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BITCOIN

Developers warn Bitcoin faces a near-term quantum threat

Friday, April 10, 2026 · from 8 podcasts, 9 episodes
What Bitcoin DidBitcoin And | Bitcoin & E…Bitcoin OptechBitcoin Takeover PodcastBanklessStacker News LiveTFTC: A Bitcoin PodcastPresidio Bitcoin JamBankless
  • Analysts now predict a quantum computer capable of breaking Bitcoin signatures could emerge by 2029-2033.
  • Roughly 6 million Bitcoin held in legacy addresses are immediately vulnerable to a slow quantum attack.
  • A rushed upgrade risks breaking Lightning, but developers are advancing post-quantum schemes like Shrimps and isogeny-based cryptography.

New quantum computing breakthroughs are forcing a concrete timeline onto a problem Bitcoin developers once dismissed as distant. A consensus is emerging across technical shows that the threat is nearer than expected. Alex Pruden on *What Bitcoin Did* now puts the odds at 50% for a cryptographically relevant quantum computer by 2033, citing Google's Willow paper on error correction and a theoretical architecture from Oratomic that could attack with as few as 10,000 physical qubits.

"I estimate a 50% chance a cryptographically relevant quantum computer capable of breaking Bitcoin will exist by 2033, potentially as early as 2029."

- Alex Pruden, What Bitcoin Did

The immediate risk is to dormant coins. According to analysis from Bernstein and discussions on *Bankless*, about 6 million BTC - a third of the total supply - sits in addresses with exposed public keys, including Satoshi's original coins. A 'slow-clock' quantum machine could steal these without any transaction being broadcast. The more existential threat is a 'fast-clock' machine capable of a nine-minute 'on-spend' attack, where a private key is derived from a public key while a transaction sits in the mempool, allowing an attacker to front-run and steal the funds.

Developers are not standing still, but they face severe trade-offs. Jonas Nick of Blockstream is advancing 'Shrimps,' a stateful, hash-based signature scheme that keeps signatures at 350 bytes but requires wallets to track an incrementing integer. Lose that state, and signature size balloons to 8 kilobytes. Isogeny-based cryptography, highlighted by researcher Conduition on *Bitcoin Optech*, preserves Bitcoin's key-tweaking features but verifies 50 times slower than current Schnorr signatures.

"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."

- Jonas Nick, Bitcoin Optech

Pragmatic voices warn against panic. Brandon Black on *TFTC* argues the engineering gap is still six to nine orders of magnitude wide, and a hasty upgrade would break critical infrastructure like the Lightning Network and multisig setups. He views the current outcry as FUD, pointing out that two post-quantum candidate algorithms were recently broken by classical laptops during NIST standardization.

The core challenge is governance. Nic Carter on *Bankless* argues Bitcoin's decentralized, conservative governance is spectacularly unsuited for the 'total mobilization' required for a coordinated migration. He predicts that if the community cannot act, major ETF custodians like BlackRock will force a canonical fork to burn vulnerable coins and protect the asset's value. The clock is ticking, not just on the physics, but on Bitcoin's ability to execute a peaceful, planned evolution.

ProtocolMiningETFsAdoption

By the Numbers

  • BIP 440VAR Ops budget proposallegislation
  • BIP 441Script opcode restoration proposallegislation
  • BIP 2130Wallet backup metadata format proposallegislation
  • 50%Probability of relevant quantum computer by 2033metric
  • 2033Base case timeline for quantum threatmetric
  • 2029Early case timeline for quantum threatmetric

Entities Mentioned

0xchatProduct
Adam BackPerson
BasecampProduct
BitcoinProtocol
BLOCKSPACESCompany
BlockstreamCompany
BuilderBotConcept
Cash AppProduct
David BennettPerson
DeepSeekCompany
Drift ProtocolProduct
EclairTool
Ethereum FoundationCompany
GoogleConcept
Google AntigravityProduct
Irancountry
IRGCCompany
Jonas NickPerson
Lightning Dev KitTool
Lightning LabsCompany
LiquidConcept
LNDTool
MoneroProtocol
MuSigConcept
New York TimesCompany
Nick CarterPerson
NunchukProduct
OpenAgentsplatform
OpenAItrending
PayjoinStandard
PolymarketCompany
SatoshiProduct
SchnorrConcept
ShrimpsProduct
SimplicityConcept
SpaceXCompany
SpiralCompany
SquareCompany
Stacker NewsProduct
SynthesiaCompany
TaprootConcept
TBPNCompany
United Statescountry
VisaCompany
ZcashProtocol

