Europol warns crypto wallets are the weak spot for future quantum attacks

Europol has a message for the crypto industry: the lock on your wallet might not survive the next generation of computers. On October 7, 2026, the European Union’s law enforcement agency published two reports through its European Cybercrime Centre (EC3). Both point to crypto wallets as the primary vulnerability point if quantum computing matures into a practical attack tool. The agency’s advice is simple to state and hard to execute. Start the transition to quantum-resistant cryptography now, not when the threat arrives. What Europol actually flagged Today’s cryptography assumes nobody can work backward from a public key to forge the private key. Classical computers would need absurd amounts of time to try. Europol’s concern is that advanced quantum computers could change that math. The reports explain that such machines could potentially run algorithms like Shor’s to deduce private keys from public keys that have been exposed. Shor’s algorithm is a quantum method for solving the kind of math problems that underpin much of modern public-key cryptography. If someone can derive your private key, they can sign transactions as you. Without robust cryptographic protections in place, Eur...