Part 1 of this series explained what quantum computers actually are. Not just faster versions of regular computers, but a fundamentally different kind of machine that exploits the weird rules of physics that only apply at the scale of atoms and particles.

But knowing how a quantum computer works does not tell you how it can be used to steal bitcoin by a bad actor. That requires understanding what it is actually attacking, how bitcoin’s security is built, and exactly where the weakness sits.

This piece starts with bitcoin’s encryption and works through to the nine-minute window it takes to break it, as identified by Google’s recent quantum computing paper.

The one-way map

Bitcoin uses a system called elliptic curve cryptography to prove who owns what. Every wallet has two keys. A private key, which is a secret number, 256 digits long in binary, roughly as long as this sentence. A public key is derived from the private key by performing a mathematical operation on the specific curve called “secp256k1.”

Think of it as a one-way map. Start at a known location on the curve that everyone agrees on, called the generator point G (as shown in the chart below). Take a private number of steps in a pattern defined by the curve’s math. The number of steps is your private key. Where you end up on the curve is your public key (point K in the chart). Anyone can verify that you ended up at that specific location. Nobody can figure out how many steps you took to get there.

Technically, this is written as K = k × G, where k is your private key and K is your public key. The “multiplication” is not regular multiplication but a geometric operation where you repeatedly add a point to itself along the curve. The result lands on a seemingly random spot that only your specific number k would produce.

The crucial property is that going forward is easy and going backward is, for classical computers, effectively impossible. If you know k and G, calculating K takes milliseconds. If you know K and G and want to figure out k, you are solving what mathematicians call the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem.

It is estimated that the best-known classical algorithms for a 256-bit curve would take longer than the age of the universe.

This one-way trapdoor is the entire security model. Your private key proves you own your coins. Your public key is safe to share because no classical computer can reverse the math. When you send bitcoin, your wallet uses the private key to create a digital signature, a mathematical proof that you know the secret number without revealing it.

Shor’s algorithm opens the door both ways

In 1994, a mathematician named Peter Shor discovered a quantum algorithm that breaks the trapdoor.

Shor’s algorithm solves the discrete logarithm problem efficiently. The same math that would take a classical computer longer than the universe has existed, Shor’s algorithm handles in what mathematicians call polynomial time, meaning the difficulty grows slowly as numbers get bigger rather than explosively.

The intuition for how it works comes back to the three quantum properties from Part 1 of this series.

The algorithm needs to find your private key k, given your public key K and the generator point G. It converts this into a problem of finding the period of a function. Think of a function that takes a number as input and returns a point on the elliptic curve.

As you feed it sequential numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, the outputs eventually repeat in a cycle. The length of that cycle is called the period, and once you know how often the function repeats, the math of the discrete logarithm problem unravels in a single step. The private key falls out almost immediately.

Finding this period of a function is exactly what quantum computers are built for. The algorithm puts its input register into a superposition (or, in quantum mechanics, a particle exists in multiple locations simultaneously), representing all possible values simultaneously. It applies the function to all of them at once.

Then it applies a quantum operation called the Fourier transform, which causes the number of wrong answers to cancel out while the correct answers are reinforced.

When you measure the result, the period appears. From this period, ordinary math recovers k. That is your private key, and therefore your coins.

The attack uses all three quantum tricks from the first piece. Superposition evaluates the function on every possible input at once. Entanglement links the input and output so the results stay correlated. ‘Interference’ filters the noise until only the answer remains.

Why bitcoin still works today

Shor’s algorithm has been known for more than 30 years. The reason bitcoin still exists is that running it requires a quantum computer with a large enough number of stable qubits to maintain coherence through the entire calculation.

Building that machine has been beyond reach, but the question has always been how large is “large enough.”

Previous estimates said millions of physical qubits. Google’s paper, in early April by its Quantum AI division with contributions from Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake and Stanford cryptographer Dan Boneh, reduced that to fewer than 500,000.

Or a roughly 20-fold reduction from prior estimates.

The team designed two quantum circuits that implement Shor’s algorithm against bitcoin’s specific elliptic curve. One uses approximately 1,200 logical qubits and 90 million Toffoli gates. The other uses approximately 1,450 logical qubits and 70 million Toffoli gates.

A Toffoli gate is a type of gate that acts on three qubits: two control qubits, which affect the state of a third, target qubit. Imagine this as three light switches (qubits) and a special lightbulb (the target) that only turns on if two specific switches are flipped on at the same time.

Because qubits lose their quantum state constantly, as Part 1 explained, you need hundreds of redundant qubits checking each other’s work to maintain a single reliable logical qubit. Most of a quantum computer exists just to catch the machine’s own mistakes before they ruin the calculation. The roughly 400-to-1 ratio between physical and logical qubits reflects how much of the machine exists as self-babysitting infrastructure.

The nine-minute window

Google’s paper did not just reduce qubit counts. It introduced a practical attack scenario that changes how to think about the threat.

The parts of Shor’s algorithm that depend only on the elliptic curve’s fixed parameters, which are publicly known and identical for every bitcoin wallet, can be precomputed. The quantum computer sits in a primed state, already halfway through the calculation, waiting.

The moment a target public key appears, whether broadcast in a transaction to the network’s mempool or already exposed on the blockchain from a previous transaction, the machine only needs to finish the second half.

Google estimates that the second half takes about nine minutes.

Bitcoin’s average block confirmation time is 10 minutes. That means if a user broadcasts a transaction and their public key is visible in the mempool, a quantum attacker has roughly nine minutes to derive a private key and submit a competing transaction that redirects funds.

The math gives the attacker a roughly 41% chance of finishing before your original transaction confirms.

That is the mempool attack. It is alarming but it requires a quantum computer that does not exist yet.

The bigger concern, however, is the 6.9 million bitcoin (roughly one-third of total supply) sitting in wallets where the public key has already been permanently exposed on the blockchain. Those coins are vulnerable to an “at-rest” attack that requires no race against the clock. The attacker can take as long as needed.

A quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm can turn a bitcoin public key into the private key that controls the coins. For coins transacted since Taproot (a privacy upgrade on Bitcoin that went live in November 2021), the public key is already visible. For coins in older addresses, the public key is hidden until you spend, at which point you have roughly nine minutes before the attacker catches up.

What this means in practice, which 6.9 million bitcoin are already exposed, what Taproot changed, and how fast the hardware is closing the gap, is the subject of the next and final piece in this series.

Foundation, a prominent Ethereum-based digital art hub, has permanently ceased operations after a planned rescue acquisition by the platform Blackdove collapsed.

According to a Wednesday announcement on X by Foundation founder and CEO Kayvon Tehranian, the marketplace will not return to active service because the deal intended to sustain its future fell through. 

While Tehranian did not name Blackdove specifically in his initial statement, he confirmed that the sale’s primary objective was to keep the platform running under new management. 

“That’s no longer possible,” Tehranian stated, noting that the company is currently unable to restore the site’s functionality.

A subsequent message signed by the Blackdove team clarified that the marketplace would be brought back online for a brief window. This temporary restoration is intended solely to allow users to delist their NFTs and secure their assets before the final shutdown.

The failure of the Foundation sale highlights a difficult period for the NFT sector, which has seen a steady exit of independent marketplaces as trading volumes struggle to match previous years. Blackdove had originally signaled its intent to acquire the platform in early 2025, with a transition period that lasted into 2026 before the deal finally dissolved.

Foundation first gained global attention during the 2021 market surge, eventually facilitating over $230 million in primary sales. The platform served as a high-profile gallery for notable creators such as Jen Stark and James Jean. It also famously hosted the sale of Edward Snowden’s “Stay Free” NFT, which fetched approximately 2,200 Ether—valued at $5 million at the time—to benefit press freedom.

