Nic Carter: Quantum Threatens $600B of Bitcoin

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
You're now plugged in to The Delphi Podcast.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (0:05)
Nic Carter, who made these loafers?

**Nic Carter** (0:09)
Tommy Shaughnessy, thank you for having me. You didn't make them though. I got them from a store here in Miami called Blue Scarpa.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (0:17)
How many pairs did you look at before you landed on Tiffany Blue?

**Nic Carter** (0:20)
I own all of the loafers from that store.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (0:23)
So you keep them in business?

**Nic Carter** (0:25)
I would think I'm like their power user. So they make shoes in any color, as long as it's blue.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (0:30)
So you walk in and they just turn the lights on?

**Nic Carter** (0:33)
Well, they know me, so.
I'm not like this most of the time. It's just I really like this one.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (0:41)
I want to sit in the store as you come in and just watch them.

**Nic Carter** (0:45)
And to the design. Rally around.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (0:46)
They're great. Will they last?

**Nic Carter** (0:48)
No, these are made of linen. They're not really meant to be worn.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (0:52)
Damn.

**Nic Carter** (0:53)
But I thought it matched the fit.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (0:54)
I love it. Nick, last time you were on the podcast was two years ago. Operation Showpoint.

**Nic Carter** (1:01)
Was that it?

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (1:02)
That was it. That was before you broke the story and it became a big deal.

**Nic Carter** (1:06)
And similar to then, I think that was one of the first ones I'd done on the topic. This is the very first, very first podcast I've done on Quantum.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (1:17)
I had to pull out a lot of best friend favors to get you here. I said one text and you said yes.

**Nic Carter** (1:22)
Yeah, that was... I'm retired.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (1:26)
Until now.

**Nic Carter** (1:26)
I don't do podcasts. I don't do TV. It's gone.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (1:29)
Why not?

**Nic Carter** (1:30)
I don't want to.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (1:32)
That's fair.

**Nic Carter** (1:33)
I don't want to.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (1:34)
Does it distract from work or it's just you don't like the interviewers or what's the...

**Nic Carter** (1:37)
I don't feel like it anymore.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (1:39)
That's fair. That's a good reason.

**Nic Carter** (1:41)
I communicate more precisely in writing.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (1:45)
Well, the writing is good.

**Nic Carter** (1:46)
For this episode, I'm going to say a lot of stuff that's slightly wrong and I'll have to refer you to my writing, which is the canonical stuff.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (1:55)
That's fair. Nic, you wrote a four-part series on Quantum's risk to Bitcoin. They're beautifully written. They have real purpose. It also feels like you enjoy arguing with diehard Bitcoiners.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:06)
Is that what...

**Nic Carter** (2:08)
I haven't even finished the series, the third installment.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (2:11)
Have you started it?

**Nic Carter** (2:12)
No, but I'm thinking about it a lot. That happens in the background and then eventually, one day, I wake up, I'm like, it's ready, you know?

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (2:22)
So, why did... So, you had the Satoshi dice in 2018, so eight years ago, and you put Quantum on there. Yeah, the FUD dice.

**Nic Carter** (2:30)
Quantum was on the second edition of the dice.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (2:32)
Same year?

**Nic Carter** (2:33)
Yeah, in 2018

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (2:35)
What got you to put it on that early? What was the...

**Nic Carter** (2:37)
Oh, because I ran out of FUDs. I mean, there were like three or four editions of the dice. There's only so many FUDs that you give it on a panel, the 12-sided die.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (2:49)
What else was on there?

**Nic Carter** (2:50)
Think about how many sides that is.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (2:52)
Yeah.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:53)
That's 48 sides.

**Nic Carter** (2:56)
That's a lot of different FUDs. But Quantum was always a good FUD because me calling something FUD doesn't mean it's not a risk to Bitcoin, to be clear. Like, FUD, some FUD is quality FUD, like the block reward stability in the long term, right? The fee issue. That's quality FUD because that's an unsolved problem. So is Quantum. Back then, though, in 2018, that was seven years ago, right? That's a long time.

**Tommy Shaughnessy** (3:26)
It's like, you know.

**Nic Carter** (3:27)
So a lot happened since then in Quantum, and this went from a very theoretical possibility to, well, actually, it sounds like most people in the field are saying, this is going to happen. So it was something that Satoshi knew about back in the day, in 2010, Satoshi wrote about Quantum and said, yeah, we'll break the hash functions eventually. Probably won't, honestly, but that's what Satoshi thought.