MARA Foundation to fund quantum-resistant Bitcoin tools

On Monday, MARA CEO Peter Thiel announced the formation of the nonprofit MARA Foundation. The organization will fund research and development to support Bitcoin’s long-term health, including work on post-quantum (PQ) wallets and proposals such as BIP-360.

The foundation said it will prioritize free and open-source development of Bitcoin technologies and support projects that strengthen protocol resilience and broaden access to self-custody tools. MARA is a major bitcoin miner by hashpower and is among the largest corporate holders of bitcoin; the foundation was presented as part of the firm’s effort to prepare the network for long-term risks and expand education globally.

On its website, the foundation highlighted quantum computing as a research focus and wrote, “Quantum computing is not an immediate threat to Bitcoin. But because the network evolves deliberately and upgrades take time, early preparation matters.”

The announcement explained the technical concern in simple terms: some quantum machines could eventually break the elliptic curve cryptography used to derive private keys from exposed public keys. The practical risk applies mainly to addresses that have already revealed their public keys, such as reused addresses or some early wallets. Estimates vary for how many bitcoins could be affected.

The foundation will also direct resources to Bitcoin’s longer-term funding for security, often called the security budget. That budget equals the economic incentives paid to miners: the current block subsidy combined with transaction fees. The announcement noted the current mining subsidy is 3.25 BTC per block and emphasized supporting a healthy fee market as the subsidy halves roughly every four years and declines toward zero.

The foundation described additional work on multilingual education programs, wider distribution of self-custodial tools and advocacy aimed at policymakers and activists. Organizers plan to fund open-source projects and outreach intended to increase informed use of Bitcoin in different regions.

MARA’s announcement comes as the Bitcoin community debates how to balance present development priorities with longer-term cryptographic and funding concerns. The foundation’s stated activities include technical research, developer support and policy outreach to address those specific areas.