Connect with us
DAPA Banner

Crypto World

Bitcoin’s quantum risk is more social than technical

Published

on

Crypto Breaking News

The debate over quantum threats to Bitcoin is shaping up as much a social challenge as a cryptographic one, according to Grayscale’s head of research. In response to a March 30 paper from Google researchers suggesting a quantum computer could crack Bitcoin’s cryptography with far less computing power than once thought, the industry is weighing not just the mathematics but the community’s ability to converge on a path forward.

Grayscale’s Zach Pandl argues that Bitcoin’s architecture may actually cushion it in the near term. He points to the network’s UTXO model, proof-of-work consensus, absence of native smart contracts, and certain address types that are not quantum-vulnerable. The real hurdle, Pandl says, is getting the Bitcoin community to agree on how to handle the looming post-quantum era, especially when it concerns dormant coins sitting in long-forgotten wallets.

Roughly 1.7 million BTC remain in early P2PK-style addresses, a tranche that includes the long-anticipated possibility that Satoshi’s own stash could be part of those holdings. Valued at around $68 billion at current prices, these coins represent a governance and risk-choreography challenge as much as a cryptographic one.

The Bitcoin community has three options

Pandl outlines three principal courses of action for coins whose private keys are lost or inaccessible: burn the coins, deliberately slow their movement by constraining the rate at which vulnerable addresses can spend, or take no action and leave the situation as is. He notes that all options are technically feasible, but the hard part is achieving consensus—a recurring theme in Bitcoin’s history of protocol debates, including controversies over data stored in blocks.

Advertisement

The social dimension of the decision is underscored by a recent flashpoint in the community: the Ordinals controversy of 2023, which inflamed debates over using block space to inscribe data such as text or images to satoshis. While the debate has cooled, the two sides remain far from unanimous on governance and protocol change.

“All are conceptually doable, but the challenge is reaching a decision, and the Bitcoin community has a history of contentious debates over protocol changes, including last year’s dispute around image data stored in blocks.”

That warning echoes a broader message: even as researchers discuss the urgency of upgrading cryptography, the path forward ultimately depends on communal agreement about how to treat long-dormant funds and how aggressively to pursue post-quantum protections.

No immediate threat, but a clear call to readiness

Pandl stresses that the time to begin migration toward post-quantum cryptography is now, even if the current threat is not imminent. The idea is to harden blockchains against future quantum attacks before they become critical, rather than scrambling after weaknesses become exploitable.

Industry momentum toward quantum readiness is not limited to Bitcoin. The Solana Foundation and the XRP Ledger have already begun experimenting with post-quantum cryptography, while the Ethereum Foundation published a dedicated post-quantum roadmap in February. These signals suggest a broader market push to standardize and deploy quantum-safe protections across networks, a shift readers should watch closely as governance and coordination across ecosystems mature.

Advertisement

“In our view, there is no security threat to public blockchains from quantum computers today.”

For investors and builders, the takeaway is to separate near-term risk from long-term planning. While the cryptographic landscape may not produce an urgent exploit in the immediate future, the world of post-quantum cryptography is moving forward, and the communities behind major networks are increasingly vocal about preparedness. Grayscale’s stance mirrors a growing consensus: the prudent course is to accelerate research, test implementations, and seek consensus on a governance path that preserves Bitcoin’s security model while guarding against quantum-era threats.

What to watch next

As research continues and other networks advance their quantum-resistant experiments, the crucial developments will be how the Bitcoin community negotiates dormant-key scenarios and whether a broadly accepted post-quantum standard gains traction. The coming months should reveal whether a practical, agreed-upon approach emerges for handling inaccessible coins and for upgrading cryptographic defenses before quantum-era risks become acute.

For now, the emphasis remains on preparedness rather than panic: accelerate post-quantum research, monitor governance dialogues, and observe how the broader ecosystem—spanning Solana, XRP Ledger, and Ethereum—moves toward standardized quantum resistance. The manner in which Bitcoin navigates these questions will shape how investors evaluate digital-asset safety in a world where quantum computers are increasingly plausible, but not yet compelling threats.

Risk & affiliate notice: Crypto assets are volatile and capital is at risk. This article may contain affiliate links. Read full disclosure

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Crypto World

Analysts eye potential breakdown as BTC price repeats familiar pattern: Crypto Markets Today

Published

on

Analysts eye potential breakdown as BTC price repeats familiar pattern: Crypto Markets Today

The crypto market is trading sluggishly within the range it has held for two months, with bitcoin changing hands at $69,000 and ether (ETH) at $2,130.

The range-bound pricing dates back to Feb. 6, with several peaks between $72,000 and $75,000 and troughs between $62,000 and $65,000.

A similar two-month pattern occurred between November and January before a price breakdown, leading analysts to suggest a similar scenario may play out this time around.

Much still depends on the conflict in Iran, with U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of “obliteration” falling on deaf ears thus far. Brent crude oil remains at $107 per barrel, which will have a knock-on effect on inflation over the course of the year unless it declines.

Advertisement

Derivatives positioning

  • The market continues to consolidate as bitcoin open interest (OI) stabilizes at $16.7 billion, little changed from last week and indicating that speculative activity remains flat.
  • Funding rates have moved into a neutral 0%-6% range, following a period of negative funding that likely fueled the initial relief rally through short covering.
  • With the three-month annualized basis also little changed over the week, institutional conviction remains cautious, suggesting that while the immediate downside pressure has eased, the big players are not yet positioning for a major breakout.
  • Options sentiment is stabilizing as call dominance reaches 47% and one-week skew drops to 16% from 19% last week. However, the implied volatility term structure’s front-end backwardation confirms that traders are still prioritizing immediate downside protection over long-term growth expectations.
  • CoinGlass data shows $163 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 60-40 split between longs and shorts. BTC (64 million), ETH ($35 million) and others ($16 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations.
  • The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $69,500 as a core level to monitor in case of a price rise.

Token talk

  • The altcoin market has been surprisingly buoyant recently, despite broader market apathy. Since midnight UTC privacy tokens zcash (ZEC) and dash (DASH) rose by 6.7% and 3.1%, respectively, and there were also notable gains for FET, PUMP and RENDER.
  • The bitcoin-dominant CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index gained 0.3% on Tuesday, while being outpaced by the CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME) and CoinDesk Computing Select Index (CPUS), a sign of the relative strength of altcoins compared with crypto majors.
  • The recent bounce in altcoins has not been uniform, however. AI tokens, privacy tokens and the likes of HYPE and ALGO have performed well, while other market segments have tumbled. Over the past 90 days ethena (ENA) has lost 66% of its value, while TIA, LDO, SUI and ARB have all fallen by more than 50%.
  • That’s a divergence from previous cycles, when altcoins moved in unison. It now appears the market is maturing to a point where assets may be moving based on real-world impact, as opposed to hype and overzealous roadmaps.

Source link

Continue Reading

Crypto World

Bitcoin up, software stocks down since the war began

Published

on

Bitcoin up, software stocks down since the war began

Since the outbreak of the war with Iran on Feb. 28, bitcoin has started to diverge from software equities, with the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV), serving as a useful proxy for the sector.

Bitcoin has been one of the strongest-performing assets during this period, rising more than 5% and trading back above $69,000, including a gain of more than 0.5% over the past 24 hours.

IGV, in contrast, has fallen more than 2% since the conflict began. That gap suggests investors are starting to treat bitcoin and software stocks differently, at least in the near term.

Until recently, the two had moved closely together. Over the past three months, bitcoin fell 26% and the ETF lost 23%. Year to date, both are lower by about 21%. Over five years, bitcoin has gained 18% compared with 10% for IGV. In other words, both have moved in the same direction, but the cryptocurrency has done so with much greater volatility.

Advertisement

That is also clear in their declines. Bitcoin had fallen roughly 50% from its October all-time high, while IGV, which peaked slightly earlier, fell about 35% from its own top.

The correlation data tells the same story. From early February, bitcoin and IGV were almost perfectly correlated, close to 1.0, meaning they were moving nearly in lockstep. After the war began, that relationship broke down sharply, with the correlation dropping to 0.13, a level that signals near decoupling, before rebounding to around 0.7. The figure can range between -1.0 and +1.0, with 0 indicating no correlation at all.

Why have software stocks been hit harder?

IGV is heavily weighted toward large software and services companies such as Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL) and Salesforce (CRM). Investors are increasingly worried that artificial intelligence will compress margins and valuation multiples across software, especially in Software as a Service (SaaS), as competition rises and barriers to entry fall. Bitcoin, meanwhile, is trading more like a macro asset, benefiting from geopolitical uncertainty.

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Crypto World

Bitcoin Trader Eyes Bear Market Bottom as Stochastic RSI Mimics 2023

Published

on

Bitcoin Trader Eyes Bear Market Bottom as Stochastic RSI Mimics 2023

Bitcoin (BTC) is copying the end of its 2022 bear market “nearly perfectly,” according to a new BTC price analysis.

Key points:

  • Bitcoin stochastic RSI values are “nearly perfectly” repeating the end of its last bear market, new analysis claims.

  • Both recent local bottoms and the current rebound echo conditions from three years ago.

  • Standard RSI is already on the radar for a potential BTC price bottom signal.

Bitcoin stochastic RSI echoes 2023 rebound

In an X post on Monday, crypto trader Quantum Ascend revealed copycat moves playing out on Bitcoin’s stochastic relative strength index (RSI) indicator.

Stochastic RSI, also known as “stoch RSI,” is a derivative of traditional RSI — a classic leading indicator that helps traders identify overbought and oversold conditions, as well as BTC price trend changes.

Advertisement

Like its standard counterpart, stoch RSI flashes “oversold” price signals when it drops below 30/100 on its scale, with “overbought” entering when its value is above 70/100.

Stoch RSI moves between those two zones much more quickly, but Quantum Ascend sees a key long-term bull signal now locking in.

“RSI at the EXACT SAME point on the Daily as it was in 2022,” he told X followers.

BTC price and stochastic RSI comparison. Source: Quantum Ascend/X

An accompanying comparative chart shows stoch RSI making a double bottom along with price before both surged higher in early 2023. At the time, BTC/USD had recently set a multiyear low of $15,600 — a level that ended up forming the bear-market bottom.

Now, Quantum Ascend says, the repeat performance is “playing out nearly perfectly.”

Advertisement

“Breaking above the EXACT SAME level (blue line). At the EXACT SAME time,” he added.

The chart reveals that stoch RSI is now attempting to clear its 50/100 midpoint after two local lows in late January and late March, respectively.

BTC price counts down to bear flag decision

RSI signals have already been firing in 2026 despite lackluster BTC price strength.

Related: First real bull signal since 2025? Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

Advertisement

As Cointelegraph reported, eyes are on weekly standard RSI to print a bullish divergence with price, again mimicking early 2023.

At the time, weekly RSI set its lowest level on record — one so far not matched in 2026, per data from TradingView.

BTC/USD one-week chart with RSI data. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Bitcoin still faces bearish hurdles to recovery, with traders concerned about a bear-flag breakdown repeating on the daily chart.

“In few days we will understand if the pattern is repeating or not,” analyst Aksel Kibar wrote on X over the weekend.

BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: Aksel Kibar/X