Entrokey Labs: The three-pronged existential threat crypto faces today

Bitcoin changed how we define money. It built a trillion-dollar network from proof-of-work and elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). The price of the king of cryptocurrencies has risen from a mere $0.05 per BTC in the early 2010s to an all-time high of $123,000 on July 14, 2021.

Today, it hovers just around the $118,000 mark with a market capitalisation of $2.5 trillion, ranking remarkably in sixth place as the most valuable asset on Earth, preceded only by Amazon (5th), Apple(4th), Microsoft (3rd), Nvidia (2nd), and Gold (1st).

The brilliant combination of math and decentralisation made it powerful. It brought in everyone from crypto diehards to BlackRock. But none of that will matter if the three-pronged existential threat Entrokey Labs’ co-founders have discovered is not addressed immediately. 

And that threat is represented by quantum computing, which could sooner than experts want to believe hit full stride. And if you add that lethal advent, the present risks, flawed entropy and AI already represent, you have a recipe for global disaster.

Breaking down the 3-pronged threat

Eric Dresdale and David Harding, co-founders at Entrokey Labs, break this down for greater clarity in an exclusive interview with viraltrendingcontent. They explain that quantum computing threatens cryptography because of its ability to solve the most complex mathematical problems in seconds, making it capable of breaking widely used algorithms, such as RSA and ECC. 

AI amplifies the risks by analysing troves of datasets to detect patterns in cryptographic systems, and it has the ability to exploit human implementation errors, said David and Eric, who have ingeniously developed the software tools to safeguard our computers and even national security against AI and Quantum Computing threats. 

And there’s “flawed entropy,” says David, the CEO of Entrokey Labs and former General Manager at Cardano’s Atala PRISM, a sovereign digital identity platform. “It compounds the threats of AI and Quantum Computing by creating vulnerabilities or weaknesses in key generations and encryption.”

Dresdale, the president of Entrokey Labs, added to Harding’s explanation:  “The three threats making systems easier to crack. “Together, the three threats David and I have mentioned could very well undermine the security of cryptocurrencies, networks, and all digital systems. They can lead to data breaches, financial losses, and compromise everybody’s privacy on a global scale.”

Harding and Dresdale confirm what’s been warned before. Quantum computers have the potential to rip through Bitcoin’s cryptography in five years or less. They won’t just threaten wallets; they’ll rattle investor confidence and could destroy trust in the entire ecosystem. BlackRock’s recent Bitcoin ETF filing makes it clear: quantum computing can “wreck the cryptographic foundation” of the network.

Q-day is now

“Are you ready for Q-Day? Do you even know what Q-Day is? If you don’t, you’re sleepwalking into a digital apocalypse that’s not coming—it’s already here,” David Carvalho, founder and CEO and chief Scientist at Naoris Protocol, recently wrote.

Q-Day isn’t some distant theoretical event, he added. “While your most powerful supercomputer would need billions of years to crack modern encryption that currently secures crypto wallets, blockchains, digital banking assets, and WhatsApp chats, a quantum computer could do it over lunch.”

SHA-256 is not the issue

While many in crypto still firmly believe in SHA-256, a widely used cryptographic hash function, including in bitcoin, remains robust, it faces potential vulnerabilities if and when hackers decide to combine quantum computing, flawed entropy, and AI to breach, enter and exit with stolen millions.

“But SHA256 isn’t the issue,” says Harding. “It’s key exposure that’s killing us. Reused addresses, weak entropy in hardware wallets, and poor randomness on embedded devices have already led to stolen Bitcoin.” He also says, “AI supercharges the ability to find those cracks at scale. Waiting for Quantum to break SHA misses the real-time breach unfolding now.”

Dresdale agrees, saying that “Most people betting on SHA256’s timeline are ignoring the real problem, the key layer. AI can already identify reused nonces, flawed entropy, or careless wallet implementations, and quantum will obliterate what’s left.

“We don’t need a theoretical future threat to act; we’re already under attack by faster, smarter pattern seekers,” he warns.

Sledgehammer, lockpick and a solution

Harding puts it bluntly for anybody to understand: “Quantum is the sledgehammer, but AI is the lockpick. Every flawed wallet, every weak entropy source, every sloppy key reuse becomes a high-value target.”

Recently, Jean-Michel Azzoppardi, cybersecurity expert and fintech consultant, told viraltrendingcontent that, “AI has introduced a new paradigm in cybersecurity, given the fact that generative AI is easily accessible. Tools which were once only in the possession of governments and big tech are now in the hands of ordinary people. By definition, that creates an incentive for abuse.

Entrokey Labs, for example, has a groundbreaking software-only solution that addresses the $100 trillion global problem of transitioning to post-quantum cryptography, eliminating the need for costly hardware replacements, saving billions of dollars in money and time, said Dresdale and Harding.

By leveraging a high-entropy random number generator and a unique entropy calculator with advanced AI-driven pattern recognition, EKL produces quantum- and AI-proof keys in seconds, validated through eight computational measurements, far surpassing NIST’s two statistical standards, they added.

No need to break BTC to cause a crisis

Although it does not address the same concerns in its latest Half-Year Web3 Security Report, to which viraltrendingcontent got a first glance, blockchain security firm Hacken does lay bare the compounding impact of human fallibility, smart contract flaws, and AI-driven exploits that led web3 to lose more $3.1 billion to hacks and cybersecurity breaches, much more than in the first halft of 2025 than in all of 2024.

“2025 has been a wake-up call,” said Yevheniia Broshevan, co-founder of Hacken. “Cybersecurity is no longer just a tech issue; it’s a business enabler. When projects integrate operational resilience and invest in security, they don’t just reduce risk, they build trust and protect innovation.”

These are the threats we face now, not a decade from now, Harding and Dresdale agree, while urging the web3 community not to continue putting off addressing these security threats. Plus, they said, you don’t really need to break Bitcoin itself to cause a crisis.

“If AI or quantum attacks start compromising wallets, exchanges, or custodians, the result is the same: panic, loss of trust, and a run for the exits. Perception is security in crypto, and it is more fragile than people think,” the founders of Entrokey Labs, who have developed an agile software-only solution to the three-pronged threat, concluded.