Quantum Threat by 2030. Crypto Ready? #CryptoTownHall

**Scott Melker** (0:00)
Good morning, everybody. I hope you can all hear me.

**CJ** (0:03)
I hear music and you.

**Scott Melker** (0:05)
You hear music and me?

**Carlo** (0:07)
Yeah, do you guys still hear the music?

**Scott Melker** (0:09)
No.

**Carlo** (0:10)
Now it's off, just went off.

**Tom** (0:12)
I also heard it like double, maybe it was coming through someone's mic or something.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:15)
Go ahead.

**Carlo** (0:18)
Sorry to interrupt.

**Scott Melker** (0:19)
Well, happy Good Friday, everyone. You know, it's funny. You know, I don't know who noticed it, but, you know, if you look, I don't even know who else is talking.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:29)
Oh, wow.

**Scott Melker** (0:30)
Can you hear me?

**Armando** (0:33)
Uh-oh.

**Scott Melker** (0:35)
Can anybody give me a thumbs up?

**Constantine** (0:36)
Guys, we hear you both.

**Tom** (0:40)
You're both fine. I don't know what Scott's hearing.

**Scott Melker** (0:44)
Yeah, he dropped it. He's going to come back again. And it's always adventure. And venture is an excess, so be it. Anyone else notice that, you know, with traditional markets closed today for the holiday, that it's only things like hyperliquid and crypto, where you can actually see that Brent and WTI are basically where they were yesterday? It's always kind of interesting. You know, I keep finding it funny, Carlo. I see you're up here. You know, the two topics, obviously, that people keep talking about are quantum, which we put in the title, and just the disgust of what's going on, you know, in the public sphere, at least, from the banks and stable coins and all the bullshit, with a little bit of hopium coming out of people who I hope they're right that we're getting beyond this. It's just, it's really kind of amusing. But, you know, I don't know if anyone up here has topics on quantum. I mean, my thought process is simple.
There is a technology that is evolving that is going to require Bitcoin to update itself. Bitcoin has the capacity to update itself. And only in some very fringy case of disaster, where Bitcoin can't, is there going to be a major issue. But there are some issues that will certainly be there, which are old wallets, et cetera. And I think that people looking at this, you know, I did the math yesterday, and Scott and I talked about it. We're talking about, you would assume, if the worst, the most likely bad scenario, like the worst, I'm not going to say worst case, but we'll call it bad scenario, is Bitcoin going on a go-forward basis is fine, that people can adapt, that you can control and hide your public keys and or have better cryptography on your public-private keys translation. But that the old wallets might very well be susceptible to being quote taken. In that latter scenario, which I think people kind of are what they're terribly afraid of, I actually think that that's about a 40 percent haircut to Bitcoin, which we've already had. And the fact that people haven't bought, aren't buying and are concerned about it is a big deal. So I think it's important to understand this. This narrative is not going anywhere is the bottom line. We're going to be talking about it for months and months and months. And just like with the oil market, don't expect the market in Bitcoin to continue to follow this particular narrative and every single bump and bruise along the way. Big screaming will make it. But I'm curious what people think. Okay, we got a couple of hands up. Great. Carlo, I think you were first.

**Carlo** (3:27)
Good morning, Dave. And good morning, Scott. Yeah.

**Scott Melker** (3:31)
Good morning.

**Carlo** (3:32)
Good morning. On this quantum thing, I mean, the amount of compute it would take to break Bitcoin when you have so much other low-hanging fruit, that if the quantum attack becomes a realistic threat vector, I think any smart hacker would first attack the banking sector, the finance sector. I mean, for crying out loud, you still have the majority of banks that are providing consumers two-factor authentication over SMS text message. Are you really going to deploy that much compute power against the Bitcoin blockchain when you have so many softer targets you could exploit? And look, if we get to the point that everything is susceptible to a quantum attack, then we're pretty much going back to the stone age anyway. So it doesn't much matter what your magic internet money's worth at that point. And I think there are enough resources being deployed in advance of this that I feel confident there'll be a solution. If I'm wrong about that, then we are all. On the stable coin front? Yeah, I'm very frustrated. I put out a piece this morning again.