El Salvador Splits Its State BTC Into Multiple Wallets, Citing “Quantum” R

El Salvador, the first country to adopt Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender, has recently taken a huge step to safeguard its national BTC holdings.

They’ve moved their entire national reserve of about 6,250 BTC from a single wallet to 14 separate wallet addresses.

The National Bitcoin Office (ONBTC) framed the move as a “quantum risk mitigation” measure to future-proof El Salvador’s holdings against advances in computing.

Most industry experts believe that the threat of quantum computers cracking Bitcoin’s encryption is largely theoretical for now.

But El Salvador’s forward-thinking move shows priority for keeping crypto safe in the long term.

Could this move also influence how other countries choose to secure their own crypto reserves going forward?

El Salvador Bitcoin Reserve Across Wallets to Boost Security

Up until this week, El Salvador had kept its entire strategic Bitcoin reserve in a single public Bitcoin address.

But the government has opted for a new approach in light of a few tech breakthroughs. The country announced that its BTC holdings were redistributed across 14 new addresses, each holding up to 500 BTC.

By dividing the funds across multiple wallets, the government is effectively reducing the risk of losing a big amount in a single attack.

The transparency of El Salvador’s Bitcoin holdings is being preserved through a new public dashboard that aggregates the balances of all 14 wallets.

The decision to split BTC into multiple wallets means the government no longer needs to reuse a single address to prove its Bitcoin is still intact.

When a Bitcoin address is reused, its public key shows up on the blockchain, which could be risky if quantum computers potentially break Bitcoin’s encryption.

With the new setup, each wallet address will stay hidden until it’s actually used, keeping its keys private.

Veteran Bitcoiners have welcomed this move, since many already protect their coins by splitting funds across multiple addresses and avoiding reuse.

By accounting for quantum risk management, the country is reinforcing its reputation as a savvy Bitcoin adopter.

Understanding Bitcoin’s Vulnerability in a Quantum Future

El Salvador’s caution revolves around a potential future where quantum computers become powerful enough to break modern encryption.

Bitcoin’s security relies on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), which is essentially the math that keeps private keys secret.

Today, this cryptography is unbreakable by any known computer. But experts have theorized that a sufficiently advanced quantum machine, running Shor’s algorithm, could one day calculate a private key from a publicly revealed key.

For example, one research estimates that over 4 million BTC are stored in addresses that would be vulnerable if quantum computers were to crack ECC-based keys.

This scenario includes long-dormant coins whose public keys have been exposed in past transactions.

Quantum attacks aren’t an immediate threat, as experts agree today’s quantum computers can’t crack Bitcoin’s 256-bit keys.

Still, Bitcoin developers are already preparing for post-quantum cryptography, which could improve the network’s defenses in the future.

But governments and industry leaders are staying cautious, especially after Google revealed its “Willow” quantum chip earlier this year, which solved tough problems at record speed.

Even if a functional quantum attack on Bitcoin is many years away, El Salvador’s move shows an appetite to plan ahead.

For the average Bitcoin holder, there is no immediate danger from quantum hacking. But at the institutional and national level, El Salvador’s defensive stance is a sign that the crypto ecosystem is taking quantum prospects seriously.

In the long run, this kind of early action could become a model for other large holders as the world edges toward the quantum era.