Source Intelligence

What each podcast actually said

What Bitcoin Did
What Bitcoin Did

Peter McCormack

Is the Quantum Threat to Bitcoin Actually Real? | Alex Pruden • Apr 9

  • Alex Pruden estimates a 50% chance a cryptographically relevant quantum computer capable of breaking Bitcoin will exist by 2033, potentially as early as 2029.
  • A quantum computer breaks Bitcoin by solving the discrete logarithm problem to derive private keys from public keys. A slow machine threatens only exposed public keys, while a fast one could front-run transactions from the mempool.
  • Roughly 6 million Bitcoin currently reside in UTXOs with exposed public keys, making them immediately vulnerable to a slow-clock quantum attack.
  • Recent quantum computing papers from Google and Oratomic lowered the resource estimates for breaking elliptic curve cryptography by orders of magnitude, moving the goalposts closer.
  • Pruden argues Bitcoin should start implementing and testing post-quantum cryptography now to avoid a rushed, forced migration later. He views a multi-year consensus and deployment process as inevitable.
  • BIP 360 is a first step toward quantum resistance but is insufficient. Pruden advocates for deploying multiple candidate algorithms on testnets now to understand real-world trade-offs like signature size and speed.
  • A quantum attack may not be detectable; stolen coins could look like a routine hack. Pruden argues Bitcoin is a uniquely attractive target due to its irreversible settlement and potential for immediate profit.
  • Migrating all Bitcoin UTXOs to post-quantum addresses would take 75-100 days if the network were dedicated solely to migration, or about a year with a more practical allocation of block space.
  • The community is split on whether to burn 'lost' coins like Satoshi's during a migration. Pruden leans toward burning for economic health but acknowledges the profound property rights dilemma.
  • Standardized post-quantum algorithms are based on hash functions or lattice problems, with no guarantee they will remain unbroken. This underscores the need for long-term cryptographic agility.

Also from this episode:

AI & Tech (2)
  • Google's Willow paper in 2024 demonstrated below-threshold error correction, proving error rates can decrease as more physical qubits are added. This was a key theoretical breakthrough for scalability.
  • Neutral atom quantum computers have progressed from zero physical qubits to arrays of thousands in five years. The Oratomic paper theorized an architecture needing only 10,000 physical qubits for a slow-clock attack.
ProtocolCustodyBTC Markets
Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & Economic News
Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & Economic News

Quantum Salvage | Bitcoin News • Apr 9

  • David Bennett reports the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT) raised $33.9 million on its first trading day, trading over 1.6 million shares.
  • Bernstein analysts led by Gautam Chughani estimate Bitcoin has a three to five year window to implement post-quantum security, framing it as a scheduled evolution rather than a crisis.
  • Google research estimates a future quantum machine could break Bitcoin's elliptic curve cryptography with under 500,000 physical qubits, a 20x reduction from prior estimates.
  • Bernstein notes scaling quantum computers to attack levels would require breakthroughs in hardware and error correction, potentially costing tens to hundreds of billions of dollars.
  • Bernstein identifies approximately 1.7 million BTC in Satoshi-era wallets with permanently visible public keys as the highest exposure segment to a quantum attack.
  • Nick Carter's fiction piece 'Trillion Dollar Salvage' explores a scenario where a quantum attack on exposed Bitcoin leads the US government to seize coins under maritime salvage law, testing Bitcoin's social consensus.
  • Roast Beef of Lightning Labs developed a prototype tool allowing wallet recovery via proof-of-ownership during a quantum emergency upgrade, generating a proof in 55 seconds and verifying it in under 2 seconds on a MacBook.
  • Developer Robert Graham argues Adam Back and Satoshi Nakamoto's C++ coding styles are completely different, with Back's resembling academic Unix code and Satoshi's that of a professional Windows programmer, contradicting the New York Times' linguistic analysis.
  • BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo donated $5.4 million to Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, a move Bennett suggests may fuel UK political efforts to ban crypto donations.
  • Arthur Hayes is skeptical of reports Iran is collecting Bitcoin tolls from oil tankers, demanding on-chain proof and calling it IRGC theater until verified.
  • Nunchuk released open-source tools for AI agents to interact with Bitcoin wallets using a bounded authority model, where agents operate within user-set spending caps and approval policies.

