Quantum Computing: Threat or FUD?
Bitcoin 2026, BitGo High Roller Summit, Las Vegas

Automatic transcript with corrections to names and technical terms. May contain transcription errors. Eight recorded excerpts presented in sequence; gaps between clips are not included.
Timestamps refer to the video on this page.

[00:00:00] Humming. I'm going to bring my shake. I'm still recovering less than a little bit.
[00:00:05] Really excited to talk about this topic. We all have heard about quantum in the
[00:00:08] news,
[00:00:08] how opposed or how concerned should we be. And so I think we gather the right group
[00:00:15] of people
[00:00:16] who are experts in this and would love to just see where the conversation takes us.
[00:00:20] So
[00:00:20] I hope it's valuable for everybody here. I'd like to start with Adam. I'd love you
[00:00:26] to give
[00:00:26] the simplified breakdown for us, Adam. To me, and this is the case with most
[00:00:31] Bitcoin upgrades,
[00:00:33] the risk is rushing an upgrade more so than quantum. And like Adam said, the
[00:00:38] physical
[00:00:38] capabilities of the hardware, it's just not there yet. And at best, it's a few
[00:00:43] years on the horizon.
[00:00:44] So making hasty upgrades to Bitcoin's consensus is to me the far bigger threat. And
[00:00:51] none of the
[00:00:51] circles I'm in are seriously concerned about the threat of quantum in the really
[00:00:57] short or medium
[00:00:57] term. Alex, what do you think? Yeah, I think, first of all, I entirely agree that
[00:01:04] rushing is not what
[00:01:06] we want to do at all. And I also agree with what Adam said, that the path of
[00:01:10] progress is somewhat
[00:01:11] unpredictable. And I think in combining those two things, I think it only makes
[00:01:14] sense to start
[00:01:15] preparing now. And I think it's fantastic. I was actually kind of reminiscing a
[00:01:18] year ago,
[00:01:19] I was on a panel with Jonas from Blockstream and a few other folks. And it was the
[00:01:22] only panel on
[00:01:23] quantum. And now I think that the entire program is all about quantum at this
[00:01:26] conference. And I
[00:01:27] think that's good because I think this is a discussion that needs to be had. We don't
[00:01:29] want to rush.
[00:01:30] And I think, you know, we should start to have the, you know, a sensible
[00:01:34] conversation now to ensure
[00:01:37] that we are prepared for Q-Day whenever it happens. Because, you know, we have to
[00:01:41] remember that this
[00:01:41] isn't just about a conversation, right? There's a lot of research that needs to
[00:01:44] happen. And there's a lot of
[00:01:46] engineering work that has to happen. And then there's a lot of consensus building
[00:01:49] that has to happen in
[00:01:50] the community. And then all the institutions that are built on top also have to
[00:01:53] integrate all this
[00:01:54] for the Bitcoin network to be truly secure. So for those reasons, this is why I don't
[00:01:57] really think of
[00:01:58] quantum computing talk as FUD. I think this is just something that, you know, we
[00:02:02] should acknowledge
[00:02:03] and, you know, and talk reasonably and soberly about it. Yeah. And Bitcoiners, by
[00:02:09] and large,
[00:02:09] as we all know, are early adopters. And so that gives me some solace, the fact that
[00:02:14] we are talking
[00:02:15] about it now, whether it's a year, three years, 10 years, whatever into the future.
[00:02:18] These conversations
[00:02:20] need to be had. And like you said, it's becoming a bigger part of some of these
[00:02:23] discussions, which
[00:02:25] I find to be very bullish and gives me hope. So Rick, I'd love to hear your
[00:02:29] thoughts as well.
[00:02:30] I'll just say, wow, how far we've come in the conversation the last three years or
[00:02:35] so when I
[00:02:36] started asking people about this. I started the quantum doom clock just to kind of,
[00:02:42] you know,
[00:02:43] get the information out there and say, look, this is where things are right now.
