Bitcoin’s Quantum Debate Heats Up As Adam Back Challenges Nic Carter
Blockstream CEO Adam Back publicly rebuked Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter after Carter explained why his firm backed Project Eleven, a startup that says it will protect bitcoin and other crypto assets from quantum computing risks. Related Reading: Coinbase Escalates Regulatory Fight With Lawsuit Against 3 States Back told Carter on X that his […]
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A debate on X this week exposed a core question for on-chain privacy: when quantum computers are able to break elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC), will they be able to retroactively deanonymize every transaction ever made of privacy coins like Zcash? Nic Carter, co-founder of Coin Metrics and partner at Castle Island Ventures, argued that the answer […]
Founding partner at Castle Island Ventures Nic Carter has laid out what he sees as three plausible paths for Bitcoin as the industry moves toward post-quantum cryptography: freeze vulnerable early coins, leave them untouched and accept the consequences, or pursue a legal “salvage” process that avoids a protocol-level confiscation. The debate matters because, in Carter’s […]
Concerns over quantum computing are weighing on Bitcoin’s price and slowing some investment flows, amid a sharp divide between developers and many investors. Related Reading: UK Crypto Ownership Takes Biggest Hit Since 2021, Regulator Says Developers Call Threat Distant According to Bitcoin developer Adam Back of Blockstream, quantum machines remain far from able to break Bitcoin’s protections. He said the tech is still “ridiculously early” and that research hurdles persist. Back expects no real threat within the next decade and argued that even if parts of Bitcoin’s cryptography were....
Project Eleven’s 1 BTC Q-Day Prize was meant to sharpen the debate over quantum risk to Bitcoin and other ECC-secured crypto assets. Instead, a sharp critique from Google quantum researcher Craig Gidney has turned the competition itself into the story. In an April 25 blog post titled “The predictable failure of the QDay Prize,” Gidney, […]
Project 11 CEO Alex Pruden is challenging a CoinShares estimate that only 10,200 bitcoin sit in “genuinely” quantum-vulnerable legacy addresses, arguing instead that roughly 6.9 million BTC could be exposed if cryptographically relevant quantum computers arrive sooner than the market expects. The dispute, amplified by Castle Island partner Nic Carter, goes to the heart of […]