Billionaire Tim Draper Says Quantum Computers Could Hit Banks Before Bitcoin

Highlights:

• Tim Draper said Bitcoin may be safer than dollars held inside traditional bank accounts.
• Draper argued that quantum computers could threaten banks before they seriously affect blockchain networks.
• He said Bitcoin’s blockchain could recover through a fork if a serious attack happened.

Billionaire investor Tim Draper has said Bitcoin may be safer than dollars kept in banks, even as the debate around quantum computing grows louder. In a Tuesday interview with Benzinga, Draper said he sees a greater risk to traditional banks than to Bitcoin if quantum technology becomes powerful enough to attack financial systems.

Draper argued that banks would likely face quantum-related attacks before blockchain networks. He said, “Quantum, etc., will hack the banks long before it can touch the blockchain.” His comment came as investors and security experts continue to debate whether future quantum computers could threaten the cryptography underpinning Bitcoin and other digital assets.

Benzinga asked me about quantum computing and Bitcoin.

The answer… Bitcoin is more secure than the dollars sitting in your bank account.

Quantum will crack the banks long before it touches the blockchain.

Everyone's panicking about quantum breaking Bitcoin's encryption while…

— Tim Draper (@TimDraper) June 9, 2026

Draper Says Blockchain Has Stronger Protection

Draper’s main point was that Bitcoin does not work like a bank account. A bank depends on centralized systems, private databases, and internal security controls. Bitcoin, on the other hand, runs on a public blockchain that is maintained by many computers around the world.

He also said that even if a serious attack happened, the blockchain could be rolled back to the last secure block through a fork. A fork means the network can change its rules or move to a safer version if users, miners, and developers agree. Draper used this point to argue that Bitcoin has a recovery path that banks may not have in the same way.

His view does not mean Bitcoin has no risk. Instead, he says the risk may be lower than people think compared with traditional finance. 

Quantum Risk Remains a Serious Debate

Quantum computing is still not strong enough to break Bitcoin today. However, researchers believe that future machines could pose new risks to systems that use older public-key cryptography. Bitcoin uses elliptic curve cryptography to protect wallets and transactions. If a powerful quantum computer could read a public key and calculate the private key, it could threaten exposed funds.

Google added to this debate with a whitepaper on cryptocurrency security. The paper warned that future cryptographically relevant quantum computers may break elliptic-curve cryptography with fewer resources than previously estimated. It said such an attack could take minutes on a sufficiently advanced system using fewer than half a million physical qubits.

Blockchains Are Already Preparing for Quantum Threats

Many big blockchains are already preparing for future quantum risks. Ethereum created a dedicated Post-Quantum Security team in January to study how the network can remain secure in the coming years. TRON is also working on this issue.

Sonic Labs has also published a quantum-resistance roadmap. Ripple has introduced a multi-phase roadmap to prepare the XRP Ledger for post-quantum security by 2028. These developments come as Google warned on March 25 that organizations should move toward post-quantum security by 2029.

Building for the future means preparing for the quantum era today. Our security teams have just introduced our 2029 timeline for PQC migration, warning that quantum computers could break standard encryption much sooner than many previously expected. Learn more in @ArsTechnica. https://t.co/JDgAKAwXtj

— News from Google (@NewsFromGoogle) March 25, 2026