{"id":63582,"date":"2025-12-15T14:01:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=63582"},"modified":"2025-12-15T14:01:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:01:32","slug":"bitcoin-and-the-quantum-panic-what-developers-are-actually-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=63582","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin And The Quantum Panic: What Developers Are Actually Doing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Quantum risk has become a recurring stress point in Bitcoin discourse, often framed as an existential threat. The claim usually follows a familiar arc: quantum computing is advancing quickly, cryptography is vulnerable, and Bitcoin isn\u2019t adapting fast enough.<\/a><\/p>\n

Marty Bent doesn\u2019t buy that framing. In his Dec. 14 episode, Bent acknowledged that quantum computing represents a genuine risk \u2014 not just for Bitcoin, but for any system built on modern cryptography \u2014 while pushing back on the idea that Bitcoin developers are ignoring the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cShort answer is yes, it is a risk,\u201d Bent said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not only a risk for Bitcoin. It\u2019s a risk for any system that depends on cryptography for security.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Developers Are Doing To Make Bitcoin Quantum-Safe<\/h2>\n

What tends to get lost, he argued, is the work already underway. Bent pointed to ongoing developer discussions and, more recently, a research paper published by Blockstream\u2019s Jonas Nick and Mikhail Kutunov examining hash-based, post-quantum signature schemes tailored specifically for Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to make this video to push back on that notion,\u201d Bent said, referring to claims that Bitcoin isn\u2019t moving fast enough. \u201cBecause I think it\u2019s pretty clear if you\u2019ve been following Bitcoin development discussions over the last year, the quantum risk is certainly being taken seriously and the conversations have started.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick summarized the paper in a Dec. 9 post on X, describing it as an analysis of post-quantum schemes optimized for Bitcoin\u2019s constraints rather than generic cryptographic benchmarks. Bent described the work as a signal that research is shifting from abstract concern to concrete design space.<\/p>\n

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Hash-based signatures are conceptually simple and rely solely on hash functions, which is a primitive Bitcoin already trusts.<\/p>\n

While NIST has standardized SLH-DSA (SPHINCS+), we investigate alternatives that are better suited to Bitcoin\u2019s specific needs.<\/p>\n

\u2014 ncklr (@n1ckler) December 9, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Nick wrote via X: \u201cHash-based signatures are conceptually simple and rely solely on hash functions, which is a primitive Bitcoin already trusts. While NIST has standardized SLH-DSA (SPHINCS+), we investigate alternatives that are better suited to Bitcoin\u2019s specific needs. We explore in detail how various optimizations and parameter choices affect size and performance. Signature size can be reduced to ~3-4KB, which is comparable to lattice-based signature schemes (ML-DSA).\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge, Bent emphasized, isn\u2019t a lack of candidate solutions. It\u2019s that Bitcoin is a globally distributed system with nearly 17 years of operational history, and changes at the protocol level come with heavy trade-offs.
\n\u201cBitcoin is a globally distributed peer-to-peer system that depends on consensus protocol rules that are very hard to change,\u201d Bent said. \u201cAnd you really don\u2019t want to change them too often.\u201d<\/p>\n

That reality complicates any transition to quantum-resistant signatures<\/a>. Existing address types, HD wallets, multisig setups, and threshold schemes all need to be considered. And beyond compatibility, there\u2019s the question of performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest hurdles when approaching this problem in Bitcoin is that many quantum-resistant schemes are very data intensive,\u201d Bent said. \u201cYes, there are many different schemes that can be implemented. However, they come with trade-offs \u2014 particularly verification and bandwidth trade-offs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larger signatures can slow block propagation and make it more expensive to run a full node, which directly impacts decentralization. The Blockstream paper focuses heavily on that tension, exploring optimizations that could reduce signature sizes to a few kilobytes while keeping verification costs manageable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey feel pretty confident that they\u2019ve done the research to find signature schemes that would have a nice trade-off balance,\u201d Bent said. \u201cYou get quantum resistance, but at the same time it remains conducive for people to download full nodes and verify transactions without needing a significant amount of bandwidth and data storage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bent was careful not to frame the research as a finished solution. Instead, he described it as groundwork \u2014 mapping the problem space early so the network isn\u2019t caught flat-footed if quantum capabilities advance faster than expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is by no means like, \u2018hey, we solved the problem,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cBut we are taking this problem seriously, doing research and beginning to figure out ways in which we could solve the quantum risk that may or may not manifest in the medium to long term.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also noted that BTC tends to be singled out in quantum discussions, even though most of the internet relies on cryptographic assumptions that would face similar pressure in a true post-quantum scenario.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf quantum computers do come, Bitcoin is not the only thing,\u201d Bent said. \u201cAlmost everything you touch on the internet is depending on some cryptographic security at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Everyone\u2019s panicking about quantum computing killing bitcoin.<\/p>\n

But they\u2019re ignoring what just got released.@martybent<\/a> explains. pic.twitter.com\/uyRIjpGuNY<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 TFTC (@TFTC21) December 14, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For now, Bent\u2019s takeaway was measured. Quantum risk exists<\/a>. Progress in quantum computing is real. But the narrative that developers are ignoring the issue doesn\u2019t align with what\u2019s happening in technical circles.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery smart developers, cryptographers more importantly, are researching the problem,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you know where to look, it\u2019s pretty clear that people are preparing for this.\u201d Not solved. Not ignored. Just quietly being worked on.<\/p>\n

At press time, BTC traded at $89,854.<\/p>\n

\"Bitcoin<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quantum risk has become a recurring stress point in Bitcoin discourse, often framed as an existential threat. The claim usually follows a familiar arc: quantum computing is advancing quickly, cryptography is vulnerable, and Bitcoin isn\u2019t adapting fast enough. Marty Bent doesn\u2019t buy that framing. In his Dec. 14 episode, Bent acknowledged that quantum computing represents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-63582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}