Sui's Kostas Chalkias: I Told Them to Freeze the $163 Million

**Kostas Chalkias** (0:00)
I'm one of the believers that quantum is not here yet. As a cryptographer, I think it's more than a decade away, at least. If we want our systems to sustain something that might happen even in 20 years from now, we have to start because typically crypto migration takes years, maybe decades. So even if we say we should start 2027, 2029, whatever every time takes, it has to happen now because we're going to learn from this integration process.

**Amanda Cassatt** (0:26)
I'm Amanda Cassatt and you're watching Endgame. There's no quantum safe blockchain amongst the top 40 by market cap, which implies that the market doesn't think this is an urgent priority.

**Kostas Chalkias** (0:38)
In my opinion, there is some progress. At the same time, there are a few VCs like venture capitals who are putting money into the game. When money starts flowing into an industry, you might expect that there will be some new breakthrough in this particular system.

**Amanda Cassatt** (0:52)
There are over 200 million in a hack and then validators froze 163 million of it. Doesn't that challenge the idea that it's a decentralized network?

**Kostas Chalkias** (1:00)
There are two flavors of decentralization. One is apathy. You do nothing. Then why do you even need decentralization? Why do you even need to take decisions?

**Amanda Cassatt** (1:13)
So you said that every chain, Bitcoin, Ethereum needs to start its quantum migration now, now until 2030 Are you ringing a real alarm bell or is this Sui's marketing wedge?

**Kostas Chalkias** (1:26)
Great question. By the way, I'm one of the believers that quantum is not here yet.
In the sense that whatever Google published in the last few months, it's actually mostly not a hype but some theoretical work. In case there is some hardware that can actually break crypto, then we have to expect this amount of gates, quantum bits and so on. As a cryptography, I think it's more than a decade away, at least. Now, what is the problem and why we should start now?
Historically, the blockchain industry in the last 15 years, I would say after the Bitcoin revolution, is the first one who is making the changes for a better world.
If we want our systems to sustain something that might happen even in 20 years from now, we have to start because typically crypto-migration takes years, maybe decades. So even if we say we should start 2027, 2029, whatever every chain picks, it has to happen now because we're going to learn from this migration process. So if it happens afterwards, you are getting in some danger zone where you might not be ready by that time. And this is the first factor. The second one is regulation. You know that there are at least a couple of agencies, including the National Institute of Standard and Technology in the United States, that they say, look, if you want to be compatible with American entities and being able to transact with the government, you need to be quantum safe. We have stable coins. We have all of these bridges with the Web2 world. Now RWA is coming, stock market, everything. How can you do that if you don't start now, right? So in my opinion, that's the main reason we have to start all of this migration from now until the Web2 as well takes pretty much the pass from us and then they change their systems as well. That's the main reason for the migration.

**Amanda Cassatt** (3:16)
But there's no quantum safe blockchain amongst the top 40 by market cap, which implies that the market doesn't think this is an urgent priority.

**Kostas Chalkias** (3:26)
This is good because even before the Google announcement, we didn't even believe there is a danger there.
In the past, we thought 2040, maybe 2050, 2060 Some people say never. In my opinion, there is some progress. At the same time, there are a few VCs like venture capitals who are putting money into the game, which means that if you see all of the industries, when money starts flowing into an industry, you might expect that there will be some new breakthrough in this particular system. Before, we didn't see the money.
So now that you see startups like popping cap into the quantum space, you have to be prepared as well. There is a reason for money flowing there, which means that in the last couple of years, I believe the big migration tension started. I'm telling you the same as I was the first one who implemented actually post-quantum signatures back in 2017 for Corda. I was like the lead cryptographer of Corda. We did have 10 years ago, 9-10 years ago, post-quantum signatures there. They were not used in practice, but we had back then a couple of countries. If I remember correctly, there was also the Egyptian bank as well, that they wanted to get prepared for the new world. Because even then, we expected, 15 years, 10 years, let's start now, our banks will take another 10-20 years to immigrate. So although there was some effort, I think Google changed the narrative here, and that's why you see now most of the people restarting, reinforcing this focus on quantum safety.