The list of closures has grown steadily over the last year especially within the NFT space. Nifty Gateway, which had the backing of the Gemini exchange, shut down in February.

Other former competitors have already disappeared or changed focus. MakersPlace shut down last year following a drop in collector activity, and X2Y2 chose to move away from the NFT space entirely.

The total market cap for NFTs has retreated to levels not seen since early 2021. Despite the shrinking number of active platforms, OpenSea continues to hold a commanding lead in the market. 

Data from DefiLlama indicates OpenSea currently handles more than 73% of all sector activity, though it faces ongoing competition from the trading-focused platform Blur. 

Flare’s FIP.16 plan would capture MEV at the base layer, slash FLR inflation to 3% and route new revenues through FIRE into buybacks and aggressive token burns.

Flare has tabled a sweeping governance proposal that would make it one of the first layer-1s to capture maximal extractable value (MEV) directly at the protocol level while cutting annual FLR inflation by 40% to 3%.

In its FIP.16 proposal, the Flare Foundation said the model is designed so that “network usage directly connects to token value,” with MEV and other fees routed into FLR buybacks and burns instead of going to external searchers and private builders.

Under the three-stage redesign, block building would first shift from individual validators to a designated builder run by the Flare Entity, then move into Flare Confidential Compute for public auditability, before finally merging builder and proposer roles and relegating existing validators to verification.

The proposal creates the Flare Income Reinvestment Entity (FIRE), which will “collect revenue from multiple protocol sources including attestation fees, FAsset and Smart Account fees, confidential compute fees and the captured MEV,” before using it to buy and burn FLR on the open market.

If approved, FIP.16 would immediately drop FLR inflation from 5% to 3% and lower the annual issuance cap from 5 billion to 3 billion tokens, a move Binance Square summarized as “a 40% decrease” in the network’s inflation rate.

Flare also plans a 20-fold jump in its base gas fee, from 60 gwei to 1,200 gwei, a change various analyses estimate would lift annual FLR burns from roughly 7.5 million tokens to about 300 million at current activity, even as a typical transaction “would cost a fraction of a cent.”

According to CoinDesk, the network is pitching protocol-level MEV capture as a way to claw back what it calls “a hidden tax on ordinary users” and recycle it into long-term token value instead of allowing front‑running and sandwich bots to hoard the upside.

Flare’s tokenomics overhaul lands as the network reports more than $160 million in total value locked, over 880,000 active addresses and around 150 million FXRP minted to bring smart contracts to XRP, with its initial FLR distribution having gone to XRP holders in 2023.

As of April 17, 2026, XRP is trading around $1.47, while FLR changes hands near $0.009, underscoring the smaller network’s bet that tighter inflation and protocol-owned MEV can help close the value gap with larger ecosystems anchored by assets like XRP.

In the broader market, the move echoes debates on Ethereum and other chains over whether MEV should remain the domain of specialized actors or be socialized via mechanisms such as protocol-owned builders and burn‑linked fee designs, a question Flare now wants token holders to settle in its upcoming FIP.16 vote.

Circle’s new USDC Bridge aims to turn cross‑chain transfers into a near‑invisible backend plumbing layer for on‑chain dollars, replacing fragmented bridges with a single bank‑style ledger experience operated end‑to‑end by Circle itself.

Circle has rolled out a native USDC Bridge that lets users burn USDC on a source chain and mint it natively on a destination chain, with all routing and gas management handled by Circle. In its materials on the Cross‑Chain Transfer Protocol, Circle says the system is designed to “enable USDC to flow natively 1:1 between blockchains—unifying liquidity and simplifying user experience,” explicitly eliminating third‑party bridge liquidity pools and wrapped tokens.

Built on top of CCTP’s burn‑and‑mint architecture, the new bridge effectively makes moving USDC between chains feel like shifting balances inside one ledger rather than hopping across multiple bridges and wrappers. A technical explainer of CCTP describes how “a sender deposits USDC for burn on the source network” before Circle’s attestation service authorizes minting the same amount on the destination chain, removing the smart‑contract risk that plagued earlier wrapped‑asset bridges.

