Is XRP Safer Than Bitcoin? This Analyst Explains The Real Quantum Risk For Holders

Experts say XRP’s design leaves a smaller share of its supply exposed to a potential quantum attack than Bitcoin.

An Armor Against Quantum Attacks?

Following the recent spike of the crypto quantum-panic or “quantum FUD” (fear, uncertainty and doubt) after Google’s “doomsday” whitepaper, many crypto developers are analysts have taken into the job of running tests to make sure their coins are safe. Others are already writing up safety post-quantum protocols and proofs.

Vet, XRP Ledger dUNL validator and long‑time XRPL contributor, shared on a post on the social network X the belief that XRP’s underlying architecture is more favorably positioned against a possible quantum threat than Bitcoin’s.

In short: it’s because of how keys and accounts are handled on XRPL.

XRP’s Quantum Armor Explained

The core risk that quantum computers pose and that has a lot of people on crypto very concerned is that, in theory, a future quantum computer could derive the private key that gets revealed once a wallet sends a transaction, thus making possible to drain all the wallet’s funds.

However, Vet’s “quick XRP acc quantum vulnerability check” revealed that roughly 300,000 XRP accounts holding about 2.4 billion XRP have never sent funds, so their public keys are unexposed and “quantum‑safe by default.

According to the XRPL validator, there are only two long‑dormant XRP whale accounts, together holding around 21 million XRP, whose public key is currently exposed. The holdings of these accounts represent just about 0.03% of the circulating supply, a rounding error next to the network’s total float (circulating supply is around 61 billion XRP as of early April 2026, according to Coinglass data).

XRPL’s account‑based model allows signing key rotation without moving funds, and escrow/timelock tools can keep tokens locked behind conditions, giving holders more options to harden security ahead of any quantum breakthrough.

On the flip side, in Bitcoin the early P2PK outputs and exposed public keys leave an estimated 11%–37% of BTC potentially vulnerable in a future quantum scenario. This includes Satoshi‑era coins that can’t just rotate keys.

Therefore, despite Ripple and Bitcoin’s approach to quantum resistance being very similar, their stances on dormant whale wallets diverges, simply because almost none exist on XRP.

Vet closes the post with calming words directed to XRP holders:

The immediate takeaway for XRP holders is that on‑chain data and XRPL’s toolset point to a relatively contained attack surface, especially for active users who can rotate keys ahead of time.

The quantum debate is turning into a new risk‑pricing vector between Bitcoin and high‑cap altcoins. If that narrative sticks, any progress on XRPL’s fully quantum‑resistant testnets or mainnet upgrades could become a fresh catalyst in the next security‑driven rotation.

Cover image from Perplexity. XRPUSD chart from Tradingview.