And what a panel it is, because quantum computing is simultaneously not a threat at all, and
a massive threat to Bitcoin. Pause for laughter. Okay. Anyway, we're going to get right into
it here. This is our last panel of the day. I'm glad to see this room still so full. It is moderated by
somebody you've already become accustomed to on this stage, and I'm sure you're accustomed to his
voice because he is a Bitcoin podcaster. Preston Pysh, he's the founder of the Investor Podcast
Network. He's a general partner at EgoDeath Capital. Please give Preston a very warm welcome
to the stage, and let's keep this energy up for the last panel. Okay.
I hope you guys are ready for this one. This is going to be a fun one. Let's have Hunter
Beast come out, Mohammed come out, Brad and Jameson. Join me on the stage, guys.
All right. The nice thing about this panel is I can say some dumb questions, and I think everybody
else will have empathy for me because quantum's hard. This is a really hard one, and there's
nothing more difficult in quantum than trying to understand the timeline, and that's where I want
to start because this is the number one question that I hear from people when discussing this topic
because it seems everybody has a different opinion, and I think it doesn't make it any easier that
people that are real experts in this space have a pretty wide margin as to what they think the timeline
is. And so I'd like to just kind of go down the line, introduce yourself, and then kind of cover
this idea of what you guys think the timeline is here that we have to act and have something through
to protect Bitcoin. Hi, I'm Hunter, Hunter Beast. I am author of BIP 360, co-author along with Ethan
Hallman, and it's essentially, we essentially want to make Bitcoin more quantum resistant with that
soft fork, and also potentially introduce post-quantum cryptography alongside it. And the timeline,
I mean, if I had a guess, we might have two good years.
Say that again? Two years?
I mean, that's my timeline. I want, hopefully I'm conservative and very, you know, diligent.
When you say two to three years, are you saying two to three years for the Bitcoin community to have a BIP
that has some consensus in order to start rotating keys? You think two to three years?
I hope that's the case. Here's the thing. Like, when people look at the quantum hardware
developments like Willow and Myrana and all those other things, aside quantum also, their roadmaps
like are pretty scary. And you also have to account for the fact that there's also innovations
happening in the software side. So like Shor's algorithm and optimizations happening there where
it requires fewer qubits. You might even be able to make use of noisy qubits. I think we need to make
sure that we're very, we take this issue very seriously.
Mohamed, please tell me you don't have the same timeline. I want to hear it.
I have a bit of a differing timeline and perspective, but a bit of an introduction first. My background
is in aerospace engineering, AI, and I worked at hedge funds and now I'm at Coinbase. And obviously,
quantum is a very important topic that should be at heart here for everybody that's holding Bitcoin,
right? So if we're not having this discussion, something is wrong. We shouldn't be at this
conference. That being said, with regard to timeline, my perspective coming from a markets lens,
is it all depends on cash flow and venture capital influx into the quantum space. I personally believe
that there is a bit of a bubble in the AI domain and quantum development is pending a pop in the
AI bubble. As soon as the AI bubble pops, then venture capital firms will then go to the next shiny object
and that is quantum. And per that logic, we will likely see the changes that would come with a post-quantum future
in the case that capital does flow into the space because there has been quite a lack. For example,
AI has had maybe trillions at this point of invested capital, while in the quantum domain, we have, I don't know,
150 billion max. So it's a completely different game from a comparative front.
So the short answer is as soon as the AI bubble pops, which I believe is
is maybe in the next two to three years. And then we'll transition into quantum as the next capital raise focus
area. And then we'll see the developments. But yeah.
Yeah. All right, Brad.
Hello, everyone. My name is Brad Mills.
And I have listened to the audio book, Something Deeply Hidden on Audible by Sean Carroll.
And that's all I know about quantum.
And I kind of I'm up here to represent the ADIQ Bitcoin pleb, who is kind of scared about quantum.
There's probably a lot of people out there. They're like, what the hell are they guys?
We're we're entangling the experts and the amateurs up here for you.
You can't tell because I'm wearing a suit. You can't tell.
But yeah, I'm an investor in quite a few Bitcoin companies.
And I remember kind of being scared during the block size wars about my Bitcoin position
because I didn't kind of have the technical expertise to really know the difference.