Circle’s upgrade lands as stablecoins solidify their role as the de facto settlement rail of crypto and, increasingly, institutional finance. According to one industry analysis, stablecoins processed about $33 trillion of transactions in 2025, more than double Visa’s annual volume, with Circle’s USDC alone moving roughly $8.3 trillion in January 2026.

That flow sits on top of a growing technical footprint: separate data shows USDC and CCTP now support native USDC across 32 blockchains, with burn‑and‑mint transfers live on 21 networks. A recent post on cross‑chain settlements estimates “over $20 billion in monthly cross‑chain volume” now runs over USDC using CCTP, underscoring how much real money is already riding on Circle‑operated rails.

Circle has also started to consolidate those flows with infrastructure like Gateway and the Arc environment, which it describes as a way to “consolidate those crosschain flows into a unified USDC balance” and move from “multi‑chain balance reconciliation to deterministic, high‑speed settlement.” In parallel, projects like World Chain are upgrading millions of wallets from bridged to native USDC via CCTP, turning previously fragmented liquidity into fully reserved, directly redeemable digital dollars.

In earlier crypto.news coverage of Circle’s CCTP upgrade, the company highlighted that CCTP v2 cuts cross‑chain USDC settlement to seconds, positioning USDC not just as another stablecoin but as programmable settlement plumbing for everything from perpetual DEXs to consumer apps. As on‑chain stablecoin transaction velocity accelerates and demand for new issuance flattens, the game shifts from printing more tokens to owning the rails through which dollars actually move—and Circle’s USDC Bridge is a direct play for that choke point in the crypto economy.

France’s finance minister backs bank‑issued euro stablecoins and Qivalis’ 2026 launch, pivoting policy to keep Europe’s digital rails denominated in euros, not dollars.

France’s finance minister Roland Lescure has publicly called for more euro‑denominated stablecoins and urged European banks to move ahead with tokenized deposits, signaling a sharp policy pivot in Paris toward bank‑issued digital euros. Speaking at a crypto conference in Paris on April 17, Lescure said the current volume of euro‑pegged stablecoins versus dollar tokens is “not satisfactory” and warned that Europe cannot leave its digital payment rails to foreign currencies. His remarks come as the Qivalis alliance of 12 major European banks, including ING, UniCredit, BBVA and BNP Paribas, prepares a MiCA‑compliant euro stablecoin for launch in the second half of 2026.finance.

Lescure told attendees that “Europe need[s] more euro‑based stablecoins” and said he “strongly encourage[s] banks to further explore the launch of tokenised deposits,” framing the projects as tools to strengthen European digital sovereignty and reduce reliance on dollar‑pegged tokens. He explicitly endorsed the Qivalis initiative, saying “that is what we need and that is what we want,” in what is effectively a political green light for the consortium’s plans to issue a euro‑pegged stablecoin under the EU’s Markets in Crypto‑Assets, or MiCA, framework.

Qivalis, based in Amsterdam, is working toward regulatory approval from the Dutch central bank and aims to operate as an electronic money institution, with CEO Jan‑Oliver Sell calling a native euro stablecoin “a major turning point for digital commerce and financial innovation in Europe.” The group’s stated goal is to become the “interface between blockchain and the euro” and the default euro token across exchanges, custodians and DeFi platforms, a direct attempt to head off “digital dollarization” from dollar‑linked tokens like USDT and USDC.

Lescure’s comments also land against a tougher French line on non‑euro stablecoins, with the Bank of France recently calling for stricter limits on foreign stablecoin payments under MiCA to mitigate systemic risk. European regulators have warned that widespread use of non‑EU stablecoins inside the bloc could undermine monetary policy, pushing authorities to explore ways of tightening rules on large dollar‑based tokens even as they open the door to euro projects.

