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BITCOIN

Bitcoin developers race against quantum threats and social inertia

Wednesday, April 8, 2026 · from 4 podcasts, 5 episodes
Bitcoin OptechBitcoin AndBanklessPresidio Bitcoin Jam
  • Google's algorithm cuts quantum hardware needs by 20x, moving the practical threat closer to 2029.
  • A 1.7 million BTC cache in early addresses cannot self-upgrade, forcing a politically toxic fork or burn.
  • New signatures like Shrimps trade user state management for smaller blockchain bloat.

Quantum computers don't need to crack Bitcoin's code to break it - they just need to trigger a civil war over a dead man's coins. Google's new research indicates a 20x improvement to Shor's algorithm, potentially reducing the physical qubits needed to crack Bitcoin's encryption from millions to 500,000. The Bankless team called it a 'Q-bomb,' moving the internal deadline for a post-quantum migration to 2029.

Justin Drake, Bankless:

- Today is a momentous day for quantum computing and cryptography.

- I expect a narrative shift and further R&D boost towards post-quantum cryptography.

The real crisis is social, not technical. Roughly 1.7 million BTC, including Satoshi's stash, sits in legacy addresses whose owners are inactive or dead. Nic Carter warned on Bankless that Bitcoin's governance, built for peacetime inertia, lacks the mechanism to coordinate the 'total mobilization' required. The community faces a politically toxic choice: hard-fork to burn the vulnerable coins or let a quantum-equipped actor seize them.

Developers are already prototyping solutions with severe trade-offs. Jonas Nick from Blockstream is pitching 'Shrimps,' a hash-based scheme where signatures are a lean 350 bytes if a wallet perfectly manages a signing state. Lose that state, and signatures balloon to 8 kilobytes. The alternative, isogeny-based cryptography, preserves Bitcoin's key-tweaking features but verifies 50 times slower than current methods, creating a node bottleneck.

Carter predicts that if the decentralized community cannot act, major custodians like BlackRock and Coinbase will force a canonical fork to burn the at-risk supply, sacrificing 'immaculate' property rights for market stability. The countdown isn't just for hardware; it's for consensus.

ProtocolMiningAdoption
Mentioned:BitcoinJonas NickShrimps

Source Intelligence

What each podcast actually said

Bitcoin Optech
Bitcoin Optech

Bitcoin Optech: Newsletter #399 Recap • Apr 7

  • Jonas Nick details Shrimps, a post-quantum hash-based signature scheme where signatures are 350 bytes on a primary stateful device. If that device is lost, imported devices produce 2.5 kilobyte signatures, with a final 8 kilobyte fallback for catastrophic failure.
  • Shrimps and its predecessor Shrinks require wallets to be stateful, tracking an incrementing integer for each public key to count signatures. If this state is lost or corrupted, security breaks and the wallet must use a large fallback signature.
  • Conduition highlights isogeny-based cryptography as a promising post-quantum candidate because its structure allows key re-randomization. This enables BIP32-like hierarchical key derivation and Taproot-like key tweaking, features hash-based and lattice-based schemes struggle to replicate.
  • SkiSign, an isogeny-based signature scheme, has 65-byte public keys and 148-byte signatures. Verification is about 50 times slower than Schnorr or Dilithium, posing a potential bottleneck for full block validation.
  • Conduition notes isogeny cryptography relies on the supersingular isogeny path problem, a newer but well-studied assumption. He cautions that schemes like SkiSign and PRISM have complementary security proofs, making it hard to prove both secure simultaneously.
  • Armin describes how wallet fingerprints - artifacts like signature grinding, SIGHASH flags, and nSequence values - can break PayJoin privacy. Analysts can partition transaction inputs between sender and receiver by spotting inconsistent behaviors between collaborating wallets.
  • Explicitly stating SIGHASH_ALL in Taproot signatures is a wasteful bug that creates a fingerprint. Since Taproot defaults to SIGHASH_ALL, including the byte adds unnecessary transaction weight and identifies non-compliant wallets.
  • BIPs 440 and 441, part of the "script restoration" effort, are now published. BIP 440 proposes a VAR Ops budget for limiting script complexity, while BIP 441 proposes re-enabling disabled opcodes like OP_CAT within a new Tapscript version.
  • Pais proposes BIP 2130, a standard for wallet backup metadata formats. It aims to create an interoperable way to export and import not just descriptors, but full wallet state including labels, transaction history, and coin data.
  • Eclair 3269 adds automatic liquidity reclamation, closing idle redundant channels. It reduces relay fees over time and closes a channel if, after five days at minimum fee, payment volume stays below 5% of capacity and the local balance is over 25%.
  • LDK adds support for zero-channel-reserve channels, primarily for LSP-user relationships. This lets users commit their full on-chain balance to a channel, shifting the trust and risk onto the service provider.
  • LND implements proper MuSig2 nonce handling and RBF support for cooperatively closing simple Taproot channels. The update hardens the protocol against nonce reuse, which could expose private keys.
ProtocolPrivacy
Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & Economic News
Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & Economic News