And I was coming at it from like a social and consensus perspective. And it was the first time
I was actually scared about my Bitcoin because I did not know what was going to happen.
And those feelings are kind of coming back now with the quantum thing.
And so I've kind of been listening to podcasts with Hunter and Preston and Jameson and just
trying to understand it myself from the perspective of my own investment, my own net worth, my own
Bitcoin. And what can I do to advise startups that I'm invested in?
And I remember Roger Ver really pissed me off during the block size wars because he was invested
in all these Bitcoin companies and he pulled them all towards the big block side.
And so I said, you know what, if if if I ever want to kind of have more of an impact in Bitcoin,
I should try to become like, you know, helpful to startups and invest in Bitcoin companies
and guide them and help them with like sane, solid Bitcoin principles.
So my perspective is I'm kind of just kind of going by the consensus of like what everybody
else thinks.
And from that, I feel like it is kind of an issue that we should be thinking about how
to get a soft fork in at some point or at least have that discussion very soon because
especially if it's this timeline.
Yeah, because, yeah, it seems like if we don't sort of get the conversation, which we are,
which is great.
We have the conversation going now.
You never know when I have no idea how to even speculate what timeline it is, but it should
be probably a priority we start talking about, which thankfully we are.
Jameson.
Yeah, I'm Jameson Lopp, co-founder, chief security officer at Casa.
So I am the paranoid security guy and I think about all types of edge cases.
And this is definitely an edge case.
It is very out there, but it is a potentially catastrophic edge case.
So that is what got me interested.
I'm not a quantum expert.
I'm not even a cryptographer, but I'm optimistic on one side.
I believe that we have more than a decade before a cryptographically relevant quantum computer
comes online simply because there were multiple orders of magnitude away at the moment.
So there need to be multiple massive breakthroughs within that industry.
I'm pessimistic, however, and this is one reason why I'm working on a Bitcoin improvement proposal, which does not compete with hunters.
It's kind of like, what do we do after?
And mainly that's because this is unprecedented in a number of reasons, especially because it will require people to actually move funds.
So I'm pessimistic in the sense that Bitcoin is ossifying.
It may have already ossified.
It's getting harder and harder to upgrade Bitcoin.
And I believe that if we get to the point where a cryptographically relevant quantum computer is less than five years away,
I think that we are all screwed because it's just too difficult to get Bitcoin as an entire ecosystem to move quickly enough.
When I'm looking at the timeline that you proposed, so back in, I would say it was January,
Microsoft came out with their Majorana 1 topological Cupid processor.
And the CEO of Microsoft was basically saying, hey, I think by like 2030,
they're thinking that they'll have a million physical Cupid's online.
People see that headline.
And if they don't know the difference between physical Cupid's and logical Cupid's, there's a massive difference.
The logical ones are the ones that we want to look at and understand from a numbers standpoint that could actually impact Bitcoin.
And even if you have a 10 to 1 ratio or a 100 to 1 ratio of the noise factor taking that million physical Cupid's down to logical Cupid's,
you're still in the realm of cracking Bitcoin legacy keys.
And I think that's also an important piece is the legacy keys, which it's, correct me if I'm wrong,
three to four million Bitcoin kind of fall into that camp?
Well, it depends how you count.
So there's a 6 million that are public keys that are available on chain.
Yeah, okay.
But the majority of those have been moved within the past six months.
So like they're actively used addresses, often used by exchanges and that sort of thing.
But there are about 1.7 million paid-to-public key coins that are essentially considered abandoned coins.
And the problem with that is those are spread out across over 34,000 addresses with an average balance of 50 Bitcoin each,
which was the original block award.
And so it becomes a question of like how economical it is to get at those coins because it's only 50 Bitcoin per key.
And so that's a consideration for like, you know, the economics of you're building a billion dollar computer
and it costs you millions of dollars to run it.
And, you know, it may not be, you know, good to get those coins.
One thing I'd also want to clarify is that you brought up the Majorana 1 research earlier.
That's some of the research behind it was actually kind of suspect.
We have to be really careful about some of those claims because they even had a paper retracted.
Also, Majorana, the type of topological qubits they're working on, those are sort of like a quasi-particle.
And they're actually really noise-resistant.
