Bitcoin and Ethereum face 2029 deadline as U.S. funds quantum hardware

Washington just put $300 million behind the race to build fault-tolerant quantum computers, turning a distant academic threat into a ticking clock for digital assets. Experts are circling 2029 as the year hardware might finally crack the ECDSA encryption protecting your private keys. If Bitcoin and Ethereum don't migrate to post-quantum signatures before then, any dormant wallet becomes a public target. Developers aren't sitting still. The Ethereum Research team is already auditing lattice-based cryptography, while Bitcoin core contributors debate how to implement soft forks that won't bloat the blockchain's size. It's a high-stakes game of leapfrog between government-funded physicists and decentralized coders. While the White House views this as a national security priority, the crypto industry sees it as a fight for survival. Will the network upgrades be ready before the first quantum machine attempts to sign a transaction it doesn't own?