cAIveman Speak | Bitcoin News • Apr 7

  • Second's new Bitcoin wallet Bark is built on the Ark protocol and has raised $5.1 million from a private investor with a team of 11 people.
  • Bark implements an Ark-to-Lightning bridge, allowing users to pay Lightning invoices from an Ark balance without managing channels or liquidity providers.
  • Grayscale's head of research Zach Pandl argues Bitcoin's quantum threat is more social than technical, centered on community decisions about handling dormant coins in vulnerable addresses.
  • A Bitcoin Policy Institute study found 48.3% of leading AI models selected Bitcoin as their preferred currency in controlled experiments.
  • Tanero Research found autonomous agent activity on the Stacks layer-2 network doubled week over week, growing from 105 to 766 active agents transacting over 491,000 sats.

Also from this episode:

Stablecoins (1)
  • Polymarket is rolling out a completely rebuilt trading system and a new native stablecoin called Polymarket USD, which is backed one-to-one by USDC rather than directly by dollars.
Markets (1)
  • Intercontinental Exchange, parent of the NYSE, made a $600 million direct cash investment in Polymarket as part of a broader equity fundraising round last month.
Regulation (3)
  • The SEC's crypto safe harbor proposal, which would allow projects to launch without immediate registration, is now at the White House's OIRA for review before publication.
  • SEC Chair Paul Atkins proposed a four-year startup exemption for crypto ventures to raise capital while providing investor protections, which critics argue opens the door to scams.
  • South Korea's Financial Services Commission now requires all crypto exchanges to conduct automated ledger-to-wallet reconciliation every five minutes and shift to monthly external audits.
BTC Markets (1)
  • In February, Bithumb mistakenly distributed 620,000 Bitcoin to users during a promotional event but recovered 99.7% of the funds the same day.
AI & Tech (1)
  • OpenAI released a policy paper calling for a global shift in taxation and labor policy to prepare for AI dominance, which the host interprets as a push toward socialism.
BTC MarketsAgentsProtocolSafety
Bankless
Bankless

Bitcoin Has 3 Years to Survive | Nic Carter on Bitcoin’s Quantum Vulnerability • Apr 6

  • Bitcoin's governance is spectacularly unsuited to the quantum threat, which requires total mobilization for core infrastructural change under an uncertain timeline.
  • The Google and Oratomic papers published improved resource estimates for breaking Bitcoin's ECDSA cryptography, indicating the threat is closer than previously thought. The hardware does not yet exist.
  • A short-range 'on-spend' attack could intercept a Bitcoin transaction in as little as nine minutes using the improved algorithms, forcing the entire network to be post-quantum before the computer is built.
  • Google has accelerated its internal post-quantum transition timeline to 2029, while the U.S. government targets 2030-2035 for critical functions.
  • Transitioning Bitcoin to post-quantum cryptography is complex, requiring consensus on a signature scheme, a coordinated migration of all addresses, and a decision on dormant coins.
  • Post-quantum signature schemes are much larger than current ones, requiring a likely uncontroversial block size increase to accommodate the 10x to 1000x increase in transaction data.
  • Ethereum is seen as more proactive on the quantum threat, having a published roadmap and an advantage as it has not hyper-optimized around small signatures like some high-performance chains.

