So here’s a plot twist nobody saw coming in 2026: one of Wall Street’s biggest Bitcoin cheerleaders just rage-quit crypto. Christopher Wood from Jefferies—who’s been riding the Bitcoin wave for five years—just dumped his entire stash and went full gold bug. His reason? Quantum computers are coming for Bitcoin’s lunch money.
Now before you roll your eyes and mutter “another crypto doomsday story,” hear me out. Wood isn’t some random Twitter prophet predicting the apocalypse. This guy’s been bullish on Bitcoin since it was trading for the price of a decent dinner, and he just walked away from a 5-10% portfolio allocation because he thinks the party’s over.
Here’s the deal: Bitcoin’s security is basically a really, really hard math problem. Like, “would take regular computers trillions of years to solve” hard. Your Bitcoin wallet has two keys—a public one (think of it as your address) and a private one (your secret password). The magic happens because it’s virtually impossible to figure out the private key from the public one.
Enter quantum computers, or more specifically, CRQCs (Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computers). These aren’t your garden-variety supercomputers—they’re like bringing a lightsaber to a knife fight. While today’s computers would need until the heat death of the universe to crack Bitcoin’s code, a CRQC could potentially do it in hours or days. It’s like having a master key to every Bitcoin wallet ever created.
The scary part? A study from ChainCode Labs suggests that up to 10 million Bitcoin—that’s half of all the Bitcoin that exists—could be sitting ducks for these quantum monsters. We’re talking about potentially vulnerable coins that some crypto folks are already suggesting should be “burned” (permanently destroyed) to protect the network.
Now, CRQCs don’t exist yet, so we’re not talking about an immediate threat. But Wood’s point is solid: if you’re managing a pension fund or thinking long-term, do you really want to bet on an asset that might have a built-in expiration date?
His solution? Go old school with gold. Wood swapped his Bitcoin allocation for a hefty 45% in physical gold and 25% in gold mining stocks. It’s like trading your Tesla for a horse—less flashy, but it’ll definitely get you where you’re going.
The irony is delicious. Bitcoin was supposed to be digital gold, the ultimate store of value for the internet age. But when push comes to shove and the quantum boogeyman starts looking real, even the crypto bulls are running back to the shiny rocks our ancestors hoarded.
Bitcoin hit $126,000 last year, and Wood thinks that was the peak. Whether he’s right or just spooked by sci-fi scenarios remains to be seen. But when a five-year Bitcoin believer starts stockpiling gold because of computers that don’t exist yet, maybe it’s worth paying attention.
After all, in the world of investing, paranoia and preparation often look remarkably similar.