Why Bitcoin's Biggest Threat Just Divided Wall Street

**Scott Melker** (0:00)
Today, we're going to talk about why Bitcoin's biggest threat just divided Wall Street. Of course, we're talking about quantum, which has been the major topic of conversation over the past few months. There's been many proposals from the Bitcoin community on how to handle it, but it's not just unique to Bitcoin. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs both have very different approaches to what's coming with quantum. On a slower news day, perfect time to talk to Chris Tam, a quantum expert from BTQ. We're going to dive into that right now.
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the show. Before we get started, like and subscribe and do all the things that you're supposed to do. That's twice this month, I've now asked you. Supposed to do it like 30 times, twice. I'm nailing it right now. I'm gonna go ahead and just bring Chris on right now. Good morning, sir, how are you?

**Chris Tam** (1:02)
Hey, Scott, very good, thanks. Thanks for having us here.

**Scott Melker** (1:06)
So there's a lot of things we could talk about. We can bloviate on the Fed or DeFi hacks or all the things that have just been exhausting. But today seems like the perfect day to zoom out and talk about quantum. I dove into it pretty thoroughly on my show, The Daily Wolf on Yahoo the other day, talking about the fact that some had entered the arena with their paper on it. So it seems like we have a very wide spectrum of ideas as to what's coming and what to do about it, right? I mean, some people think it's decades away, some people think a decade. Google had the paper that set everyone on fire in 2029
I mean, where do you stand first on the quantum threat generally? And then we can zoom in on how that affects Bitcoin and what to do about it.

**Chris Tam** (1:50)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a bit of an elusive topic. I mean, it's sort of at the front of the headlines, but at the same time, there's no real consensus or united thought in how to think about and how to think about the solutions here, because in one respect, it's so widespread. I mean, if we think about quantum risk in general, there's so many ways and so many really ways that quantum can permeate into our cybersecurity. But as it relates to crypto even, there's so many different blockchains.
Bitcoin has its own model, Ethereum has its own model, Solana its own. And what we're seeing in this past week, Solana released its quantum readiness report on the tail of Ethereum, releasing it earlier this year. And the Bitcoin community has been lackluster.
Adam Back has started to talk more and more about it, but there isn't any real clear solution on the table yet. Where does quantum stand? I mean, this is the position that we take, which is that it will be around 2030, I think is a decent benchmark. If you're looking at where quantum resources are at right now, we've seen the progress that they've gone through the past three to five years. And if you follow that trajectory onto the curve, it seems relatively plausible that it could happen in or around 2030 And then you had today, earlier today, Scott Aronson, who is one of the more acclaimed and esteemed computer scientists by trade, but he's been really writing about quantum risk for a very long time. And his blog today in sort of bold writing said, well, you heard it here, quantum risk is real and it's coming. And it's something that we definitely ought to pay attention to.

**Scott Melker** (4:00)
It's interesting you talk about the multiple blockchains and their plans. So the best part about crypto is the decentralization specific to Bitcoin. Decentralized, no CEO or founder impacting what's going on. But in a situation like this, that's also the biggest challenge. I know Ethereum has four full teams, I think, working on this. Like you said, Solana has a plan. I know like Algorand was already quantum proofed or everybody has their own plan. But most of them have someone at the lead to handle it and Bitcoin uniquely, which is a blessing and a curse, really get it done in the same way.

**Chris Tam** (4:40)
You hit it on the head. I mean, that's been in its entire value proposition today, right? Which is that it's actually quite a slow moving machine. If you try to push an upgrade through Bitcoin, you're not going to see that happen overnight. Like you might see that happen in Solana, for example. Bitcoin's whole engineering apparatus is designed around stable and high guarantees that something will work. When it comes to quantum risk, that's the last thing that we get.