[00:02:47] And then tracking it
[00:02:48] month by month, I send another update out. And when I started having that
[00:02:52] conversation,
[00:02:53] everyone was like, well, it's still 20 years away. There's all these problems and
[00:02:58] kind of went through
[00:02:58] the whole gamut of, you know, first they ignore you, then they start fighting you.
[00:03:02] Right. So we,
[00:03:03] we're now on the, they're, they're trying to start joining us now. I think there's
[00:03:06] still a little bit
[00:03:07] of pushback and resistance, but I will say I'm very hopeful. You know, Hunter Beast
[00:03:13] at Surround
[00:03:14] Systems with the BIP 360 proposal, I think it's a really good proposal. He was
[00:03:19] telling me the
[00:03:20] updates he's going to do to it for BIP 110 compatibility. I think the number of
[00:03:24] people in
[00:03:25] the room that, you know, that care about block size and how much data you need to
[00:03:29] store when
[00:03:29] you run a node, that matters to you a lot. So I just think that the evolution over
[00:03:34] the last three
[00:03:35] years has been night and day. I don't want to appear before Bitcoin is like that.
[00:03:40] In fact, you know,
[00:03:40] we talked to a lot of quantum computing companies and I have to say that a lot of
[00:03:44] them are thinking
[00:03:45] about, hmm, are, you know, how do we think about Satoshi's coins? Are they digital
[00:03:49] salvage? Or,
[00:03:50] you know, is this something that we could maybe use as a, as a mechanism to monetize?
[00:03:54] By the way,
[00:03:55] some of these folks like take INQ for example, you know, these are public companies,
[00:03:58] um, you know,
[00:03:59] that, that want to, you know, potentially make money ultimately for their investors.
[00:04:03] So,
[00:04:03] and there's not a lot of good quantum use cases business wise outside of the
[00:04:07] analysis, right? So,
[00:04:09] I think, um, you know, I think that, that has to be accounted for. And I, and so I
[00:04:14] think that's,
[00:04:14] that's an important part of it. With regards to Satoshi's coins and what to do with
[00:04:18] them, um,
[00:04:19] look, I think it's important to note that it's not just Satoshi's coins that are
[00:04:22] vulnerable to
[00:04:22] the economy. So we maintain, um, um, a product called the Bitcoin risk list, which
[00:04:27] you can find
[00:04:27] on project11.com. And it's just a list of all of the addresses that are under
[00:04:31] exposed public keys,
[00:04:32] whether by basically key reuse, um, you know, sign the same, you know, from the
[00:04:35] same UTXO twice,
[00:04:37] or, you know, people that have lost, you know, are they using some old address
[00:04:40] types,
[00:04:41] you know, but that's a total 6.8 million coins, right? And so I think I, I agree
[00:04:45] with, you know,
[00:04:46] so that's much more than just Satoshi's. By the way, Satoshi's coins are spread out
[00:04:49] among a
[00:04:49] number of UTXOs for a large period, right? So if you were a quantum attack, you
[00:04:53] were kind of
[00:04:54] got to grind through them, right? You're not really getting them all at once. I
[00:04:56] think it's a common
[00:04:57] misconception. Whereas, I mean, you actually could get, like, Binance's gold wall,
[00:05:01] uh, potentially,
[00:05:02] just to pick a name off the list. Um, you know, but I think this is why I think I
[00:05:06] agree with the
[00:05:06] sentiment that, uh, we should focus on adding in the post-quantum cryptography that
[00:05:11] people can opt
[00:05:12] into, right? And solve kind of that problem first, right? Because that, I think, is
[00:05:16] quite involved
[00:05:17] in and of itself. And I think we should defer the conversation potentially about
[00:05:21] what to do with
[00:05:22] the long tail of people who have died or have gone away or, you know, you know,
[00:05:25] these lost coins.
