Bitcoin News
By Steven Anderson
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Two Draft Proposals, Years of Work Ahead. BIP 361 is the companion piece. It sketches out a potential five-year, two-phase transition that…
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NIST Standards and Federal Mandates Already Moving. The broader cryptographic world isn't waiting around.
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Galaxy Digital put $5 million on the table July 21, backing Bitcoin's long-term security against quantum computing threats. It's a big move, and the timing matters.
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The pledge is meant to fund developers hitting key milestones, push forward quantum-resistance research, and stand up a dedicated Quantum Advisory Council.
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Quantum computers can't crack Bitcoin today. Not even close.
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But the threat isn't theoretical forever. The core concern is Shor's algorithm, which could eventually pull private keys straight out of elliptic-curve public keys — basically…
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BIP 361 is the companion piece. It sketches out a potential five-year, two-phase transition that would kick off after activation, walking the network from its current…
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The decentralized structure of Bitcoin makes all of this harder than it sounds. Developers, miners, node operators, wallets, exchanges, custodians, and regular users all need to…
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Address reuse makes the exposure worse. When a Bitcoin address gets reused, the public key sits on-chain longer, giving a future quantum attacker a bigger window.
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The broader cryptographic world isn't waiting around. In August 2024, NIST finalized three post-quantum cryptographic standards and pushed for early adoption across the industry.
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Bitcoin's path is different from a federal IT rollout, obviously. There's no central authority that can push a mandate.
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Other parts of the crypto ecosystem are moving too. Ethereum and Tron have their own quantum-mitigation work in progress. The awareness is spreading.
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Galaxy's involvement is early, and that's probably the point. Getting a reviewed signature design in place, building community consensus around it, and leaving enough runway for…
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More context: DeFi Developers Face Federal Trial Over 1970s Money Transmitter Law
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The five-year window BIP 361 floats isn't arbitrary. A phased transition gives wallets, exchanges, and institutional custodians time to rebuild their systems around new security…
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