For 30 years, quantum computing was 5 years away. That was the joke. The joke just ended. Quantum is not a faster computer. It is a lockpick in a lab coat: the machine that simulates a cancer cure picks the lock on every bank, every wallet, every secret you ever encrypted. McKinsey and Deloitte hide inside a decade-wide range. I name 2030.
2 moments. 2030: quantum crosses from lab to leverage, the first fault-tolerant machines arrive, re-encryption becomes law. 2035: quantum creates $1 trillion in value, McKinsey's high end at $2.7 trillion. Q-Day, the day a quantum machine cracks the encryption guarding the internet, lands between 2030 and 2033.
The receipts. Google's cost to break RSA-2048 fell 20-fold in 6 years and it now prices breaking Bitcoin at under 500,000 qubits. Neutral-atom machines made 2026 their breakout year. The NSA set January 2027 as its quantum-safe deadline, NIST bans old encryption by 2035, the EU wants critical infrastructure safe by 2030. Up to 35% of all Bitcoin sits in exposed addresses, Satoshi's 1.1 million coins included, and BlackRock wrote quantum risk into its Bitcoin ETF filing while the influencers shouted number-go-up.
The tell is the money. Jensen Huang called quantum 15 to 30 years away in January 2025 and wiped $8 billion off the sector in a day. By 2026 he was funding it. Everyone times the hardware. I time the fear, and fear arrives before the machine. Encrypt like it is already too late. For everything you sent before today, it is.
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