[00:05:26] I think, I think it should be deferred so as not to distract from the importance of
[00:05:29] ultimately
[00:05:30] preparing Bitcoin for the post-quantum. That's a good point. Yeah. Rick? Um, Satoshi's
[00:05:36] coins are
[00:05:36] probably going to be the last ones to be hacked. And, uh, a great illustration of
[00:05:40] that is the movie
[00:05:41] the invitation game. Has anybody here seen that? You know, you're, you're hacking,
[00:05:46] you've hacked the
[00:05:47] the German encryption, right? So what's the first thing you want to do? Save the
[00:05:50] boats that they're
[00:05:51] about to attack. But if you do that, you reveal that you have the key, right? So I
[00:05:55] think it's, it's
[00:05:56] probably the last piece. What I really want to do, what I would love to do is be
[00:06:01] the first to get
[00:06:02] there. Um, if you read up about me, that's, that's the side of the house I'm on. I'm
[00:06:07] on the algorithm
[00:06:08] side in terms of building, uh, useful algorithms with quantum computers. Um, the
[00:06:13] other point I would,
[00:06:14] I would make is, uh, there are already a bunch of products and things that you can
[00:06:20] do. You can,
[00:06:21] you can use like a commitment that you write with a post-quantum key to the chain
[00:06:25] right now today.
[00:06:26] I know David Chong has proposed that. You have the Yellow Pages approach. We've
[00:06:30] released our own
[00:06:31] approach, uh, that, you know, is using L2s. The L2s are using Taproot. Taproot is
[00:06:37] probably the
[00:06:38] worst possible thing that you want to use right now because it has a long-lived
[00:06:41] public key.
[00:06:43] And that makes, that means it's like the most vulnerable type of thing, especially
[00:06:46] if any value
[00:06:47] accrues under that public key. So there's lots of complexity here. I think that,
[00:06:52] you know, in terms
[00:06:52] of you want to state your claim now, you can do that now. That is one solution that's
[00:06:57] available to you.
[00:06:58] When these L2s, some of them already are, like Lightning Network, they're using
[00:07:02] rotating keys. Some of them,
[00:07:03] they're using, uh, um, uh, hash-based keys that don't get revealed until it's time.
[00:07:10] If you're,
[00:07:11] if you're doing those two things, you're relatively quantum resistant. Yes, there's
[00:07:14] the Google Resolve
[00:07:15] that says that they can break a key in under, you know, in under the block time. Um,
[00:07:20] I don't think
[00:07:21] that would be the first system that breaks the keys. Just, you know, take it from
[00:07:25] someone who works with
[00:07:26] the computers. I think probably neutral Atom is, is, you know, or ion-trapped
[00:07:31] technology are probably
[00:07:31] going to be first, but I, you know, it could be wrong. Yeah. And, uh, speaking of
[00:07:35] some research,
[00:07:36] Google put out that research for that team on, uh, the quantum computing could hack
[00:07:41] the Bitcoin
[00:07:42] network in like nine minutes, I think is what they said. Nine minutes, yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:45] And so I'm curious,
[00:07:47] uh, love to hear everyone's thoughts, starting with you, Adam. Not only everyone
[00:07:50] else's opinions of
[00:07:51] the most recent discussion, but then how do we separate, when some of this research
[00:07:55] comes out,
[00:07:56] how do we separate fact from fiction? Um, you know, everyone has differing opinions
[00:08:00] and it's like,
[00:08:01] how do you reach a consensus from your perspective with all this, I don't want to
[00:08:04] call it fun,
[00:08:05] but maybe some of it is. How do we separate real from not real? As Adam points out,
[00:08:11] there's no
[00:08:11] physical hardware that, that represent, you know, that is able to do these things,
[00:08:14] right? That has to get
[00:08:15] built. Um, and you know, of course there are teams spending a significant amount of
[00:08:20] money, and by the way,
[00:08:21] which money is coming from entities like governments around the world, not just the
[00:08:25] U.S., but China,
[00:08:26] elsewhere, to like, to build these systems, right? These governments obviously have
[00:08:28] an incentive to,
