Samson Mow Cautions Against Rushing Bitcoin's Post-Quantum Upgrade

Bitcoin developer and JAN3 CEO Samson Mow has urged the Bitcoin community not to rush into adopting post-quantum (PQ) cryptography. He has warned that an overly hasty transition could expose the network to more immediate risks than the quantum threat it is actually meant to address.

His comments come after Anthropic published research showing that its AI model, Mythos Preview, discovered new attacks against weakened cryptographic algorithms.

No need to rush

Mow has argued that Bitcoin’s conservative development philosophy should remain unchanged despite concerns over quantum computing.

“A few months ago I cautioned against hastily moving Bitcoin to PQ signatures, lest we introduce a vulnerability to classical attacks,” Mow wrote on X. “Now we have to worry about AI finding them too.”

He warned that replacing Bitcoin’s current ECDSA and Schnorr signature schemes with post-quantum alternatives too early could inadvertently weaken the network against conventional computers.

“Hastily changing from ECDSA/Schnorr to PQ signatures may make Bitcoin vulnerable to classical computing attacks today,” Mow explained. “Simply put: make Bitcoin safe against quantum computers just to get pwned by normal computers.”

According to Mow, Bitcoin should only migrate once quantum computers actually post a practical threat.

“The time to change to PQ signatures is when there’s a clear threat (QCs exist), not before. Slow, steady, conservative development for Bitcoin.”

Mow also praised ongoing research by Blockstream cryptographers, adding that hash-based schemes have “a smaller mathematical attack surface than lattice-based alternatives like HAWK.”

A new cryptography debate

Mythos Preview discovered a substantially faster attack against a reduced-round version of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Researchers also reported improvements to a known private-key recovery attack targeting HAWK.

Neither discovery poses an immediate threat, according to Anthropic. Nevertheless, the findings have sparked discussion within the Bitcoin community about whether AI could eventually pose a threat to certain post-quantum cryptographic schemes.

Bitcoin’s long-term advantage?

Ledger Chief Technology Officer Charles Guillemet said the research shows how rapidly artificial intelligence is changing cybersecurity.

“AI is rapidly reshaping the security landscape, and it may reshape cryptography as well,” Guillemet wrote.

He noted that Anthropic’s paper specifically affects HAWK’s newer security assumptions rather than lattice cryptography as a whole.

“Importantly, this result does not weaken lattice cryptography as a whole. Instead, it targets Hawk’s newer security assumptions, which have not been scrutinized for as long as the more established assumptions underlying schemes such as Dilithium.”

Guillemet argued that these findings reinforce the need for “crypto-agility” (the ability to replace cryptographic algorithms without redesigning an entire system).

“One lesson is becoming increasingly clear: crypto-agility, the ability to replace cryptographic algorithms without redesigning entire systems, may soon become a fundamental requirement for secure software,” he wrote, adding: “I’m looking forward to seeing crypto-agility on Bitcoin.”