The first sign that quantum computing has broken modern cryptography probably won’t be a splashy theft of Satoshi Nakamoto’s dormant Bitcoin. It could just be a wave of unrelated crypto wallet breaches with no trace of how an attacker did it, according to the founder of blockchain startup Quantus. 

“When someone cracks your key, you don’t get a memo saying how they did it,” Christopher Smith, CEO and co-founder of Quantus Network, told Cointelegraph. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could derive a private key from public keys exposed onchain, allowing an attacker to move funds without compromising a wallet, device or exchange’s internal systems. 

This makes the arrival of “Q-day” — a hypothetical future moment when quantum computers become powerful enough to break standard public-key cryptography — unusually difficult to detect. In a theft involving a highly secure organization, “the only forensic evidence would be that there was no breach,” Smith said.

Smith’s warning comes as advances in quantum algorithms have reduced estimates of computing resources needed to attack the elliptic-curve cryptography used by major blockchains. 

First target may not be Satoshi’s Bitcoin 

Much of the fear around Q-day in crypto is what will happen if a quantum computer cracks the keys securing Satoshi Nakamoto’s estimated Bitcoin holdings, worth $63 billion at the time of writing, which could be suddenly dumped on the market.

However, Smith said the first targets may be military systems and state secrets, while crypto attackers could go for even more valuable keys. 

“If I’m focusing on blockchain, what’s the single most valuable key? It’s probably Tether’s minting key,” Smith said. A quantum attacker could mint tokens out of thin air from an administrative wallet and dump them on the market before the issuer could respond, he added.

USDT is a multi-chain stablecoin, and some of the networks on which it is deployed are already actively working on post-quantum migration. 

Related: Jim Cramer plans to sell his Bitcoin over quantum fears as BTC rises 1.6%

Another theory is that attackers make a quieter opening move.

Sean Cheetham, a security researcher at Blockchain Capital, said an attacker would more likely target hot wallets at exchanges “that aren’t going to ring alarm bells rather than stealing Satoshi’s coins.”

Smith said an attacker may disguise a quantum theft as an ordinary compromise.

“There’s an alternative scenario where they… have these plausible, deniable [explanations]: ‘Oh, somebody just lost their keys somehow,’” he said.

Q-day timeline hard to pin down

In March, Google accelerated its post-quantum migration timeline to 2029 as an AI-assisted breakthrough showed elliptic curve cryptography can be cracked with far fewer physical qubits than previously forecasted.

NGRAVE CEO Roy Blackstone said earlier quantum forecasts failed to account for the parallel development of AI. 

“Most threat models assumed we had well into the next decade before quantum technology could realistically crack the cryptography securing public keys, but it did not account for how fast AI would develop alongside it.”

Despite growing urgency, there is little agreement on when a quantum computer capable of breaking modern cryptography will be ready.

Smith, whose company is developing a blockchain network aiming to be quantum-resistant from launch, said there was a “50-50” chance it could happen by 2028, arguing that continued AI-assisted improvements in quantum algorithms and hardware research are making forecasts less reliable. 

Cheetham said the early 2030s “definitely is almost a certainty” and that an earlier arrival was “more of a trailing probability.” 

Michael Coates, the Solana Foundation’s chief information security officer, declined to give an estimate during an earlier interview, saying “there’s no way to know.” 

“If you talk to people in the industry, it is always five years away, and it’s been that way for 10 years or more now. Perhaps today people say it’s four years away,” he said. But the uncertainty is not a reason to delay, he added.

“Thankfully, blockchains aren’t waiting and have started migrating to post-quantum signatures,” said Blackstone. “The damage would be catastrophic if they didn’t.”

Magazine: How AI just dramatically sped up the quantum risk for Bitcoin

After learning her half-brother and former king Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) had resurfaced in a literal blaze of glory supplied by his previously presumed dead dragon Sunfyre, Rhaenyra’s desperation to assert herself as the realm’s rightful ruler was palpable. So, she finally picked a definitive side in the ongoing struggle between Daemon (Matt Smith) and Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) to win her trust. Rather than continuing to work to legitimize her rule through support for the common people per Mysaria’s counsel, Rhaenyra opted for the show of brute force Daemon has been all too eager to lead the charge on. As he put it, “The only quality the realm understands is strength.”

