.”
His concern is that a poorly timed transition could weaken Bitcoin against current threats before it ever addresses future ones.
Signature size and throughput
One of Mow’s most specific objections involves the performance cost of post-quantum signatures, citing former Bitcoin developer Jonas Schnelli.
Mow warned:
“PQ signatures will likely be 10-125x larger than current ones, and massively reduce throughput.”
This signature bloat could reignite a debate reminiscent of Bitcoin’s original block size wars, which began around 2015 and peaked in 2017 when the community split over increasing block capacity to handle more transactions.
That dispute raised deep concerns about decentralization and who ultimately controls Bitcoin’s future, eventually leading to alternative scaling solutions rather than a simple block size increase.
Work should continue, just not rushed
Despite his opposition to a rushed transition, Mow was clear that preparation should not stop entirely.
He said:
“Given that quantum computers don’t actually exist and likely won’t exist for another 10-20 years, the worst possible course of action is to rush a fix. That’s not to say work shouldn’t be done to prepare, and there is already much work being done.”