The broader European shift is already visible across the banking sector, with euro stablecoin projects moving from “education and risk‑understanding” into concrete launch preparations as MiCA’s unified regime reduces regulatory uncertainty. For France, backing Qivalis and euro stablecoins is an attempt to ensure that when on‑chain settlement volumes rival traditional card networks, it is the euro—rather than the dollar—that anchors European rails, in both payments and tokenized assets.

Related crypto.news coverage includes a recent story on how stablecoins are tipped to power global settlement, an explainer on what infrastructure companies use to add stablecoin payments, and a regional look at how firms like Stables and Mansa are stitching together Asia’s missing stablecoin rails.

Kraken parent Payward will buy Bitnomial for up to $550M, adding a full CFTC derivatives stack just as Deutsche Börse’s $200M stake backs its U.S. build‑out.

Payward Inc., the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, has agreed to acquire Chicago‑based crypto derivatives venue Bitnomial in a deal worth up to $550 million in cash and stock, further accelerating its push into U.S. regulated futures and options. The companies expect the transaction to close in the first half of 2026, subject to customary regulatory approvals from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and other U.S. authorities.

Bitnomial is the first crypto‑native operator to assemble the full CFTC derivatives stack, running a Designated Contract Market, a Derivatives Clearing Organization and a Futures Commission Merchant under one roof. According to Bitnomial’s own materials, its exchange and clearinghouse support “leveraged spot, perpetuals, futures, options, and prediction markets, all on one CFTC‑regulated exchange with crypto margin and settlement,” giving Payward an immediate onshore home for products that previously leaned on offshore venues.

Under the plan, Payward will plug Bitnomial’s trading and clearing infrastructure into Kraken, NinjaTrader and Payward Services, offering banks, brokerages and fintechs a single API into CFTC‑regulated crypto derivatives. Kraken has already been expanding in this direction; in a prior crypto.news story it acquired CFTC‑regulated Small Exchange for about $100 million to secure a DCM license, and later used that footprint to launch U.S. regulated derivatives tied to CME‑listed futures.

The Bitnomial deal lands just days after German exchange operator Deutsche Börse agreed to buy a 1.5% fully diluted stake in Payward for $200 million, in a transaction that values Kraken at roughly $13.3 billion. Deutsche Börse said the partnership is meant to “deepen” its role in regulated crypto, tokenized markets and derivatives, with a focus on “enhanced liquidity for institutional clients across geographies,” effectively giving Europe’s largest exchange group a front‑row seat in Kraken’s derivatives build‑out.

Regulators have also been preparing the ground for this shift. CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham has pushed to bring leveraged spot crypto trading and perpetual‑style products onshore under full DCM and DCO oversight, arguing they can be offered safely if “brought into our markets under well‑defined rules and supervision.” In that context, Bitnomial’s December 2025 launch of the first‑ever leveraged retail spot crypto market under CFTC jurisdiction — which CEO Luke Hoersten called “a watershed moment for U.S. crypto markets” — looks like a dress rehearsal for the infrastructure Payward is now buying.

For institutional order flow, the battle increasingly turns on who controls the cleanest regulatory pipe: the combination of licenses, clearing and prime‑style services that let banks and asset managers trade crypto derivatives without touching offshore platforms. With Bitnomial’s stack and Deutsche Börse’s capital, Payward is positioning Kraken as a CME‑style hub for digital asset futures, options and leveraged spot inside the U.S., echoing its broader strategy to bridge tokenized assets, equities and derivatives through initiatives like its xStocks platform.

In addition, Kraken’s derivatives and market‑structure push includes stories on its U.S. derivatives rollout, the Small Exchange acquisition, and Deutsche Börse’s $200 million stake in Payward.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins launches “Material Matters,” with Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda using the debut to pitch a more pro‑innovation crypto stance and clearer rulemaking.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has rolled out “Material Matters with SEC Chairman Paul Atkins,” a new official podcast the chair says will give the public “an inside look at the SEC’s vital work and its implications for our economy.” The first episode, released on April 15, features Commissioners Mark Uyeda and Hester Peirce outlining 2026 priorities.