It's a really interesting strategy they're pursuing because like they're basically,
there's really little difference between physical qubits and logical qubits in the Majorana 1 architecture.
Yeah, I've heard this.
And this is really important because that noise factor might be less than 10 to 1.
Right.
Correct?
Yeah.
Which means, and just so we can kind of frame this for the audience so they understand,
how many logical qubits do you need to start cracking some of these legacy keys?
Okay.
So there have been some also advancements in the software side, as I mentioned earlier,
there's in Shor's algorithm.
Shor's algorithm, you have a number of different compute registers for keeping the key
and then you have working memory.
And for logical qubits, which, you know, build on top of physical qubits,
depending on the architecture.
If you're using a Majorana architecture, that's actually less.
But the Willow architecture also uses neural networks to implement the error correction codes.
And those may be a 50 to 1, which is very good, actually.
And so anyway, with the, so the bare minimum, I would say, for running Shor's would be 512 qubits.
It's better to have, like, AB registers, so 768 logical qubits might be even better.
We used to think we needed a lot more than that, like maybe 6.
Say that number again, because the number that I had heard was, like, over 10,000 logical qubits,
you're starting to get in the hunt of this becoming real.
Is that the number?
No, no, so there was, there's a researcher, his name is Steve Tippeconic.
He's been doing a lot of research into Shor's algorithm with IBM hardware.
And he's discovered that so long as you can do post-processing,
you can also, like, even make use of noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers.
And you would only really need the equivalent of 768 qubits to factor a SecP256K1 public key.
So I think I can tell from all of the eyes glazing over in the audience.
This is a very complicated issue, and there are many different variables at play.
There's many variables on the hardware side.
There's more variables on the software side, and, you know, potential of continuing to improve algorithms
for how, like, how we actually would use Shor's algorithm to try to break cryptographic keys.
And this is all, the end result of this is the fact that there are so many variables,
so many moving pieces, so many people that are approaching this problem
from so many different directions that we can't really predict.
Do we have one year?
Do we have 10 years?
Do we have 20 years?
And the reason why I got so interested in this debate is because Bitcoin is about consensus,
and we have to come to agreement that, A, there is a problem before we can even start to say,
how do we solve the problem?
And so it's hard to even come to an agreement that there is a problem that is close enough
that we should be worried about it.
And then if we take the next step of saying, okay, well, how do we even address it,
there is a litany of other issues, especially around the fact that all of the quantum safe
or quantum secure cryptography out there just all sucks.
At least it all sucks in terms of Bitcoin and performance.
When you say it sucks, it sucks because the memory is so large?
Is that really what you're talking about?
It's a large data footprint, and Bitcoin has a very limited data size of throughput on the network.
It's, what is it, 80 times the size of current key signatures?
Depends on which signature you're using.
Yeah, but the lightest signature.
Generally, like a SECP signature is 96 bytes total with a public key and the signature pair.
With MLDSA, it's more like four kilobytes.
With SLHDSA, with the commonly configured NIST-1 parameters, it's eight kilobytes,
but you can dial that down to maybe four kilobytes based on roast beast research.
So just think about it.
You've got a scarce amount of block space there,
and you've got transactions that are significantly bigger.
There's another factor, though.
There's other factors.
So like performance, like for verification speed, key generation, it's all slower.
It's bigger.
And also with hash-based cryptography, which is probably the gold standard in terms of security assumptions,
you actually can't do XPubs, so you can't like derive a public key from another public key.
So like the entire concept and use of XPubs can't really work with hash-based cryptography,
and unfortunately that might be one casualty as Bit32.
So we're trying to frame the, what I'm trying to do here on the panel is frame the problem,
help you guys understand the scope of maybe like what the timeline is,
but what I think is exciting is, Hunter, you've already written it out with BIP360
as to you're proposing this solution to how we can implement something.
The consensus piece is very true.
If you haven't been paying attention to the filtering debate,
can you only imagine the debate that's going to happen?
That's not even a consensus debate.
Right?
Well, yeah, exactly.
It's not even a consensus debate, but my point is socially,
you can see how much drama and infighting is kind of happening,
and I can only imagine when you add in the complexity of something like this,
how the community needs to start early in the discussion around,
and thank God you put all this work into putting this together,
let's have the discussion.
