Elon Musk has backed a fringe physics theory that says quantum computers can only grow so big. Crypto traders turned his five word reply into proof that Bitcoin (BTC) is already safe from them.
But it is not proof. The theory comes from Oxford physicist Tim Palmer, predicting that quantum machines stall somewhere between 200 and 400 qubits.
What Musk Actually Said
Musk was not talking about Bitcoin. On August 29, he replied to an Institute of Art and Ideas post about Palmer’s work.
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He agreed the universe comes in fixed chunks. He said nothing about private keys or Bitcoin’s quantum problem. Investor Fred Krueger cited him a day later anyway, under the headline that Bitcoin is already quantum-safe.
“Bitcoin may already be quantum-safe…The latest estimates require at least 835 logical qubits to break Bitcoin’s signatures with Shor’s algorithm…Elon Musk and Steve Jurvetson have commented positively on this research,” he said.
The Physicist Behind the Theory
Palmer’s credentials are real, though they sit outside this field. He is a Royal Society fellow, elected in 2003, and spent his career building weather forecasting models at Oxford.
His paper ran in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in March. It argues nature contains no smooth continuum, so entanglement eventually hits a wall.
Palmer puts that wall at 200 to 400 qubits on current hardware, and says it will never pass 1,000. Ordinary quantum theory sets no such limit, which leaves him in a minority until a machine proves him right.
The Gap Nobody Can Close Yet
Cracking Bitcoin’s signatures takes an estimated 835 logical qubits. A July study by Han Luo and colleagues cut that from earlier figures of 1,098 and 1,175. Those shrinking qubit estimates are the part worth watching.
The hardware is nowhere near either number. IBM plans a machine with 200 logical qubits by 2029. That would test Palmer’s floor. It would not touch Bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s price action has ignored the argument, with BTC near $78,449 after a 1.17% daily gain.
Developers are not waiting for physics either, and a post-quantum migration proposal is already circulating. The real test arrives around 2029.
Bitrue