On August 24, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury officially established the Quantum‑Readiness Task Force for quantum-safe readiness. It was formed under Executive Order No. 14412. Led by Secretary Bessent, the task force will advance the migration of the financial system to post‑quantum cryptography. A dedicated special working group on digital asset and emerging technology risk was set up. For the first time, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum were included in a national-level quantum security coordination framework.
The task force’s three core work directions
1. Coordinated oversight of post‑quantum cryptography (PQC) migration for the financial sector: coordinate banks, exchanges, and payment institutions to upgrade anti‑quantum encryption algorithms in a unified way, and mitigate the risk that quantum computers could break existing RSA and ECC elliptic curve encryption. The official deadline sets that traditional finance-sensitive systems must complete migration by the end of 2030, and digital signature systems must be deployed by the end of 2031.
2. Third-party supply chain security review: regulators’ encryption wallet oversight, custodians’ custodial service providers’ encryption technology reserves, and encrypted technology reserves of blockchain infrastructure vendors, to eliminate supply-chain security vulnerabilities.
3. Targeted risk assessment for crypto assets: evaluate security vulnerabilities in public-chain signature mechanisms, wallet private keys, and cross-chain bridges in the quantum era, and promote leading public chains and compliant exchanges to formulate anti-quantum upgrade roadmaps.
Impact on the crypto market
Positive factors
1. The Bitcoin BIP‑360 anti-quantum upgrade proposal has been planned in advance; governance mechanisms are mature. Under a federal coordination framework, it has gained a compliant first-mover advantage. Institutional recognition of BTC’s long-term security has further increased.
2. The regulator will take the initiative to preemptively mitigate quantum security risks, preventing future sudden technical shocks from triggering black swan events in the industry, and strengthening the classification of crypto assets as financial assets in the medium to long term.
3. Compliant exchanges and custodial institutions will accelerate technology upgrades, overall raising the security of industry infrastructure.
Negative factors and risks
1. In the short term, compliance upgrade costs increase. Medium and small public chains and niche projects lack anti-quantum technology reserves, facing pressure to be marginalized by regulators.
2. Crypto assets have officially been included within the scope of systemic risk regulation in the U.S. Subsequently, more compliance rules targeting underlying blockchain cryptography may be introduced, expanding the regulatory coverage further.
3. Quantum threats are a long-term risk; the market’s short-term sentiment impact is limited. The key driver of price action remains ETF capital, BTC’s technical factors, and macro liquidity.
Key intraday reference
BTC resistance: 81,000–81,800 (50-week moving average). Intraday support: 78,200–78,600. The watershed level: 74,800–75,200. This event is a long-term institutional positive, and will not change the short-term volatility cadence in the market.
Risk warning: The above is only market information and analysis and does not constitute investment advice. Crypto assets are highly volatile—keep leverage and position sizes under strict control.