So let's talk about BIP360.
Brad.
If you had to try to very simply describe this so that the audience can understand
what you were trying to do from a very high-level standpoint,
how can you put this into plain English for us, what the proposal is or the solution?
Sure.
So first of all, two-thirds of the Bitcoin out there are already held in public-key hash addresses,
so it's already quantum-resistant,
and BIP360 essentially aims to solve a quantum vulnerability in taproot addresses in particular,
and there's only about 100,000 taproot keys,
so it's not that big of a problem to begin with,
but what it is is it's a stepping stone needed to give users of wallets the optionality
to be able to choose when they go to spend their coins that have been deposited in their wallet,
the option to choose which signature algorithm they want to pick from,
and this works using taproots like script path spend,
but there's a complication with taproot in that there's the key path spend,
and the key path makes use of an internal key that's derived using elliptic curve photography,
and that's not good because then people could just spend the funds from the address with the key path
and regardless of what our script paths have been committed to in the tap tweak,
and so essentially, eventually, I think there will be like a,
we'll build wallets that will include support for SLHDSA,
maybe even other signature algorithms,
which you're not worrying too much about the hardware wallets.
I'm assuming it's your opinion.
They'll figure that out.
You're just looking at it more from the BIP proposal.
Oh, I mean, we're thinking about the hardware wallets, too.
I mean, there's a lot of moving parts.
There's a lot of different pieces that need to come together for us to solve this problem.
I'm very happy that Trezor is taking this problem very seriously,
but they're not the whole complete solution.
We need hardware wallet support, absolutely.
We need software wallets.
We need just even a BIP, several BIPs activated.
HSMs.
HSMs, of course.
And Securus is actually really good.
I mean, we'll have to rewrite so many aspects of infrastructure that are used for the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Once again, this is why we need to get many, many years ahead of the curve.
Yes.
Are you scared yet, Brad?
Well, not really, because BIP 360 allows me to do a really expensive spin all the way back to the same position
and be quantum resistant.
So that sounds like a good solution.
I have no idea what that means.
Help us understand the testing.
So you got this.
Let's say that we start getting some momentum from the community that this is a great solution to move forward with.
Walk us through the approach to test this in a meaningful kind of way so that if it goes live,
and just so everybody knows, soft fork, correct?
Yes.
Soft fork.
Of course.
Okay.
If we do start to go live with this as a community, what does the testing prior to going down that path look like?
So we actually just turned up a BIP 360 Cygnet, and we had a workshop.
My team and the Andro team, we went to TabConf last week, and we demonstrated.
And one person in the audience was able to follow along all the way to the end and demonstrate a SLH DSA spend on Bitcoin.
We had a Cignet, of course, our own Cignet, and it worked in Memple.
You could see in the Memple Explorer that we forked also.
We had to fork a lot of repos to make that work.
Also the things with Rust Bitcoin, some JavaScript libraries.
But it was a ton of work, but we got that far.
Now it's just optimizing, and we actually rewrote the BIP maybe for a third or fourth time now, and we're going to publish that soon as well.
We renamed it based on feedback from core devs and various other things.
It used to be called quantum-resistant hash.
Now it's paid to Tapscript hash.
So we're trying to make the BIP 360 a bit more independent of the quantum concerns, but it will be coupled with a SLH DSA BIP as well that we're working on with Ethan and Conduition and Roast Beef and others.
We have institutions now that hold billions in Bitcoin on balance sheets.
Have you seen many of these institutions donate capital for further R&D, for further testing, to really kind of shake out BIP 360 specifically, or just any investment in research and development in this particular field?
Yes, there are, let's just say, major economic node operators or users that we talk to on a regular basis that are very concerned about this problem.
But is there actual investment happening?
Like you noted that we expect more and more investment to happen into the quantum computing space, which means to make the quantum computers actually exist and be faster.
But is there going to be a flip side of investment of defensive mechanisms?
Like this is, as a security professional in general, I think the defensive side of things tends to be pretty underfunded.
Oh, yeah, I agree.
I mean, we aren't seeing much on the defensive side at all.
I mean, I follow the cash flows all the time, and there isn't much of a focus there.
And it's typically like you don't start planning until you get punched in the face or whatever the Mike Tyson quote is, right?
