The other ‘crypto’ that Miami founders need to care about

By Rebecca Krauthamer / CEO of QuSecure

When I talk about “crypto” among other founders and operators in Miami’s blockchain-heavy tech community, I often have to clarify that I don’t work in cryptocurrency. I work in the other crypto: cryptography.

Then, sometimes the audience completely tunes out. I get it. Cryptography and cybersecurity can seem pretty dull compared to the possibilities of web3, and in fact, many founders I’ve talked to even think that blockchain technology is advanced enough to render classical cryptography irrelevant.

But I want Miami tech to hear me out: You should be caring about cryptography, too. Because you probably aren’t ready for what’s coming.

What’s coming are quantum attacks. Late last month, Google announced that it has shortened its timeline for readying itself against an attack by a quantum computer that’s capable of breaking all current encryption systems. The company accompanied its research with additional detail about quantum threats; specifically, it revealed that their scientists now expect that the encryption systems that protect the world’s bitcoin can be broken with 20 times fewer resources than previously thought.

When I first started helping organizations think seriously about post-quantum migration in 2021, the shorthand was that this threat sat somewhere out near 20 million physical qubits. Now one recent paper suggests that, under specific assumptions, the number could be as low as 10,000. Google now plans to be ready for this quantum attack by 2029, a half dozen years earlier than many in the industry thought. Other tech giants like Cloudflare are now saying they plan to adopt Google’s new timeline.

The quantum threat matters because it puts pressure on that invisible layer of trust that underpins everything we do: the expectation and assumption that certain things in our lives are inevitably private, from bank transfers to passwords to health records. A powerful enough quantum computer could destroy that trust in minutes. More importantly, this is not a risk that begins only on the day of some dramatic breakthrough. Sensitive data can be stolen now, stored quietly, and decrypted later. The choices organizations make today may determine whether our most sensitive data is still protected years from now.

This should resonate in Miami, with our global tech leadership not just in blockchain and digital assets but also in fintech more broadly. The quantum threat goes to the core of wallet security, transaction authorization, and digital ownership itself. Every institution holding valuable data should be paying attention. If you’re in blockchain, that includes you.

Now, maybe you’re wondering: What can my company do now?

Changing encryption across a real organization is rarely simple. It reaches into legacy systems, outside vendors, procurement cycles, compliance obligations, internal processes, and products that were never designed to be easy to change. That’s because much of our infrastructure was built on the assumption that cryptography would remain relatively stable.

But it won’t.

The recent attention around Claude Mythos isn’t directly about quantum, but it’s relevant. Threats are becoming more adaptive, faster-moving, and harder to defend with static systems. On one side, quantum research is making old assumptions feel less durable. On the other, AI is making threats more dynamic. Put those two developments together and the message becomes difficult to ignore: Security systems that take years to change every time the world shifts are not built for the environment we are entering.

That is where crypto-agility comes in. We need security systems that can evolve alongside threats, not ones that force institutions to rebuild everything from scratch each time standards shift or risks change. The good news is we have the solution. Post-quantum cryptography exists today, and you don’t need a quantum computer or Ph.D-level expertise to adopt it. This is great news, because your average Miami founder does not have an advanced degree in mathematics. (I don’t, for one.)

The problem is that too much of the business world, even in forward-thinking sectors like blockchain, has lacked urgency and discipline to retrofit the systems that are already collecting, transmitting, and protecting our data. And this is now a liability. If you’re in any sector of tech where a lot of money changes hands, including blockchain, you’re going to start getting asked by customers, investors, and partners whether you have a credible post-quantum migration plan. You’re going to need to prove you have these systems, and that they can adapt rather than become brittle every time the environment changes.

The headlines of the past month, from Google to Cloudflare, did not give us a perfectly certain timetable. But they did give us something more useful: a reminder that the assumptions that once made a “wait-and-see” approach to quantum feel safe are getting weaker, while the responsibility to act is getting harder to avoid.

Rebecca Krauthamer is co-founder and CEO of QuSecure, a company at the forefront of post-quantum cryptography solutions. She serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Quantum Computing and has earned a place on Forbes’ “30 Under 30 in Science” list and Inc.’s Female Founder 500 list. Now based in Miami, she is a graduate of Stanford University with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems.