BTQ launches Bitcoin Quantum testnet to trial post-quantum signatures

BTQ Technologies said it launched a Bitcoin Quantum testnet on Jan. 12, 2026, a Bitcoin-like network designed to trial post-quantum signatures without changing Bitcoin mainnet governance. The testnet is a Bitcoin Core–based fork that replaces ECDSA with ML-DSA, the module-lattice signature scheme standardized by NIST as FIPS 204.

BTQ said ML-DSA signatures are roughly 38–72 times larger than ECDSA, so the network raises the block size limit to 64 mebibytes (MiB) and supports wallet creation, transaction signing and verification, mining, a block explorer and a mining pool to study operational trade-offs. Discussion of quantum risk in Bitcoin centers on exposed public keys and signature breakage rather than spontaneous wallet guessing.

The dominant threat model envisions a cryptographically relevant quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm to derive private keys from visible public keys. The source notes no quantum computer today poses an immediate risk. Analysts highlight long-range exposure for outputs that place public keys onchain—Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK), Pay-to-Multi-Signature (P2MS) and Pay-to-Taproot (P2TR)—and say address reuse can convert short windows of exposure into long-range risk.

BTQ’s messaging cites about 6.26 million BTC as exposed, and the source provides distribution snapshots for P2PK, P2MS and P2TR.

Key Topics

Crypto, Btq Technologies, Bitcoin, Ml-dsa, Post-quantum Signatures, Shor Algorithm