Everybody's waiting, waiting, waiting, but only until there's an actual issue, right?
And it's in your face will people start, oh, my God, I need to fix the problem.
And you can't wait that long because as soon as you get to that point, it's at the point of no return.
Because if you look at it from an economic perspective, right, people are irrational, right, until they're forced to be rational.
And an immediate quantum scare forces you to be rational, right?
And, again, in that case, it would be too late, markets would crash, people would run to sell their Bitcoin, and we'd be in a very, very difficult situation.
And to put this in context, let's assume, for example, that the gold reserves, the U.S. gold reserves, they do an audit, and they don't find gold there, right?
Everybody would freak out.
Everybody would run to sell their gold, and gold would, in turn, for a short amount of time or maybe a long amount of time, dip significantly.
A similar thing would occur to Bitcoin in this particular circumstance, right?
Everybody would run to sell their Bitcoin, but the question is, does Bitcoin come back, right?
Because Bitcoin doesn't necessarily have the years and years of history and the masses already accepting it.
So the timeline, right, if we have in two years and this issue comes up, it could be to the point of no return.
But if we say maybe 20, 30 years when every institution and government has a significant Bitcoin holding, then it could be a completely different context.
And that's why the timeline is very important, right?
Coming to consensus now is more important than doing so as soon as we get punched in the face.
I mean, it seems like the main investment that seems to be happening is that there are standards institutes and now some government agencies that are starting to reach out and say,
hey, you should really be prepared in the next five, seven, ten years.
So, you know, they're, I guess, exerting some pressure to try to, you know, put the flame under people's feet, so to speak.
But it's like you said, like the incentives aren't necessarily aligned because the incentives are so unclear.
Yeah, and one thing to add, I mean, all the investments are going to the machinery side of things.
There hasn't been an algorithmic development in the quantum domain for quite some time that has produced any kind of significance, right?
And maybe you could talk more about that if you have perspective.
Beyond Shor's algorithm?
Yeah, I mean, that's quite some time ago relative to...
I mean, there have been developments in Shor's algorithm.
I know, but nothing...
Optimizations.
Yeah, yeah, optimizations, but nothing of significance, right?
Like, we still have very highly computational algorithms as replacements for the post-quantum future.
Oh, PQC is a different story.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So what I'm saying here is it's still, like, all the...
From what I'm saying is the investment is going to machinery rather than algorithmic development
or improving the current computational load of existing algorithms rather than improving on them.
And that's the critical part, is improving the capability of the algorithms rather than the machinery.
I just have a question just from the investor perspective, right?
Like, let's say this does happen tomorrow.
And as we understand it, it's the early Bitcoins.
It's Satoshi's treasure, Satoshi's quantum treasure, the buried gold.
In the 1600s, the 1700s, there's a Spanish galley in the San Jose that sank with 6 million ounces of gold.
And it wasn't until gold became worth enough value that we would develop the technology to try to go find this sunken treasure.
So quantum, you know, if somebody has a quantum breakthrough and it becomes worth investing the money in the hardware
to go find Satoshi's sunken Bitcoin treasure, the quantum Satoshi treasure, whatever you want to call it.
I mean, if that happened tomorrow, correct me if I'm wrong, but it would only be those keys, those, like, 3 to 6 million Bitcoin.
The rest of the exchanges, the custodians, etc., like, they're not at risk.
So if we have a huge crash, I see that as a huge opportunity.
It's somewhat arguable depending on if it's been used lately, right?
Yeah, reused addresses are at risk.
But I think from an incentives perspective, this is interesting because you can actually make an argument
that by allowing all of those exposed pay-to-pub-key Bitcoin to currently sit out there as a bounty,
we're actually incentivizing people to push forward to build their quantum computer in order to be able to basically scoop that up.
And, I mean, we had a quantum summit a few months ago where we had several companies there
that were in the process of building these computers, and we asked them, like, straight up,
are you going to steal Satoshi's coins?
And they were very evasive, of course, and they were like, well, you know,
we'll have to have a board decision about that.
Well, I actually talked to the CEO of SciQuantum privately,
and he said to me that he wouldn't do that because it might jeopardize his government contracts.
But then, like, as I was walking away, I was thinking, wait a second, what if the government paid him?
Strategic quantum Bitcoin reserve.
Yeah.
I mean, we already know it's...
Treasure hunting, let's go.
It's already, you know, the strategic reserve is mostly taken from stolen, you know, seized coins,
so what if we just seize them with a new quantum computer?
But wouldn't it be an opportunity, though, going back to the investment side of it,
if this happened and maybe, you know, like, I don't know what percentage exactly it is,
but if it doesn't completely disrupt the network entirely,
wouldn't it be quite an opportunity to get some cheap sats?
Yeah, and to make everybody else's sats very cheap.
I mean, like, looking at the incentive, right,
you have to, in order to truly understand the timeline,
you have to see how long it will take for quantum computers to be cheap enough
to efficiently be able to steal Bitcoin, right?
And I don't know, maybe you could talk about this more.
It's like, is there research specific to the cost-to-reward ratio
when it comes to stealing all this Bitcoin and then dumping it on the market?
Because if a quantum computer is of greater cost,
then there's no game-theoretic advantage.
Well, yeah, I mean, once again, there's too many variables at play.
That's, yeah.
And so one thing that we're all trying to figure out is,
is the technological advancement in this particular space
going to continue somewhat linearly or geometrically?
If that's the case, that's my optimistic best case,
that we, the nerds who are paying attention to this,
can see, like, usually in cryptography,
like, all cryptography tends to degrade over many year and decade period
until eventually it gets broken.
And if that's the best case scenario for this,
is that we see quantum advancements happen at a steady pace,
and then eventually we get to the point where we can project out
because we can look at all the different variables
and see where they're converging and say,
okay, now we have 10 years, now we have five years.
However, if something else happens,
like if, for example, we have massive AI advancements
and then the AI advancements supercharge it
so it ends up being exponential advancement in the quantum space,
that is, I think, the black pill scenario
where we all get caught unaware
and very, very bad things will result
from an economic perspective on the Bitcoin network.
One of the things that I think is lost on the community
that maybe haven't spent a lot of time on this
is let's say tomorrow we go with BIP 360,
the testing, you know, checked out that it was a good solution,
the whole community adopts it,
you got that soft fork in place,
and now everybody's got to rotate their keys
to the new quantum grade keys.
That process of rotating the keys,
if everybody went out and started putting their transactions
into the next block to try to rotate the keys,
tell me, Hunter, what you're trying to do
if your timeline is in order for everybody
to be able to rotate their keys
that have $100 worth of Bitcoin in an address,
if you have that or more,
how long would it take for those people
to rotate their keys?
Because I was playing around with AI on this question
and I was kind of blown away at the answer that I got back.
I'm curious what your timeline is for everybody to rotate their keys.
I'm pretty sure there was a study done on this,
and if I recall correctly, it was like a matter of months, maybe.
What did you say it was?
Several months.
At best case scenario, if everybody's paying attention
and we get the whole ecosystem to upgrade,
multiple months just worth of block space.
But, I mean, there is no best case scenario.
We know the Bitcoin community.
Nobody, everybody's very slow, right?
Nobody's going to come and rush again.
I very much, I'm firm on the idea.
People won't move until they get punched in the face.
Like, if you're sitting on a little,
if your net worth in Bitcoin is 0.1%,
I don't think it's really of concern
to go and move it to a quantum-resistant wallet,
which is of issue, I mean, over time.
Hunter, the answer I got back was a year.
Yeah.
And the reason I got a year
is because it's accounting for the larger,
assuming the blocks don't get any bigger,
which, God forbid, we go into that argument.
Let's bring back the block size debate.
Yeah.
And don't be surprised if that crops back up
with all of this, right?
But if we keep the blocks the same size
and because the transaction sizes are so much larger
and you've got to account for how many people
have to rotate their keys,
the answer I was getting was a year
if everybody just, if everybody went and did it.
To be clear, like BIP 360 addresses,
they aren't really any larger than a taproot
or pay-to-win-the-script-house address type.
So really, like, to deposit into a quantum-resistant address
wouldn't be any larger.
It's to spend from it.
So, yeah, so, I mean,
that might be a little unnecessarily pessimistic,
but also another thing...
Don't tell them that.
We need people to start focusing on this stuff.