Also from this episode:

AI & Tech (1)
  • The authors of the Google paper suggest a fast takeoff model for quantum computing, where significant prior notice before a cryptographically relevant quantum computer exists is unlikely.
BTC Markets (1)
  • The Google paper estimates 6.9 million Bitcoin are vulnerable to long-range quantum attacks, with 2.3 million considered permanently unmovable Satoshi or lost coins.
Custody (1)
  • Nic Carter predicts Bitcoin's largest custodians and exchanges will eventually demand a fork where the unmovable Satoshi coins are burned, establishing that as the canonical BTC.
Regulation (1)
  • Carter's preferred solution uses salvage law, where a trusted entity recovers vulnerable coins and holds them in trust for their original owners, with a finder's fee, rather than protocol-level burning.
ProtocolCustodyETFs

ROLLUP: Google’s Quantum Warning | Trump’s Iran Speech | Ethereum Economic Zones | Drift Hack • Apr 3

  • Google released a 'quantum warning' specifically for the crypto industry, indicating an algorithmic breakthrough that could accelerate the cracking of ECDSA signatures underlying Bitcoin and Ethereum.
  • Google's research indicates a 20x improvement to Shor's algorithm, potentially reducing the physical qubits needed to crack ECDSA from tens of millions to 500,000.
  • With 500,000 physical qubits, a quantum computer could attack Bitcoin or Ethereum and extract keys in approximately nine minutes, enabling 'on-spend attacks' that intercept transactions.
  • Google recommends that all cryptocurrency communities migrate to post-quantum cryptography by 2029, a deadline they have adopted internally.
  • Bitcoin faces a significant challenge as 6.9 million BTC (one-third of total supply) is vulnerable to quantum attack, including 2.3 million BTC (10-15%) from Satoshi and lost keys.
  • Google's paper outlines four options for dormant Bitcoin: do nothing, burn them, implement an 'hourglass approach' to limit spend rates, or use a 'bad side chain' for ownership proofs.
  • Ethereum has a broader quantum attack surface than Bitcoin, encompassing data availability, KZG ceremony vulnerability, and quantum-exposed admin keys controlling $200 billion in stablecoins and RWAs.
  • Despite a larger attack surface, Ethereum's quantum challenge is 'compensated by stronger community leadership' and an existing roadmap, according to Google's assessment.
  • The Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ) is a proposal by Nosis and Jordi Belina aiming for synchronous composability between Layer 2s and Layer 1, enabling shared liquidity and atomic transactions.
  • Aave v4 is live, transforming Aave into a 'single liquidity hub' with specialized 'spokes,' allowing anyone to launch a spoke with DAO approval, governed by Aave as the main risk manager.
  • Phantom wallet now allows U.S. users to fund with bank transfers or Apple Pay, send/receive wires, and offers a debit card, moving towards a 'money super app' model for self-custodial wallets.

Also from this episode:

