Nine Firms Pledge $15 Million to New Bitcoin Security Consortium

Overview

• The Bitcoin Security Consortium launched on July 23 with nine founding members pledging a combined $15 million over three years to fund long‑term Bitcoin security work.
• The group named post‑quantum cryptography as its immediate priority, aiming to protect Bitcoin from future quantum computers that researchers warn could one day break current elliptic‑curve signatures.
• Founding firms will allocate their pledged money independently rather than into a central grant pool, so each company will choose which developers or projects to fund.
• Mike Schmidt, executive director at Brink, will coordinate the consortium’s day‑to‑day activities on a volunteer basis and the group says it will not develop or govern Bitcoin’s protocol.
• The consortium joins Galaxy’s separate $5 million readiness program and recent U.S. post‑quantum timetables, and the combined push could speed tools and audits that exchanges, custodians and long‑term holders need to migrate exposed addresses over years.