And also, one thing I also want to...
Well, here's the thing.
Like, I'm really, like, compared to Jabez and Lopp,
I'm very white-pilled on this issue
because there's also, like, what I called Satoshi Shield
in some of the earlier versions of the BIP,
which was essentially the fact that the 34,000 pay-to-public keys
with an average balance of 50 Bitcoin each
sort of shields the plebs
and gives them time to transfer their coins
even in the clear
because there's no crypto-economic incentive
to take, you know, $100 worth of Bitcoin
when there's these 50 Bitcoin outputs hanging out there
that, you know, it gives us time to transition.
When, you know, there's...
When the P2PK supply dwindles, you know,
once it becomes zero
or if it's ever burned or frozen or whatever
according to, like, QBIP and things like that,
that would be, like, I think, a different scenario.
But right now, you know, like,
Satoshi's coins shield the plebs.
What's a hot topic for you
that you're looking at all of this
with all of your knowledge
and you're saying,
good Lord, if only I could make sure
everybody hears this really important point.
For you, what is that point
that maybe it's not discussed
or that you think is a really big deal
in this space
that is pretty much lost on...
I think one of the more nuanced problems
could be the motivations
and economic incentives
for economic node runners
like the ETF holders
and things like that.
They might be motivated
to seek different solutions
than what most Bitcoiners might want.
Why would they not be incentivized?
Help us understand that.
So, what I hear is that
there's definitely a big push
for burning the coins,
the P2PK coins.
And me personally,
I don't agree with that.
I think, you know,
Bitcoin supply is 21 million.
People have always known that.
The markets may have discounted that
for some time
because we've assumed
Satoshi's coins are abandoned.
But I think it's fine.
You know, I think the markets
will be happy to take up coins
at whatever price they are.
But the problem is,
if we're talking about
a 50% drawdown
and 80% drawdown,
Michael Saylor's
going to be in trouble.
It could be a lot of turmoil
on the economic side, right?
And so,
they might push
for changes to Bitcoin
like burning the coins
that might run counter
to what most Bitcoiners
would agree with
as being like a good solution
in my opinion.
That's just,
I think,
something for us
to be aware of.
And I think the best way
to counteract that
is to be proactive
in the solutions
that we come up with
and try to get ahead
of the problem
and solve it
in a way
that everybody's happy with.
Maybe Hourglass
might be one solution,
Hourglass being a way
to restrict the spend
of Satoshi's coins.
I know Lobb thinks
it's an imperfect solution
and he's not wrong,
but it's always compromises
and it's just,
ultimately,
we have to make
the decisions
that are best for Bitcoin.
Jameson,
did you want to talk
about the thing
you were working on
in addition to BIP 360?
Yeah, so,
like I said,
I'm not a cryptographer,
so I'll leave
that to other people
to actually argue
about which
of the quantum
safe signature schemes
are the least crappy.
but what I'm more
interested in
is actually
the game theory
and the incentives
of deploying
a change like this
and this is mainly,
this is due
to multiple things,
A, because of how
slow it is
to do anything
in Bitcoin
and B,
human nature,
as you've already said
multiple times,
Mohammed,
people don't act
until they have
almost no other choice
and so I think
that if we believe
that the quantum computers
are actually going
to be a threat,
we need to give people
a deadline
and if we don't give people
a deadline,
they're going to wait
until it's practically
too late,
if not too late,
and then we have
everyone rush
for the exits
and the Bitcoin block size
is not going to adjust itself
just because everybody
wants to be
in a safe
quantum address
so this is why
I think that we need
to have a deadline
after which
you cannot spend
a quantum vulnerable
UTXO.
There's also one thing
on that note
and this is my
primary concern,
a lot of people
holding Bitcoin now
are just TradFi,
ETFs,
hedge funds
and whatnot
and they've been promised
that Bitcoin
is unchangeable,
right?
There is no issue
that could ever come
to compromise
its security,
right?
But these individuals
at that same logic
have already made
significant amounts
of profits
so they could come
and say
and these are
from conversations
I'm having
with hedge fund managers,
ETF managers
and such,
they could just sell
their positions
and never re-enter.
