D-Wave Quantum: CFO Sells $9M Stake as Institutional Buyer Emerges in Quantum Supremacy Crossfire

D-Wave Quantum CFO cashes $9.1M in options while an asset manager builds a $1.3M position; the quantum computing firm defends its 'quantum advantage' paper against new classical simulation results.

The insider trading filings at D-Wave Quantum tell two sharply different stories this week. Chief Financial Officer John M. Markovich cashed out shares worth roughly $9.1 million in a single transaction on May 22, while asset manager Seven Grand Managers LLC quietly built a new position of 50,000 shares valued at around $1.3 million, disclosed in a May 28 filing. The contrasting moves come as the quantum computing company fights a fresh scientific challenge to its core technology claim.

Markovich’s sale followed a classic exercise-and-dispose pattern: he converted two fully vested option blocks — 207,926 shares exercisable at $0.92 and 120,826 shares at $0.846 — then sold exactly 328,752 shares at a weighted average price of $27.70, with individual trade prices ranging from $27.00 to $28.61. The Form 4, filed with the SEC on May 27, shows he retains 1,442,820 shares directly, including 447,770 restricted stock units that have not yet vested. The sale therefore did not reduce a pre-existing holding but locked in a windfall from options granted at deep in-the-money levels.

While Markovich monetized his options, the stock has continued its recent surge. D-Wave shares traded at €25.13 on the day of the filing, up nearly 6 percent and above the CFO’s sale price. The 30-day gain exceeds 60 percent, pushing the share price well above the 50-day moving average of €16.70. Even so, the stock remains about 35 percent below its 52-week high of €38.48. Separately, the stock was quoted at €24.08 in later trading, still up roughly 56 percent from its March trough. Analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald and Jefferies have both reiterated buy ratings, with Jefferies setting a price target of $43.

The Supremacy Dispute That Won’t Go Away

The same week that insider activity surfaced, D-Wave found itself defending its most celebrated published result. Researchers at the Flatiron Institute published simulation work using a tensor-network algorithm (BP-TNS) that they claim reproduces D-Wave’s earlier demonstration of quantum advantage — a landmark Science paper touted as evidence that a quantum annealer outperformed classical methods on a specific class of magnetic spin problems.

D-Wave pushed back forcefully. CEO Alan Baratz argued that the Flatiron team succeeded on only the easiest problem instances and failed to replicate all the measurements, particularly the nonlinear magnetic spin dynamics. Chief Development Officer Trevor Lanting added that the BP-TNS algorithm cannot handle the strongly coupled three-dimensional spin glasses on diamond and cubic lattices that formed the core of D-Wave’s proof. The company’s central counterclaim is stark: to match the simulation quality of its own processor on the hardest instances, the Frontier supercomputer running classical methods would need nearly one million years.

Federal Dollars and a 10,000-Qubit Ambition

Amid the scientific debate, D-Wave continues to tap Washington’s appetite for quantum hardware. The company has secured more than $25 million in follow-on funding for the second year of its “SQFab” project under the U.S. Microelectronics Commons program, administered through the Northeast Regional Defense Technology Hub. The grant targets scalable qubit fabrication and domestic microelectronics capacity.

That effort feeds into a broader roadmap: a 10,000-qubit gate-model system designed to complement D-Wave’s existing annealing architecture. The company also has a non-binding letter of intent for $100 million from the CHIPS and Science Act to scale U.S.-based quantum manufacturing. The total market capitalization stands at roughly $10.2 billion.

Earnings Deliver Mixed Signals

First-quarter results for fiscal 2026 provided a partial validation of the business model — but not of the analyst consensus. D-Wave posted a loss per share of $0.05, beating the Street estimate of $0.08. Revenue, however, came in at $2.86 million, well short of the $4.14 million forecast. The company continues to push its Quantum-Computing-as-a-Service model and integration into high-performance computing environments.

For investors, the picture remains layered: an insider taking a nine-figure payday, a new institutional holder entering the scene, a federal grant pipeline worth tens of millions, and a foundational scientific dispute that could shape the stock’s narrative for quarters to come.