Bitcoin Should Prepare Before Q-Day, Not After

The Bitcoin network's decentralized governance means protocol upgrades take years from proposal to activation. If the community waits until a credible quantum threat is demonstrated before beginning the migration to post-quantum signatures, the timeline will be dangerously compressed.

Individual holders do not need to wait for protocol changes. The most effective defenses — never reusing addresses, sweeping exposed UTXOs to fresh SegWit addresses, and using multisig configurations — are available today with existing wallets and cost almost nothing in transaction fees.

The prudent approach treats quantum preparation as insurance, not prediction. The cost of preparing is minimal. The cost of being caught exposed is potentially total.