The finale opens with Rhaenyra waking to the news that Aegon is alive, and that his return—with a still-quite-lethal Sunfyre, no less—after she declared him dead makes him some kind of messiah. Understandably, she panics, cursing the memory of Viserys (Paddy Considine) for putting her in such a terrible situation. “His prophecy has tested me again and again, and I have met its every challenge!” she complains to Daemon. He takes the opportunity to remind her of her Targaryen supremacy. So, how should she wield it? “The only quality the realm understands is strength,” Daemon says. It’s enough to get him dispatched to Tumbleton.

Baela (Bethany Antonia) urges Rhaenyra to have Lord Corlys (Steve Toussaint) rescued from the Hightowers’ clutches while Black forces are in town. He is, after all, the Hand of the Queen, and he’s sacrificed mightily for her cause. Also: “It was your fault” the Sea Snake was captured in the first place, Baela says. When Rhaenyra seems less than enthusiastic about helping him, Baela really goes off on her. “If a person is useful to you, you wield them,” she accuses. “But if not, you abandon them.” This may be true. A few scenes later, Rhaenyra abruptly banishes her paramour Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno)—through a minion, no less. (Mysaria does get a nice severance package.) But doesn’t a responsible sovereign have to be ready to throw her friends and family under the bus in service of what she believes to be the greater good of the kingdom? I mean, wasn’t that the takeaway of six seasons of Matt Smith’s other show, The Crown? Of course, as with Elizabeth’s real-life refusal to let her sister marry a divorced man, the question of whether it’s actually prudent for the monarchy to deprioritize saving Corlys is a different matter.

Bitcoin’s long-running debate over “anti-spam” changes took another sharp turn this week as support for the BIP-110 soft fork proposal failed to clear the threshold needed to move forward. After a contentious process, the branch effectively stalled within hours—an outcome observers had largely expected given the economic realities of running parallel mining on a minority chain.

Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers again pushed the timing of the CLARITY Act vote, and the market digested fresh signals across regulation, custody security, and institutional demand. Separately, Ethereum researchers advanced a proposal to curb staking rewards as more ETH is locked, while critics warned it could undermine incentives for validators and the broader ecosystem.

Key takeaways

• BIP-110’s anti-spam approach failed to attract enough miner signaling support and quickly stalled on a minority chain.
• U.S. Senate procedural steps for the CLARITY Act have been scheduled for September rather than being forced through before the August recess.
• Bitcoin’s hardware wallet security concerns have spurred new AI-assisted vulnerability scanning efforts by a volunteer “red team.”
• Ethereum’s proposed EIP-8363 would taper validator rewards more aggressively as staking participation rises, drawing strong pushback from parts of the DeFi sector.
• Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their strongest weekly inflows in roughly four months, underscoring renewed institutional appetite.

Bitcoin’s BIP-110 anti-spam branch stalls

Supporters of BIP-110, a proposed soft fork designed to reduce “non financial transactions” on Bitcoin—explicitly targeting activity associated with Ordinals—had hoped the change could move from debate to implementation. However, after a lengthy and heated discussion, the proposal was declared effectively “dead on arrival” following weak uptake by miners.

According to reporting from Cointelegraph, BIP-110 secured only about 2.5% support ahead of entering mandatory signaling on Saturday. As a result, it forked into a minority chain that produced just two blocks over an eight-hour period before stalling.

From an economic standpoint, critics argued the same constraints that apply to mining a parallel chain would remain: difficulty is unlikely to meaningfully improve, yet miners would still bear the cost of operating on the new branch. The difficulty adjustment mechanism requires successfully mining additional full difficulty periods (another 2,014 blocks) to change the economics—something the minority branch failed to achieve.

The governance and “neutrality” fight continues

The technical collapse of the branch does not end the broader argument over what Bitcoin should optimize for. Opponents framed BIP-110 as censorship by design—an approach that they argued conflicts with the network’s established norms around neutrality and consensus. The proposal also drew objections from prominent Bitcoin advocates.

Cointelegraph previously noted that Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor said he understood the goal of reducing spam-like activity, but argued the method could threaten Bitcoin’s neutrality and the underlying consensus rules. Blockstream CEO Adam Back similarly warned that a consensus-level change could damage Bitcoin’s credibility and introduce risks such as making certain unspent transaction outputs unspendable.

There were also institutional ripples within the Bitcoin ecosystem. After the debate, a Bitcoin Core developer proposed removing BIP-110 backer Luke Dashjr from his role as a BIP Editor, underscoring how politically charged the “anti-spam” question has become inside governance-adjacent circles.

CLARITY Act momentum stalls until September

In the U.S. policy arena, the path toward the CLARITY Act has again shifted. Senator Tim Scott, chair of the Senate Banking Committee, said a procedural vote on the bill should occur before the August recess “without any question,” according to Cointelegraph’s reporting. Senator Cynthia Lummis also suggested there could be a last-minute push.

However, Senate Majority Leader John Thune declined to force immediate action and scheduled the cloture vote for September 15, delaying any realistic chance of passage before senators leave for the August break. Thune told Cointelegraph he “worked with sponsors of the bill,” praised Lummis’s role, and indicated the bill would be queued when lawmakers returned.

For stakeholders trying to influence the final shape of the legislation, the near-term window narrows to what can be negotiated before the cloture vote—particularly around ethics rules, stablecoin yield issues, and protections for developers mentioned in the reported coverage.

Bitcoiners escalate AI-assisted security review

Security concerns have remained a central theme for Bitcoin users, especially after prominent hardware wallet incidents. Cointelegraph reports that a volunteer Bitcoin security initiative called “Bitcoin Red Team” began an AI-assisted review of open-source Bitcoin-related repositories and quickly expanded its findings.

The group—composed of 16 volunteers—initially identified nearly 5,000 potential issues during a rapid scan mid-week. By the weekend, the number reportedly grew to 7,958 issues, including 168 critical flaws and 1,120 high-severity items.

According to Cointelegraph, the initiative includes Rob Hamilton, CEO of AnchorWatch and a Bitcoin developer known as Calle. The team used AI tools alongside human review to search for vulnerabilities, aiming to reduce the risk that weaknesses go unnoticed in widely used codebases.

Cointelegraph also tied the effort’s urgency to earlier wallet compromise claims. Developer Coinkite suggested that the Coldcard hardware wallet hacks were related to AI analysis of its source code. The article reiterates that more than $100 million was stolen by 7,300 wallets due to flaws linked to randomness used for seed phrase generation, framing the incident as a major breach that eroded confidence across cold storage practices.

In response to that trust shock, many Bitcoiners reportedly re-evaluated how they generate self-custody seed phrases. Cointelegraph notes a trend toward manual methods such as dice-based seed generation—an attempt to reduce reliance on any single entropy source.

Ethereum proposal to taper staking rewards meets strong resistance

On Ethereum, a separate but equally ecosystem-sensitive debate is unfolding around issuance and validator incentives. Cointelegraph reports that Ethereum researchers and developers proposed changes under an initiative called Tapered Issuance Burn, also known as EIP-8363.

As described in the coverage, the proposal would adjust issuance so that validator rewards decline more sharply as the percentage of staked ETH increases. Specifically, it would cut rewards entirely once the share of supply staked passes the 50% threshold. Current staking participation is cited as about 34%, with a queue of validators waiting to enter.

Supporters argue the approach could help prevent staking from becoming overly concentrated and that it aligns network incentives with usage of proof-of-stake security. But critics—especially in DeFi—fear the change could backfire by making staking less attractive as more ETH moves onto the beacon chain, potentially snowballing into reduced security benefits.

Cointelegraph also highlights backlash from parts of the ecosystem. Ether.fi founder Mike Silagadze said Ether.fi could exit staking entirely if the proposal passes, arguing it would be harmful to decentralization, Ethereum adoption, and the network’s credibility.

Bitcoin ETFs post strongest week in four months

While Bitcoin’s protocol-level governance fights continued, institutional positioning offered a more optimistic signal. Cointelegraph reports that spot Bitcoin ETFs posted their third-strongest showing since October, reflecting renewed momentum in institutional demand.

According to the article’s cited data from SoSoValue, ETFs recorded $853.54 million in inflows—five times the net amount seen across all of July—and the week was described as the best since April. Ether ETFs reportedly added another $243.7 million.

Some market participants tied the improved ETF flow picture to the ongoing hardware wallet scrutiny sparked by the Coldcard incident. Cointelegraph cites Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas as suggesting an institutional custody connection, and also includes a direct statement attributed to Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao: that storing coins on exchanges is “statistically safer” than self custody.

What to watch next

BIP-110 is unlikely to return to the spotlight in the near term given its stalled minority-branch reality, but the underlying disagreement about transaction neutrality on Bitcoin remains unresolved. In the U.S., the September cloture date for CLARITY sets the next measurable checkpoint, while Ethereum’s EIP-8363 debate will hinge on whether critics can persuade stakeholders that staking incentives can be maintained without eroding DeFi participation and validator economics.

Bitcoin ‘anti-spam’ fork goes nowhere fast

Supporters of the BIP-110 soft fork hoped to eradicate spam from the blockchain, but after a lengthy and heated debate the proposal has been pronounced Dead On Arrival. After securing just 2.5% support ahead of entering mandatory signaling on Saturday, it split off into a minority chain that mined just two blocks in eight hours before stalling.

This is probably no surprise given it’s just as difficult and expensive to mine on the new chain as it is on Bitcoin — but without any hope of being able to sell the block reward to recoup the costs. The difficulty would have adjusted downward if they’d managed to mine through another 2,014 blocks.

BIP-110 aimed to rid Bitcoin of non financial transactions, such as Ordinals, but opponents saw it as imposing censorship on the chain and it faced opposition from prominent Bitcoin advocates. Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor said he shared the proposal’s objectives but argued that its approach threatened Bitcoin’s neutral rules and consensus. 

Blockstream CEO Adam Back warned that the consensus-level change could damage Bitcoin’s credibility and potentially make certain unspent transaction outputs unspendable. 

Clarity vote gets punted to September

Senator Tim Scott, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said on Thursday a procedural vote on the CLARITY Act should happen before the August recess “without any question.”

Senator Cynthia Lummis also raised hopes of a last minute vote. But despite hopes the Senators would locked in a room and forced to compromise before leaving for the August break, Senate Majority Leader John Thune declined to force the issue and later scheduled the cloture vote for September 15.

“The Dems are insistent on no Clarity vote,” Thune told Cointelegraph. “I worked with sponsors of the bill. Senator Lummis was great, and we’re getting that queued up first thing when we come back.”

Crypto lobbyists have until then to shore up the 60 votes required by negotiating on ethics rules, the stablecoin yield issue, and protection for developers in the BRCA. The real question though is whether it will be a serious attempt to pass the legislation, or if the vote has been called simply “to get people on the record” ahead of the mid-term elections as Lummis suggested.

Bitcoiners form ‘red team’ to battle AI-assisted hacks

A Bitcoin security group made up of 16 volunteers said mid-week it had found nearly 5,000 potential issues during a rapid AI-assisted review of projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem. 

By the weekend that number had grown to 7,958 issues, with 168 critical flaws and 1,120 high severity issues.

Bitcoin Red Team is a volunteer security effort that includes Rob Hamilton, CEO of AnchorWatch and Bitcoin developer Calle, which has been using AI tools and human review to scan open-source Bitcoin-related repositories for vulnerabilities. 

“We’re averaging on the order of 1 critical exploit per hour per person,” said Calle in a post.

The team sprang into action as a result of the Coldcard hardware wallet hacks, which developer Coinkite suggested were the result of an AI analysis of its source code. More than $100 million has been stolen by 7300 wallets, due to flaws in the random number generated used to generate seed phrases. It has become the third largest crypto hack in 2026 and helped push July’s crypto thefts total to $247 million.

The incident helped shine a light on the trust required with using a hardware wallet, and led many Bitcoiners to wonder if any wallet was truly safe?

Many are now determined to use at least 100 manual dice rolls to generate their own seed phrase.

Ethereum researchers want to rein in staking; critics say it could backfire

A group of Ethereum researchers and developers have proposed changing the network’s issuance policy to cut validator rewards more sharply as the proportion of staked ETH rises.

Tapered Issuance Burn (AKA EIP-8363) would cut rewards entirely as the percentage of supply staked crossed the 50% mark. It’s currently at 34% with a huge queue of ETH waiting to enter, and there are fears this may continue to snowball while providing progressively less benefit for the security of the network.

Despite offering some compelling arguments in favor of the proposal, it has been met with a fierce backlash, especially from DeFi protocols. Ether.fi founder Mike Silagadze suggested Ether.fi would get out of staking entirely if it goes through. He said:

“This is so disappointing on every level. […] This is bad for decentralization, this is bad for Ethereum adoption, and this is bad for the credibility of the network.”

Happy days are here again as Bitcoin ETFs see best week in four months

The spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds registered their third-strongest showing since October as institutional demand showed signs of renewed momentum.

The haul of $853.54 million in inflows was five times the amount they netted across all of July, and was the best week since April. The Ether ETFs took in another $243.7 million.

Some industry figures believe the large inflows may be related to the Coldcard hack, which has made institutional custody more attractive than using a potentially insecure hardware wallet. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas suggested there may be a connection, while Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said point blank: “It is statistically safer to store coins on exchanges than to self custody.”

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is up 2% to trade at $64,814, Ethereum (ETH) is up 1.7% to trade at $1,908 and XRP (XRP) is down 5% to $1.02. The total market cap is at $2.21 trillion according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are Pump.fun (PUMP) with a 27.6% gain, LayerZero (ZRO) on 17.6%, and Curve DAO (CRV) on 16.2%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are Injective (INJ) which was down 15.1%, Canton (CC) down 13.8% and Cronos (CRO) down 13.7%.

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin will never fall below $60K again: Nansen founder

Nansen founder and CEO Alex Svanevik says the Bitcoin market may be approaching a bottom, suggesting that the current level around $60,000 could mark Bitcoin’s cycle low.

“My personal view is that I don’t think Bitcoin’s gonna go back below $60,000,” Svanevik says. “I think that’s the past… I think forever,” he says.

He bases this on the belief that Bitcoin serves as a hedge against central bank money creation, and he doesn’t see the global monetary expansion cycle coming to an end anytime soon.

Chainalysis reports that 46 violent crypto-related incidents had been documented globally through late June, up from 40 during the same period in 2025. The incidents include kidnappings, home invasions and hostage situations, collectively known as “wrench attacks.” 

Only 12 of the 46 attempts resulted in payment, giving attackers a 26% success rate, down from 49% in 2025.

ElizaOS token sinks 19% to record low after founder declares it ‘dead’

ElizaOS fell 19% over 24 hours to an all-time low after Eliza Labs founder Shaw Walters said the token was “dead” and that the Eliza Foundation was winding down. 

CoinGecko data showed the token now has a market capitalization of $2.1 million.

“The token is dead. Completely,” Walters said, adding that he no longer owned or supported the token.

The decline represents a stark reversal for one of the AI-agent sector’s former breakout tokens. Before the project rebranded as ElizaOS, the token, then known as AI16Z, reached a peak market capitalization of $2.5 billion in January 2025, according to CoinGecko.

Walters said the development of the open-source Eliza software would continue without the token or the foundation. 

CEX perpetual futures volume falls to $4T, lowest since late 2023

Crypto perpetual futures trading volume on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges (CEXs) fell to $4 trillion in July, marking a 31-month low.

Binance led CEXs with $1.4 trillion in monthly perpetual futures volume, followed by OKX with $607 billion and Bybit with $300 billion, analytics platform CryptoRank said in a Friday X post.

Perpetual trading volume on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) fell to $531 billion in July, the lowest level since June 2025, and a 21% decline from the $676 billion seen in June 2026, according to data aggregator DefiLlama.

Best Magazine Features of the Week

The Coldcard entropy flaw caused a crisis of confidence in hardware wallets. Here’s the details you need to know before you entrust Ledger, Trezor or Foundation with your Bitcoin.

Tokenized cows may have gone viral, but they’re just the latest in a long line of strange things to find a home onchain, from farts, to human skin and destroyed artworks

Ethereum’s proposed EIP-8363 staking overhaul aims to reduce issuance, but critics say it could hurt DeFi, decentralization and institutional adoption.