It's like,
okay,
we've made our money,
people are scared,
there's this quantum threat
that could destroy
the very fabric
of Bitcoin
and for them
it's like,
okay,
exit opportunity,
let me get out
before everyone else dumps
and that could be
like a prerequisite dump
prior to anything
actually ever happening
and that's usually
what happens,
like buy the rumor,
sell the news.
People start freaking out
about the rumor
and sometimes the rumor
becomes too bad
to the point
where things don't recover.
Jameson,
that was a really bold
thing that you said there
and if people,
so the question is,
is what do you do
with all the coins
that weren't moved
by the date
that you're proposing?
so that's the essence
of where you're going
Yeah, so I think
that this is
effectively a lose-lose
scenario
because if
a cryptographically
relevant quantum computer
does come into existence,
then one of the
inviolable properties
of Bitcoin
is going to be violated.
Either we do nothing
and now all of a sudden
the, you know,
not your keys,
not your coins
property becomes an issue
because all of a sudden
very specific actors
will be able to magically
have your keys
and take your money
or on the flip side,
if we decide
we want to incentivize people
to migrate
by telling them,
you know,
you're not going to be able
to spend
in a quantum vulnerable fashion
after some deadline,
you know,
that violates
the don't screw
with other people's money
aspect
of this ecosystem,
the censorship resistance.
So
this is a massive
economic controversy,
moral and philosophical
controversy,
and definitely
a coordination issue,
which is why
I'm so black-pilled
on, like,
if we have
less than five years
to deal with this,
then we're probably
not going to be able
to come to a consensus.
And a lot of conversations
in general
about this
need to happen
on the, like,
custodian level,
right?
Most people,
individuals,
don't really care
as much,
but if you're
an exchange
or a custodian
or something,
you're holding
a significant amount
of Bitcoin,
those are the kind
of people
you want to be
talking about
and trying to push
this narrative, too,
because they have
much greater control
of how your Bitcoin
is safe
rather than
the average individual.
I think if we're
going to go
by the libertarian
principles
that Bitcoin
was founded upon,
we need to exercise
individual responsibility
and a part
of not your keys,
not your coins
is the fact
that eventually,
maybe someday,
public keys
will become
as sensitive
as information
as private keys.
Quick note,
I don't know
if Bitcoin
has stuck
to its libertarian roots
at what we dreamed
of back
when this first started,
right?
We have governments
and institutions.
Quick note.
That's a...
No, no,
that's my opinion.
I know it's
a very unpopular one,
but now you have
governments
and institutions
that are holding
all of your Bitcoin,
right?
These are the kind
of people you have
to talk to
and convince
that this is an issue.
And I don't like it,
right?
I don't think anyone
here likes it,
but it's become
the sad reality
of the space we're in.
And those are the kind
of people you have
to talk to.
Bitcoin is...
Depends on your perspective.
Not, you know,
you can look at it
like that
or you can look
at the opportunities
and you can look
at the space
where everything is
advancing properly
and cypherpunk values
like the bleeding
edge of Bitcoin,
the startups
that I'm investing in,
they're pushing forward
for free speech,
personal liberty,
sound money,
property rights,
all these things.
I mean,
Bitcoin is for enemies.
This is just inevitable.
This is how Bitcoin
is going to work.
This is consensus.
And I don't think
we should necessarily
look at that
as a negative thing.
I think we shouldn't
paint that as like
Bitcoin has become this.
It's just,
this is what Bitcoin
is now.
And, you know,
it's not an easy thing
to come to any kind
of consensus,
but I just choose
to look at the more
positive side of things.
The last thing that I want
to leave with the audience
because we're out of time
is just,
I think hearing the comments
on the stage,
you can see that this
is a serious matter.
This is something that
I think the community
needs to take serious.
I think it's something
that next time you hear
somebody say,
oh, quantum,
and they're just like,
oh, that's, you know,
that's decades away
if even that.
I think that's bad
for the community.
And I think everybody
here on stage
would probably agree
that just kind of
whitewashing it
is no big deal
is probably the biggest issue
that we currently face
on this particular topic.
I applaud you, Hunter,
the work.
I can't even imagine
the amount of work
that you put into BIP 360.
Guys, give him
a round of applause.
So with that,
the quantum panel,
gentlemen,
thank you so much
for your comments.
Thank you.