Bitcoin Security Consortium launches with $15 million for post-quantum resilience

The Bitcoin Security Consortium has launched with founding members Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, Galaxy and Strategy, with a combined $15 million pledge over three years to support developers and researchers working on Bitcoin’s long-term security, including quantum-related risks. Mike Schmidt, executive director of Brink, will coordinate the consortium’s day-to-day work in a volunteer capacity and independently of any member organization. The group says it will fund existing Bitcoin security work and serve as a reference point for investors, media and the public, while stressing that it does not develop or direct Bitcoin’s protocol, take positions on specific protocol changes, or speak for Bitcoin or its developers. That governance caveat is especially notable because BlackRock, Fidelity and ARK are among the first large traditional asset managers to directly fund the developers who maintain Bitcoin’s code. Strategy chief executive Phong Le said long-term holders have an incentive to keep Bitcoin secure for generations, while BlackRock global head of digital assets Robert Mitchnick said Bitcoin Core developers do “incredibly important work” and that the firm was pleased to make “significant additional funding available to support Bitcoin’s long-term security needs.” The consortium’s first focus is preparing Bitcoin for a potential quantum-computing era, though it says large-scale quantum computers capable of threatening Bitcoin’s cryptography do not exist today and are still believed to be years away. Galaxy announced a separate $5 million commitment to Bitcoin post-quantum development work two days before the launch, leaving open whether that amount is included in the consortium’s aggregate $15 million figure.