SEC leans into ‘Material Matters’ and innovation messaging

Peirce told Atkins that “we do want to make this the place where people want to innovate whether it’s in crypto or something else,” adding that the SEC must “send the message to people that we will work with you when there are ambiguities about how the law applies.” She acknowledged there have been “a lot of ambiguities in connection with crypto which is a new technology that does things in new ways,” language that echoes her long‑standing push for more open, “predictable” rules rather than case‑by‑case enforcement.

Uyeda, who has previously criticized what he called a “disaster” approach to digital assets under former chair Gary Gensler, used the new platform to argue that the SEC needs to refocus on its statutory mission rather than sprawling rule‑sets and headline‑driven crackdowns. In earlier remarks, he pledged to abandon the “full‑throttle, broad‑scope regulatory approach” of the prior era in favor of “a slower more traditional approach to rulemaking,” signaling that crypto is now more likely to be handled through transparent processes than surprise lawsuits.

The podcast arrives on top of a structural reset that began when Uyeda, then acting chair, created an agency‑wide Crypto Task Force in January 2025 and asked Peirce to lead it. According to that announcement, the group’s mandate is “developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework” for crypto assets and moving away from an enforcement‑first strategy that had produced “confusion about what is legal” and “an environment hostile to innovation and conducive to fraud.”

Peirce’s task force quickly repealed the controversial Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, which had made it difficult for U.S. banks to custody digital assets on their balance sheets, and rolled out a 10‑point roadmap to address token classifications, disclosures and exchange registration. In parallel, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology,” instructing agencies, including the SEC, to support “responsible growth and use of digital assets, blockchain technology, and related technologies” to secure U.S. leadership.

Indeed, that shift has already translated into concrete changes such as downsizing the SEC’s dedicated crypto enforcement unit, pausing high‑profile cases against exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, and convening public roundtables on token rules instead of litigating them first. Opinion pieces on the new U.S. focus on tokenization‑friendly accounting have framed the emerging regime as an attempt to combine investor protection with a clear path for tokenized assets and crypto companies to build onshore, a goal “Material Matters” now appears designed to sell directly to both markets and voters.

Social media platform X has already generated roughly $1 billion in trading volume from its new Cashtags feature, which allows users to view stock and crypto data directly from the app.

In a post to X on Friday, the company’s head of product, Nikita Bier, said the estimated $1 billion in trading volume was reached after launching on Tuesday night, citing data aggregated from X’s trading pilot.

Based on aggregated data from our trading pilot, X has driven a estimated $1 billion in trading volume globally since launching on Tuesday night. https://t.co/TimRE4U37S

— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) April 17, 2026

The new feature — currently only available to US and Canadian users on iPhones — is part of Elon Musk’s vision of turning X into an “everything app,” including peer-to-peer payments and e-commerce.

X sees more than 550 million users each month, positioning it as one of the largest social media platforms globally and giving it the ability to compete with established financial information providers in delivering market-related content and data.

Cashtags allow users to select a specific asset or smart contract address when posting a ticker, and tapping a tag displays live price charts and related posts.

Online brokerage Wealthsimple partnered with X to integrate the Cashtag feature, enabling Canadians to click on crypto and stock tickers and be taken directly to its trading platform.

The Cashtags feature hasn’t been integrated with a US brokerage yet.

X Money is coming too

Musk’s company also has X Money in the pipeline, a peer-to-peer payments system that seeks to offer yield-bearing accounts, a cashback debit card and other perks.

X rolled out an external beta of X Money in early March, showing payments between Musk and Hollywood actor William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek series.

Related: X mulls new rules for first-time crypto posts amid tortoise scam

The integration of crypto payments into X Money remains a mystery, however.

Over the last few years, X has secured money transmitter licenses in over 40 US states and registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to make peer-to-peer payments possible on the platform.

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