“We will see Bitcoin disappear within five to ten years due to quantum computing”
Qbeat Ventures co-founder Dorit Dor made the prediction at EY’s Journey conference, where Israeli tech and investment executives also forecast AI judges, a new wave of technology giants and major changes to healthcare and financial markets.
“We will see Bitcoin disappear within five to ten years due to quantum computing,” predicted Dr. Dorit Dor, co-founder of Qbeat Ventures, at EY’s Journey conference this week. Her forecast was among the more striking predictions offered by a panel of senior executives from Israel’s technology and economic sectors, who looked ahead to a future shaped by AI judges, a new generation of technology giants and the emergence of trillion-dollar companies.
Every year, consulting firm EY concludes its Journey conference with a panel attempting to predict the distant future. This year’s discussion was moderated by Michael Eisenberg, a founding partner at venture capital firm Aleph, and ranged from the implications of quantum computing for cryptocurrency to the future of healthcare, financial markets and government.
Dor said the arrival of quantum computing would eventually make the technology’s capabilities seem commonplace, but predicted that it could also have profound consequences for Bitcoin.
“I am ushering in the quantum era here. The first aspect is that, in the future, we will take for granted the problems we’ve solved and the existence of quantum computing. Within five to ten years, we will see Bitcoin disappear due to quantum computing,” she said.
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Michael Eisenberg at the podium. Seated from right: Jeremy Suard, Oren Zeev, Yali Rotיenberg, May Walter, Dror Nahumi, Liat Nadai Arad
(Nimrod Glickman)
Natti Ginor, head of investment banking at Jefferies in Israel, offered an ambitious outlook for the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).
“My outlook is positive for everyone. We are very pleased with the environment and activity at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange,” he said. “Trading volume is set to reach $10 billion, with a market value of $2 billion, within five years.”
Ginor predicted that ten Israeli technology companies valued at $1 billion or more would list on the TASE before listing on Nasdaq. “I believe all of this will happen within five years. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange is highly successful and represents a wonderful investment. In another 25 years, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange will acquire the London Stock Exchange.”
Liat Nadai Arad, transformation manager and head of the NEXT Data Center at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov), turned to healthcare. “Health is more important than money,” she said.
“The bad news is that problems won't disappear thanks to artificial intelligence. However, within ten years, we will have much greater control over our own healthcare,” she predicted. “Today, you visit a doctor, place your trust in them, and perhaps consult a chatbot on the side. In the future, you will have access to all your own data, allowing you to control it and perform many tasks currently handled by doctors. You will be able to conduct treatments, tests, diagnoses and more.”
She also pointed to Israel's shortage of doctors, predicting that the supply of physicians in the future would better meet today's needs.
Dror Nahumi of Norwest Venture Partners argued that the development of AI infrastructure would pave the way for a new generation of applications.
“I’ve been thinking about how to predict the future in these times. There is one area where I am cautious, yet my prediction is that we will see a new, second wave of applications,” he said. “Eighteen years ago, I was told that innovation was over because the cloud made everything possible. That wasn't accurate, and the same thing is happening today.”
Nahumi argued that companies were currently building the infrastructure for AI, which would enable an entirely new generation of applications. “New companies will emerge to displace the old ones. The world will look similar, yet there will be new, unfamiliar applications, and giant companies will rise,” he said.
Oren Zeev, founder of Zeev Ventures, agreed that AI would reshape existing industries, but offered a more provocative prediction about its role in the legal system.
“We know that AI performs remarkably well in legal tasks. Why let a judge make arbitrary decisions when we could let AI act as the judge in traffic and divorce cases? I believe that within five years, 50% of divorce cases will be handled by AI,” he said.
“What’s holding this back is regulation,” Zeev added. He also questioned the need for human referees in sports, predicting a future in which AI lawyers would work alongside AI judges.
Yali Rothenberg, Israel's former Accountant General at the Ministry of Finance, opened his remarks with a joke about his previous role. “I’m happy to offer forecasts for the future because, back when I was the Accountant General, no one in the public sector listened to me,” he said.
Rothenberg predicted that AI adoption would spread throughout government and increase productivity by 20% within five years. But he argued that realizing the technology's potential would require a substantial expansion of Israel's infrastructure.
“We need a significant increase in infrastructure investment here, in electricity and computing. Everything requires a sharp increase in Israel's power capacity, far beyond what we currently have,” he said.
He also identified government bureaucracy as a major obstacle to economic growth and predicted that Israel's economy would become increasingly regional. Trade with the United Arab Emirates, he argued, should increase tenfold.
Rothenberg also forecast growth in dual-use companies serving both defense and civilian markets, with new entrants expanding the sector beyond its established defense contractors. He added that the public currently manages NIS 7.7 trillion in assets and predicted that a substantial portion would shift into public investments.
Jeremy Suard, CEO of Exodigo, which develops underground mapping and imaging technology designed to reduce the need for digging or drilling, predicted that Israel would produce several companies of unprecedented scale.
“In ten years, there will be five companies worth more than $100 billion and one worth a trillion dollars. We will be that trillion-dollar company,” he said.
“Israel is spending tens of billions of dollars on transportation infrastructure, and we want a $5 billion slice of that to build a trillion-dollar company,” Suard added. He argued that the benchmark for success in Israel remained too low, with the country needing to aim beyond companies valued at tens of billions of dollars.
May Walter of Hud also predicted that a trillion-dollar company would emerge outside Israel's established cyber and defense sectors.
“We will see a trillion-dollar company that isn't in the cyber or defense sectors. We’ve been active in this space for years, so the next major company won't be a cyber firm. Instead, it will be a company that learns from that world but evolves into something far greater,” Walter said.
