[Digital Today reporter Jinju Hong] Christopher Wood, Jefferies' global head of equity strategy and a long-time bitcoin bull, has removed bitcoin (BTC) entirely from his model portfolio, citing quantum computing risk.

On Jan. 16 local time, blockchain outlet The Block reported that Wood said he eliminated the 10 percent bitcoin allocation he had kept for the past five years in the 'GREED & Fear' model portfolio. He reallocated it to physical gold and gold mining stocks, at 5 percent each. Wood said bitcoin's cryptographic security could be threatened over the long term by quantum computing, calling it an "existential threat" to its premise as a store of value.

Wood said quantum issues were unlikely to deliver a fatal shock to bitcoin's price in the short term. But he said that from the perspective of long-term investment portfolios such as pensions, the store-of-value argument for bitcoin now rests on a less solid foundation than before. He made clear it was a judgment from a long-term asset allocation perspective rather than a short-term speculative view.

He is one of the early institutional strategists who included bitcoin in portfolios as digital gold. During the COVID-19 pandemic, as institutional custody infrastructure was put in place amid large-scale monetary easing, he adopted bitcoin as an alternative to gold, citing its fixed supply and structural scarcity, including the end of mining in 2140.

But that premise is now being reconsidered. Citing research by Chaincode Labs, Wood said 4 million to 10 million BTC, or 20 to 50 percent of the total circulating bitcoin supply, could be vulnerable to quantum-based key-extraction attacks. He said exchange wallets and institutional custody wallets that frequently reuse addresses are exposed to the greatest risk.

Industry vigilance over the quantum computing threat is also strengthening quickly. Microsoft’s 'Majorana 1' quantum chip has been assessed as a technology that could bring forward the point at which existing public-key cryptography could be neutralised, highlighting again the possibility of a so-called 'Q-Day'.

Major institutions such as Coinbase and BlackRock are also reflecting the risk in official documents. BlackRock specified quantum computing risk in the prospectus for the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF in 2025, and Coinbase also warned that a significant portion of bitcoin supply is exposed to potential risk.

Security startups and governments are also moving in response. Large-scale investment is continuing in security projects aimed at countering quantum threats, and El Salvador has pursued stronger security by spreading its bitcoin holdings across multiple addresses. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has also stressed that blockchains that can survive over the long term must have resilience against quantum attacks.