Nine major financial companies and Bitcoin businesses have created a new group to help improve Bitcoin's long-term security. The announcement came from Strategy, the biggest corporate holder of bitcoin.

The new organization, called the Bitcoin Security Consortium, has pledged a total of $15 million over the next three years to support Bitcoin developers and security researchers.

The founding members are Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, Galaxy and Strategy. The group says its main goal is to help protect the Bitcoin network, especially from possible future threats such as quantum computing.

Instead of putting the $15 million into one shared fund, each company will choose for itself which developers, researchers or organizations it wants to support. The consortium says it will not control how Bitcoin is developed or try to influence decisions about changes to the network.

The group's daily work will be led by Mike Schmidt, the executive director of the nonprofit organization Brink. Schmidt will coordinate the consortium as a volunteer while continuing his work at Brink. Schmidt explained why he accepted the role:

The consortium says it wants to support Bitcoin in the same way many companies support open-source software. It will provide funding and share information, but it will not control the developers or decide how Bitcoin should change.

The group also made it clear that Bitcoin will continue to be developed by its global community of contributors.

One of the consortium's biggest goals is to prepare Bitcoin for the possible impact of quantum computers. These powerful computers do not exist yet, but experts believe they could one day become strong enough to break the cryptography that protects Bitcoin wallets.

Experts do not agree on when that could happen. Some believe it could take decades, while others think Bitcoin should begin preparing within the next few years. Even if the threat is still far away, many researchers believe work should start now because upgrading Bitcoin's security could take a long time.

Several ideas are already being discussed. One proposal, called BIP 360, would help reduce the risk of exposed public keys. Developers are also studying new digital signature methods that are designed to resist attacks from future quantum computers.

Some research suggests that about 6.9 million bitcoin could be at risk if quantum computers become powerful enough. Other estimates say that between 20% and 50% of all bitcoin could eventually be exposed, mainly because many older wallets use security methods that are less protected against future quantum attacks.

The consortium says it will not choose which technical solution Bitcoin should use. Instead, it plans to support the researchers already working on these problems and provide clear information about their progress.

Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock's Global Head of Digital Assets, praised the work of Bitcoin's developers.

He said, "Bitcoin Core developers do incredibly important work, and we're pleased that our firm and the others in this group will now be making significant additional funding available to support Bitcoin's long-term security needs."

Strategy CEO Phong Le said the company believes supporting Bitcoin developers is the right thing to do because Strategy is a long-term Bitcoin holder.

He added, "As long-term holders, we have every incentive to see Bitcoin remain secure for generations. Funding the people who do this work, and helping inform the conversation around it, is a natural way for us to contribute."