Politics (2)
  • David argues that Trump's 19-minute speech on Operation Epic Fury, the Iran War, primarily served to inform markets that the conflict would continue for another 'two to three weeks.'
  • Polymarket suggests a 60% probability of U.S. forces entering Iran by April 30th and a 47% chance of a U.S.-Iran ceasefire by May 31st.
Business (9)
  • After Trump's speech, oil markets (Brent Crude, WTI futures) surged by 10-12%, while NASDAQ and S&P 500 futures initially dropped 0.5%, though the S&P later returned to pre-speech levels.
  • Fed Chair Jerome Powell stated that the U.S. national debt is growing 'substantially faster than our economy' and is on an 'unsustainable' path.
  • Polymarket indicates the possibility of a U.S. recession has risen from 20% to 36%, potentially influenced by rising energy costs impacting inflation.
  • Drift Protocol, a Solana perp Dex, suffered a $285 million exploit on April 1st, after an attacker social-engineered two of five multi-sig signers.
  • The Drift attacker minted and wash-traded a fake token for days to create perceived legitimacy, then used admin control to add it as collateral and withdraw other assets.
  • Hayden Adams (Uniswap) criticized Drift's admin setup, arguing that protocols with central keys capable of draining funds should not be called 'DeFi,' as it blurs the definition.
  • The Aave v4 model charges a higher risk premium for less secure collateral and uses credit lines set by the hub to constrain potential damage from individual spokes, mimicking a central banking structure.
  • Benji Taylor, a crypto wallet builder previously at Aave and Base, has joined X, signaling the company's intention to develop a crypto wallet within its 'money super app.'
  • SpaceX is targeting a June IPO with a projected valuation of $1.75 trillion, illustrating a trend where most company growth and upside are captured privately before public listing.
AI & Tech (1)
  • OpenAI recently closed a $122 billion funding round, valuing the company at nearly $900 billion, driven by rapid growth including $2 billion in monthly revenue.
ProtocolBTC MarketsMacroRegulation
Presidio Bitcoin Jam
Presidio Bitcoin Jam

Google's Quantum Warning Overblown?, OpenAI Acquires TBPN, Jack Dorsey Makes Block Mini-AGI • Apr 3

  • Google's quantum cryptography paper claims a 20x performance improvement in algorithms to break elliptic curve signatures used by Bitcoin.
  • Steve Lee argues quantum computing progress should be framed as N minus 1, where N is years until cryptographically relevant quantum computers exist.
  • Lee says the quantum threat is harder for Bitcoin due to the need for decentralized consensus, Satoshi's potentially exposed coins, and blockchain cost sensitivity.
  • Blockstream's Shrinks quantum-resistant signature scheme produces 354-byte signatures, about 5x larger than current Schnorr signatures, but requires stateful management.
  • Blockstream's Shrimps scheme creates stateless 2500-byte signatures for recovery scenarios, trading larger size for no required off-chain data.
  • Lee says Bitcoin's anti-fragility means it could survive a price crash from a quantum emergency, similar to Mt. Gox, and recover long-term.
  • Square's rollout of Bitcoin Lightning payments faces hurdles: sellers must manually update software, not all hardware supports it, and tipping flows are incompatible.
  • David Marcus notes Cash App's Bitcoin Lightning payments save merchants credit card fees, with 1 in 10 Cash App users holding Bitcoin versus 60 million total active users.
  • Max Hillebrand says peer-to-peer AI compute networks like Mesh LLM and OpenAgents are gaining traction, but lack payment mechanisms and computation verifiability.

Also from this episode:

AI & Tech (6)
  • Spiral surveyed 50 developers and grantees on AI usage, creating archetype-based reports from non-developers to low-level protocol coders.
  • OpenAI acquired The Big Podcast Network for an estimated $100 million, seen as a strategic move to control its own media channel amid competition.
  • Max Hillebrand argues America needs a 'DeepSeek moment' - a competitive open-source AI model - as Chinese models surge ahead and Llama's progress stalled.
  • Block's 'Hierarchy to Intelligence' vision restructures the company around AI agents handling internal information flow, with people as orchestrators.
  • Block's internal BuilderBot AI, integrated into Slack, allows employees to query company data, generate SQL, and get recommended contacts for verification.
  • A creator used AI tools for GLP-1 lead generation, reportedly generating $418 million in revenue within 18 months with minimal staff.
Business (1)
  • Steve Lee says Block's new org structure has three roles: Individual Contributor, Directly Responsible Individual, and Player-Coach, eliminating traditional middle management.
Big TechVCAdoptionProtocol

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