Also from this episode:

AI & Tech (1)
  • Visa unveiled 'Intelligent Commerce Connect', a platform for AI-driven autonomous shopping that supports tokenized payments and is compatible with major AI agent protocols.
BTC MarketsProtocolBankingRegulation
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 Takeover Podcast
Bitcoin Takeover Podcast

S17 E17: Lukas Hozda on BIP110, Bitcoin & Rust • Apr 7

  • Blockstream's Simplicity is now live on the Liquid production network, marking a major milestone. Simplicity is a low-level, formalized programming language designed for consensus validators, not human programmers.
  • Andrew Poelstra describes Simplicity HL as the high-level language for developers, designed to compile down to Simplicity with a syntax explicitly modeled on Rust. The goal is to feel like writing Rust code for blockchain contracts.
  • Simplicity enables arbitrary computation and transaction introspection, which allows for covenants. This is a fundamental expansion beyond Bitcoin Script's current capabilities of signature checks, hash pre-images, and timelocks.
  • Poelstra argues Bitcoin Script is both inexpressive and full of unpredictable quirks, citing weird edge cases in numeric opcodes, timelock calculations, and the legacy of ad-hoc bug fixes from 2010 that crippled its original functionality.
  • A key advantage of Simplicity is its formal specification and multiple provably correct implementations. This contrasts with Bitcoin Script, where writing a new interpreter is culturally forbidden due to undefined edge-case behavior.
  • Poelstra sees Simplicity's primary short-term use in solving narrow technical problems Bitcoin faces today, like fee-bumping delegations or complex multi-signature policies, rather than immediately replicating Ethereum-style DeFi.
  • He states Simplicity is designed to retain Bitcoin's core fee model where transaction size is the primary cost. It uses a jetting system to optimize common operations like SHA-256, avoiding Ethereum's problem of wildly variable gas costs per opcode.
  • On drivechains, Poelstra remains unconvinced, citing the P+Epsilon attack and inherent incentive problems where the value secured could incentivize miners to attempt deep reorgs, creating systemic instability.
  • When asked about interesting altcoins, Poelstra names Monero and Zcash for privacy tech, Sia for its file storage model, and Grin for Mimblewimble. He distinguishes these from scams by their lack of ICOs and sincere technical goals.
  • The Starkware team has built a STARK verifier using Simplicity, demonstrating its capability for complex zero-knowledge proof verification directly on a blockchain.
  • Poelstra views Simplicity as a long-term direction for Bitcoin script extension, potentially a project for the 2030s. It could serve as a formal specification layer for proposing and testing new opcodes like OP_CAT before they are added to Bitcoin.
ProtocolAdoptionBTC MarketsCustody
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
Stacker News Live
Stacker News Live

SNL #218: Where you sitting...Good Friday • Apr 6

  • Stacker News, a Bitcoin front page platform, features `txrush.com` and `truckyard.live` which visualize Bitcoin mempool transactions as highway traffic or spacecraft, pulling data from the mempool. Carl suggested these could be useful as phone widgets.
  • The Unboiled family, who live nomadically and attempt to transact predominantly in Bitcoin, tracks 'SATs inflation' based on their spending on essentials in South Africa. They reported a period of 'SATs deflation' where costs were lower by 11% for electricity, 8% for fuel, and 5% for milk.
  • Siru's Bitcoin data project investigated Foundry's 7-consecutive-block streak, which occurred alongside a two-block reorg. The analysis, using data from the BOK project and Wumbo's node archives, suggests consecutive blocks happen more frequently than expected due to block latency, where co-located miners receive block headers faster.
  • Bitprojects.io demonstrated that Bitcoin node count can be easily 'sybillable' by simulating over 3,000 nodes using minimal hardware. The project aimed to show that node count is an unreliable metric for social consensus or soft fork signaling, with its shutdown causing a 'huge uptick' in incoming connections for other nodes.
  • Recent quantum computing breakthroughs, including Caltech's advancements in quantum operations and Google's implementation of Shor's algorithm with an order of magnitude fewer qubits, do not fundamentally alter the timeline for breaking elliptic curve cryptography. Scott Aaronson, an independent expert, suggests they might slightly shorten the indeterminate timeline, which could still be 5-10 years or longer.
  • Supratic outlined several privacy attacks on Lightning, emphasizing that blinded paths improve privacy but are not a 'magic shield' against tracing. These attacks include CLTV correlation, graph analysis on small nodes, payment probing, introduction, and node visibility.

