El Salvador has revised the way he stores the country’s bitcoin, claiming that change strengthens security today and is preparing for technological risks that could emerge in the future.
On Friday, in an ad, the Bitcoin office said that the country’s entire reserve had been moved from a single portfolio and spread over many new ones. Each portfolio will not hold more than 500 BTC, a limit intended to reduce potential damage if one of them was never compromised.
Managers have described the new configuration as according to the practices of the established industry while also anticipating the progress of quantum computer science. The quantum machines, they have noted, could one day break the cryptographic mathematics which secure Bitcoin, as well as daily systems such as bank, emails and online communications.
The concern arises when the documents are spent. To move Bitcoin, the digital signature protecting these funds must be revealed on the blockchain. Today, it is sure, but in theory, a future quantum computer could use the information exposed to calculate the private key and steal the parts before confirmation of the transaction.
By moving parts in many unused wallets, El Salvador reduces the risk that his reserve is found with too many keys exposed at the same time. Most of its assets remain locked behind information that cannot be attacked today, and the cap in the size of each wallet means that even a breach would not put the whole reserve in danger.
The government also admitted that its previous configuration – keeping everything in a single address for transparency – has created an unnecessary exhibition. This address was used several times, which meant that its keys were visible on the blockchain almost continuously. In the new model, a public dashboard allows anyone to follow the reserve through several portfolios, preserving responsibility without repeatedly reuse the same address.
In clear terms, the change is like withdrawing money from a giant safe and in a series of smaller safes. The locks on these chests remain hidden until they are open, and no safe contains too much money.
Beyond the quantum angle, this also aligns with the household maintenance of the basic bitcoin. Experienced users often warn against the reuse of the same wallet over and over again, because it weakens confidentiality and security. They also recommend dividing large sales into small pieces, which limits the fallout in the event of a problem.
This is why Adam Back, one of the first Bitcoin pioneers and the CEO of Blockstream, praised the change. Writing on X, he said that it was “generally a good practice” to divide the funds into many parts – called utxos in Bitcoin jargon – rather than stacking them in a single place and reuse the same address.
Back, who invented the hashcash of the work proof system which inspired Bitcoin and was cited by Satoshi Nakamoto, did not directly weigh the quantum argument. Instead, his comment underlined that El Salvador’s new approach reflects the principles recognized for a long time as best practices in the world of Bitcoin.
Most researchers believe that quantum computers powerful enough to threaten Bitcoin are still a decade or more, and the network could possibly adopt new protections if necessary. But El Salvador does not wait.
By combining transparency with a more resilient storage model, the country has positioned itself as a test case for the way in which Bitcoin reserves could be managed in the future – defining a potential plan that others could follow.