[00:08:29] or, you know, certain parties that are funding these teams have an incentive to
[00:08:33] hide this amount of progress, right? But I do think there's this, you know, there
[00:08:37] are skeptics that I,
[00:08:38] I definitely understand the position of, which is that you shouldn't throw time-tested
[00:08:43] cryptography
[00:08:44] that has secured trillions of dollars into the bin unless we have something
[00:08:48] tangible, right? That's a very
[00:08:50] very understandable position. Um, and I think trying to figure out what these
[00:08:55] benchmarks could be
[00:08:57] is useful. Unfortunately, I think there's no good answer. I mean, this is, you know,
[00:09:01] I'm talking to Craig Kidney, who's one of the Google cryptanalysis folks. I mean,
[00:09:05] he doesn't,
[00:09:05] he believes there's not a good benchmark you can use. All you can really do is just
[00:09:09] look at the
[00:09:10] papers, and then someday someone's going to build a machine that can do it, and
[00:09:13] then we're going to be
[00:09:13] there. I think that's one of the reasons why, kind of, you know, taking this back
[00:09:18] to how we should
[00:09:19] think about this as a Bitcoin community is, you know, like, it's just, we're not
[00:09:22] going to maybe
[00:09:23] have this strong signal. So as a result, we just need to account for that extra
[00:09:27] uncertainty,
[00:09:28] and therefore solely prepare earlier rather than later. Because if you over, you
[00:09:32] know,
[00:09:32] if you, if you prepare too early, the worst case is like, all right, we spent a lot
[00:09:35] of work,
[00:09:35] we yelled at each other, maybe, but like, now we're ready. Um, you know, when you
[00:09:39] prepare too late,
[00:09:40] I think that's where there's, you know, there's a risk of a chaotic transition.
[00:09:44] And it's a great point. I'm a very strong advocate, at least in the near term, of
[00:09:50] adopting a hybrid
[00:09:51] approach where you keep the classical signature and then add the post quantum
[00:09:54] signature. I don't
[00:09:55] really trust the NIST process. Uh, you know, there's, we have a history there of
[00:10:00] potential problems
[00:10:01] that I think could be repeated. So I'm, I'm with, uh, Alex 100% there. Um, the
[00:10:07] other thing I would say
[00:10:08] is, uh, you know, learn to, you know, stop worrying and learn to love the quantum,
[00:10:12] right? Uh,
[00:10:12] uh, you're gonna see really interesting, uh, commercial applications of these
[00:10:16] things much
[00:10:17] more before you see the keys getting broken. Um, also, I think that you probably
[00:10:22] will see
[00:10:23] keys on the order of 40 to 60 bits, maybe 70 bits get broken. And then like six to
[00:10:28] nine months later,
[00:10:29] when the next generation of the computers come out, it, they'll be able to break,
[00:10:33] uh, actual real
[00:10:34] photography. And, uh, you know, that's dependent on the 10Xing that we've seen in
[00:10:40] the last five years,
[00:10:41] which is what's been happening. You know, we, we're going to go from a thousand to
[00:10:45] about 10,000
[00:10:45] qubits by the end of the year. We'll probably be at a hundred thousand qubits,
[00:10:49] depending on the
[00:10:50] type of system, uh, by the end of next year. So this stuff is rapidly exploding and
[00:10:55] it's really
[00:10:55] hard to describe sort of the exponential growth and, uh, capability of these
[00:11:00] systems. So it's, uh,
[00:11:02] it could just be a very overnight type of thing where you've got a really buggy
[00:11:06] algorithm. It takes two
[00:11:07] months to run, but it reliably breaks like say a 38 bit key. And then six months
[00:11:12] later,
[00:11:13] they're breaking real keys. Do you think AI comes into play here as that continues
[00:11:18] to mature and build
[00:11:19] its own systems and technology? Will AI and quantum have some sort of a
[00:11:23] relationship over the next
[00:11:24] several years for specific physics applications? So it's already having like a huge
[00:11:31] impact. Um,
[00:11:32] quantum in general, just the approach and the thought process that goes into it,
[00:11:36] people have realized, wait, this is a really good way to do optimization.
