Capriol Investments, an investment and financial analysis firm, estimates that the “quantum discount factor” in Bitcoin’s fair value has already reached 20%, given the nearness of so-called Q-day, when quantum computers will break the code of the current Bitcoin network.
Company founder Charles Edwards estimates that this risk justifies reducing the fair theoretical price of $120,000 per Bitcoin to $96,000, according to his Bitcoin Energy Value Model, which measures the energy invested in mining.
“Bitcoin’s fair value should fall by 20% today,” the report states. Company information published on February 20, 2026.
Edwards said that without advances in resilient code, This discount will double to 40% in 2027 and reach 60% in 2028.Because, according to their estimates, updates to the Bitcoin network will take about two years for most users. The focus is on vulnerabilities in Bitcoin’s signature algorithm, ECDSA, which requires approximately 2,300 logical qubits to defeat Scholl’s algorithm.
For Edwards, Quantum risk is the main reason for Bitcoin’s poor performance During the last year:
The reason for Bitcoin’s poor performance in 2025 is that Bitcoin has entered the “quantum event horizon.” This is the period during which the time it takes for Bitcoin’s quantum disruption threat to cease to be zero is approximately the same as the time it would take to upgrade Bitcoin to quantum-proof (approximately two years). For this very reason, Bitcoin began to underperform against all other risk assets and stores of value such as gold, and was seen to decline until 2025.
Charles Edwards is the CEO of investment firm Capriol.
General background of quantum advances
Around the world, quantum computers are advancing faster than Moore’s law, with qubits doubling every 18 months. Companies like Google and Quantinuum plan to reach 50 logical qubits in 2025 and are already operating in clouds like AWS and Azure.
Capriole’s report states that 60% of experts predict Q-Day will arrive before 2030, which will affect not only Bitcoin but also cryptocurrencies based on elliptic curves. In Europe, the European Central Bank discusses quantum risks in its 2025 report, and BlackRock warns about this threat in its Bitcoin ETF.
If Moore’s Law has worked flawlessly for a century, and quantum computing shows no signs of slowing down or foreseeable technological failures, why can’t we expect this trend to continue in the future as well?
Charles Edwards is the CEO of investment firm Capriol.
Main background of Bitcoin
Bitcoin took early steps against this risk. As reported by CriptoNoticias, the BIP360 proposal for anti-quantum addresses was consolidated in February 2026. This is an advance that is directly relevant to the current discussion.
Previously, in January 2026, Nick Carter criticized the “slow pace” of developers towards quantum computing. In addition, strategic director Michael Saylor announced that his company is leading quantum defense and estimates the risk to be 10 to 20 years, but would like an update.
Charles Edwards recognizes the progress, but assures us that it is not happening in the time needed.
Bitcoin updates are slow. Code changes must be filtered through the core Bitcoin developer team, tested, improved, reach consensus, deployed, and accepted by nodes, exchanges, and miners to achieve user migration. This distributed process makes approving, implementing, and using new code a painstaking task. While this is often beneficial to preserving Bitcoin’s value (such as the principle of a fixed supply of 21 million coins that are considered “hard money”), in the age of quantum computing there is no luxury of time.
Charles Edwards is the CEO of investment firm Capriol.
Industry reaction and outlook
Capriol’s report sparked debate. On the social network, however, CoinShares claims that only 10,200 BTC, less than 0.05% of the supply, faces immediate and real risk, and that the alarm is overblown.
These disagreements have fueled debate about a “dead man’s switch” that would freeze vulnerable funds like Satoshi Nakamoto’s, while the possibility of a hard fork of the Bitcoin network remains controversial.
In all this, it’s worth clarifying the following: Capriole is not a neutral player in this “game” And they may have some interest in promoting the idea of Bitcoin’s impending quantum risk.
As revealed by CriptoNoticias, remember: The company creates the Quantum Stock Indexprovides protection against Bitcoin’s decline, which is a product of quantum risk.
However, it is far from fulfilling its role as protection.Quantum Computing Stocks Show Strong Correlation with Bitcoinaccording to NYDIG exchange analysis.