Also from this episode:

AI & Tech (4)
  • The New York Times is blocking the Internet Archive from archiving its articles, citing protection against AI scraping. Keon argues this strategy, while aiming for short-term subscriber growth, will harm the NYT's long-term relevance by excluding its content from AI training data and future search results.
  • OpenAI acquired the popular podcast network TBPN, with CEO Sam Altman stating it was due to liking the show and not for promotional purposes. Keon speculates the acquisition might instead aim to subtly shape tech narratives favorable to OpenAI, similar to the Bezos-Washington Post acquisition.
  • Japanese and US companies formed the Portsmouth Consortium under a strategic trade agreement to develop AI infrastructure and power generation in Piketon, Ohio. The project plans to invest $500 billion to build a data center with a 9.2 GW capacity, leading Blockchain Boo to predict potential government bailouts given the scale of the AI race.
  • Carl and Keon debate the implications of free and abundant intelligence, with Keon suggesting it will only shift humanity's bottlenecks rather than solving all problems. Carl argues that with intelligence addressed, humanity's focus would shift to virtues, love, and internal well-being, aspects that artificial intelligence cannot fulfill.
BTC MarketsProtocolBig TechEnergyMacro
TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast
TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast

Marty Bent

#733: The Truth About The Quantum Threat with Brandon Black • Apr 4

  • Brandon Black predicts quantum computers are 50 to 100 years or more from breaking a meaningful cryptographic system.
  • Black says scaling up quantum computers involves immense physical difficulty that is dramatically underplayed by proponents.
  • He states quantum research has seen new difficulty emerge every time they try to scale for the last four decades.
  • Black says we need to see a single quantum architecture successfully double its logical qubits multiple times before taking the scaling threat seriously.
  • Pro-quantum advocates derive confidence from impressive theoretical wins by brilliant researchers, not from physical scaling evidence.
  • A recent Google paper presented a mathematical improvement that reduces the logical qubits needed for Shor's algorithm.
  • Black says the Google result still leaves quantum computing six to nine orders of magnitude away from a cryptographically relevant device.
  • He notes hype around tiny physical improvements in quantum papers indicates the field is still far from a breakthrough.
  • Rushing a quantum-resistant upgrade for Bitcoin risks disrupting existing infrastructure like Lightning and multisig.
  • Black argues elliptic curve cryptography will likely fail someday, so Bitcoin should develop a suitable replacement at a measured pace.
  • Black says the Bitcoin developer community is actively researching post-quantum cryptography, contrary to claims of inaction.
  • He states Bitcoin's decentralized nature makes cryptographic changes far riskier and costlier than for centralized systems.
  • Black says Jonas Nick's Shrimps advance makes Shrinks Plus more compatible with Bitcoin's wallet recovery model.
  • He is hesitant to put current post-quantum systems into Bitcoin due to large signature sizes and incompatibility with wallet infrastructure.
  • Hash-based signatures are the current near-term consensus for post-quantum Bitcoin because they rely on trusted assumptions.
  • Lattice-based cryptography offers benefits but relies on newer, less battle-tested mathematical assumptions.
  • During NIST standardization, two of 69 post-quantum candidate algorithms were broken by classical computers.
  • Isogeny-based cryptography is a promising post-quantum avenue as it is elliptic curve based and only doubles on-chain size.
  • Black argues quantum fear distracts from and could stall development of useful Bitcoin innovations like Silent Payments and Musig.
ProtocolAdoption
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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