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 […]
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 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 […]
Bitcoin core developer Matt Corallo used a fresh Blockstream announcement this week to push back on a familiar line in the quantum debate: that nobody serious is working on post-quantum cryptography for Bitcoin. The immediate trigger was Blockstream’s preview of OP_SHRINCSVERIFY, but the broader point was that the work did not appear out of nowhere; […]
Policymakers should encourage greener grids for local Bitcoin mining, Carter suggested. Castle Island Ventures’ Nic Carter doesn’t think Elon Musk is the right person to lead the “clean Bitcoin“ debate, “possibly not as far as the Bitcoin community is concerned.” He told Bloomberg, “Bitcoiners are still intensely skeptical of Musk, and they view him as conflicted, given that his business partially involves the sale of offsets.”However, asking for Bitcoin miners to be more transparent about their energy mix is a good proposal no matter who it’s coming from, Carter stressed, alluding to the....