When Bitcoin briefly dipped below $100,000 before dawn this week, the usual chorus began. Headlines whispered, “It’s over.” Social feeds erupted with fresh panic about quantum computing, predicting that machines of the future would crack Bitcoin’s cryptography and erase trillions.
By sunrise, Bitcoin had already bounced back to $104,000. So, what really happened? Not an apocalypse, but a reminder that the world’s oldest digital asset still moves on human emotion and algorithmic precision, not science fiction.
The Quantum scare that refuses to die
Every few years, a new apocalypse story sweeps through crypto. This time, it’s quantum computing, the supposed boogeyman that will “crack Bitcoin by 2027” and “erase trillions in crypto wealth.” The claim sounds cinematic, but the math simply doesn’t hold up.
To hack a single Bitcoin private key, a quantum computer would need over 13 million error-corrected qubits. Today’s most advanced prototypes barely reach 1,300 unstable qubits, incapable of sustaining a calculation for more than a second.
As Davide Oral, a C-level executive at KuCoin, told AltCoinDesk, “People underestimate how far real quantum computing still is. The technology is promising, but it’s nowhere near the point of breaking Bitcoin, not even in theory.”
Meanwhile, the Bitcoin developer community isn’t just waiting. Quantum-resistant algorithms have already been approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and BIP-360 introduces quantum-safe address types that let vulnerable wallets migrate securely. Bitcoin, in other words, is evolving faster than the threat.
The real danger isn’t quantum computing; it’s the fear itself. Panic-driven narratives spread faster than innovation, distorting public understanding while developers quietly future-proof the network. As Oral aptly put it, “Bitcoin won’t die from quantum threats; it will outpace them like it always has.”
The $100k liquidity trap
Between 4:30 and 5:30 AM UTC, Bitcoin slipped under the $100K mark. At first glance, it looked like a mini-crash. But zoom in, and the pattern reveals a liquidity flush, not a loss of faith. Derivatives data shows over $180 million in long liquidations within 20 minutes, as automated sell orders triggered below $101K. Minutes later, the price shot back to $103K, driven by whale accumulation and algorithmic re-entry.
In short: the dip was engineered, not organic. Market makers hunted leveraged positions, absorbed supply, and reset the market. By the time the U.S. trading day began, Bitcoin was already stabilizing at $104K with a $2.07 trillion market cap and a 9.8% surge in volume.
That’s not panic; that’s orchestration.
Altcoins still follow the king
To understand how this affects the broader market, I reached out to Davide Oral, a C-level executive at KuCoin, for an insider’s view.
His response was both direct and telling:
“When BTC dips, all the altcoins dip even more based on their market cap. Ethereum and Solana usually drop less than smaller alts like Cardano. The biggest drops are almost always in low-cap and meme coins.”
That single line captures the market’s hierarchy. Bitcoin leads. The rest follow in varying degrees of pain. When Bitcoin sneezes, smaller tokens catch the flu. It’s not manipulation; it’s liquidity gravity. The higher the risk, the deeper the drawdown.
Evolution is the real constant
The broader truth here is timeless. Bitcoin doesn’t die; it adapts.
Every so-called “end” of Bitcoin has been a mirage:
- 2013, when Mt. Gox collapsed.
- 2018, when ICOs imploded.
- In 2022, when FTX fell.
Each time, the same script played out: panic, adaptation, rebound.
This quantum panic is just the latest iteration. But beneath it lies the same resilience that keeps Bitcoin standing. Developers innovate faster than fear spreads. Institutional capital returns when volatility clears. The network absorbs every blow and grows stronger from it.
The bottom line
Bitcoin’s brief fall below $100K wasn’t the start of its collapse; it was the system recalibrating. The quantum computing threat is still decades away. The real risk lies in misinformation that amplifies fear faster than facts can travel. As of November 5, 2025, CoinMarketCap data showed BTC trading at $104,372 with a $2.07 trillion market cap
As Davide Oral put it, altcoins will keep dancing to Bitcoin’s rhythm. But Bitcoin itself will keep doing what it’s done for sixteen years: evolve, recover, and rewrite the rules of money one block at a time. And if history is any guide, the next time someone says “it’s over for Bitcoin,” it’s probably just getting started.