[00:11:40] Uh, so we've already seen advantages or you're seeing, um, like, uh, I don't want
[00:11:47] to call it specific
[00:11:47] logistics companies, but they're definitely using, if not quantum computers,
[00:11:51] quantum inspired approaches.
[00:11:53] You're seeing financial institutions that are using these quantum inspired
[00:11:55] approaches.
[00:11:56] So it's already having a huge impact and AI is also definitely accelerating. Uh, it's
[00:12:01] great at pattern
[00:12:02] matching. So things like that. Yeah, let's just go back to the
[00:12:06] I think the answer is 10 out of 10. I mean, Bitcoin is going to survive. There's
[00:12:19] absolutely
[00:12:20] no question. I mean, you know, I was talking about the difference in Bitcoin that
[00:12:23] maybe makes it
[00:12:23] vulnerable versus like a centralized system, but look, Bitcoin is also incredibly
[00:12:28] resilient,
[00:12:28] far more than any of these centralized systems. So Bitcoin will certainly survive,
[00:12:34] you know,
[00:12:34] but I think, I think it's in all of our interests, everyone in this room, everyone
[00:12:37] in this conference,
[00:12:37] you know, to ensure that the transition to the post quantum, the world of post
[00:12:41] quantum Bitcoin
[00:12:42] is as orderly as possible. Um, you know, but I think I have every reason to believe
[00:12:47] that Bitcoin
[00:12:48] will exist in the future and I have every reason to root for it. I mean, I believe
[00:12:51] this is like,
[00:12:52] you know, this is the most incredible financial innovation of the 21st century and
[00:12:56] probably any
[00:12:57] century. And I'm certain that it's interesting. I just want to echo what Adam said.
[00:13:02] Um, uh, if you're an institutional, uh, if you're relying on the NHSM, uh, you
[00:13:08] really need to be
[00:13:09] thinking about this problem right now. I think the sort of black swan probability
[00:13:13] is, you know,
[00:13:14] less than 1% right now, but certainly going to be past 1% in, you know, the end of
[00:13:19] 2027.
[00:13:20] I am on record saying that it's five to 20% in 2028. Um, maybe I'm a little
[00:13:25] aggressive with that,
[00:13:26] but I still think it's a very real possibility. So if you're trying to do real
[00:13:31] world assets or trying
[00:13:32] to put things on chain and you're an institutional and you're an institution, you
[00:13:35] should really be
[00:13:36] thinking about what your strategy is, uh, and how you're going to solve it. And I
[00:13:40] think you should
[00:13:40] have plan to have that solution in place, uh, sort of by the end of the decade at
[00:13:44] the minimum, but more
[00:13:45] likely 2028, 2029. This has been a really encouraging conversation for me and I,
[00:13:51] you know, learned a lot
[00:13:52] from you guys. I'm an analyst, right? I'm not a cryptographer and perhaps this bear
[00:13:57] market is a
[00:13:58] blessing in disguise because nobody was talking about quantum last year. And I tend
[00:14:02] to believe
[00:14:02] that narratives follow price action, right? The quantum topic really picked up when
[00:14:07] Bitcoin dropped to 60K
[00:14:08] in February. And this happens every bear market, right? Some narrative comes out
[00:14:12] and Bitcoin's dead.
[00:14:13] It's so over this time it was quantum. I liked Gaul's approach where, you know, get
[00:14:19] ready sooner rather
[00:14:20] than later. I think that's very prudent. Um, but you know, last summer or last May
[00:14:24] at this conference,
[00:14:25] everyone's talking about treasury companies and a perpetual bid going to send
[00:14:29] Bitcoin to a million.
[00:14:30] So, you know, a year or two from now, when Bitcoin's back at all time highs, I
[00:14:33] imagine we won't be
[00:14:34] talking about quantum. So it's good to have these conversations now. And thank you.
[00:14:39] I, I agree with
[00:14:39] that sentiment and I agree as well. The hope of talking to you guys about this,
[00:14:43] again, I'm not a
[00:14:44] cryptographer either. So having Adam and things to discuss, obviously there's the
[00:14:48] quantum mission that
[00:14:49] we need to get right. There's institutional adoption now coming in, which a lot of
[00:14:53] Bitcoins have
[00:14:53] been saying for years, front run the institutions. I think we were right about that,
[00:14:57] but obviously retail
[00:14:58] continues to continue to adopt globally, not just in the U S. And so, uh, starting
[00:15:03] with you, Adam,
[00:15:04] and then down the line, I'd love to hear, um, how bullish are you on Bitcoin? Not
[00:15:10] price wise,
[00:15:10] but just in general, has, has anything changed on your outlook for Bitcoin for the
[00:15:15] short term
[00:15:16] and deep into the future with all of the various items that we have to contend with,
[00:15:20] such as quantum?
[00:15:21] Well, I mean, uh, general interesting. I agree. I actually think not supporting
[00:15:25] Bitcoin at this
[00:15:26] point has become a political risk. Um, and so agreed, uh, with this administration,
[00:15:31] you expected a
[00:15:32] little bit more, but maybe it's also sort of part for the course of Bitcoin. It
[00:15:35] does the opposite of
[00:15:36] what you expect. Um, but even if we have a change of administration, whichever side
[00:15:41] of the aisle you
[00:15:42] lean, I mean, I'm pro human is where I'm at. I think most of us would agree, uh,
[00:15:47] forget all the other BS,
[00:15:48] basically. Um, but even if another administration came in with nefarious intent or
[00:15:53] tried to go against
[00:15:54] Bitcoin, I actually don't think that they would get the support in the votes at
[00:15:57] this point. And so
[00:15:58] I view it as a political risk for them. I think they do now too, hopefully. Um, so
[00:16:03] I, I totally agree
[00:16:04] with that. Um, Alex, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Uh, yeah. Um, I'm bullish on
[00:16:10] quantum in terms of,
[00:16:11] uh, you know, as, as, as, you know, development is accelerating and also its
[00:16:15] utility for humanity broadly and
[00:16:17] potentially even for Bitcoin, I'm bullish on Bitcoin. I don't think one implies the
[00:16:24] death of
[00:16:24] the other. Uh, and I'm bullish that we'll all be here in 40 years, at which point
[00:16:30] there will almost
[00:16:31] certainly be a quantum computer here talking about Bitcoin and Bitcoin will have
[00:16:34] survived. So I, yeah,
[00:16:35] I mean, I, I don't know if there's more to say than that. I think I, I'm very
[00:16:38] confident that Bitcoin will
[00:16:39] survive and therefore being early as we are in 2026, it is a great time for Bitcoin
[00:16:44] and it's a great time for
[00:16:45] Bitcoin. You're still early. Don't forget that. Great. I can't wait to be able to
[00:16:50] use a quantum
[00:16:51] computer to mine some Bitcoin. Uh, with that said, I'm also very hopeful. Uh, I
[00:16:59] think the L2s are going
[00:16:59] to lead the way. Uh, they are by far more nimble than, you know, getting anything
[00:17:03] into Bitcoin core.
[00:17:05] That's by design, right? So I think that you watch that space. I think there's
[00:17:08] going to be an interesting
[00:17:08] developments. People are going to be able to do some experimentation there and
[00:17:12] hopefully, uh,
[00:17:13] you know, get these preliminary algorithms is set in stone, tested, right? Things
[00:17:18] like that. And, um,
[00:17:19] it's just very helpful. Yeah. So on the last topic, uh, there is, um, shrinks in Climoxidine
[00:17:25] and Equids using