Hunter Beast explains how quantum computers could break Bitcoin’s elliptic curve cryptography, potentially compromising 4 million BTC in exposed public keys. Three post-quantum signature algorithms (Sphinx, MLDSA, and FNDSA) are compared for performance and size. The talk introduces “hourglass,” a mechanism to limit quantum exploitation by allowing only one P2PK input per block, extending a potential flash-crash from hours to a year.
This presentation was recorded live at OPNEXT, a Bitcoin scaling conference. For more info go to opnext.dev
OPNEXT Livestream & VODs are made possible thanks to Taproot Wizards. taprootwizards.com
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# Notes:
– ~4 million coins vulnerable to quantum attack
– Three post-quantum signature algorithms proposed
– Taproot addresses directly encode public keys
– Hourglass mechanism limits to 1 P2PK input/block
– Govt plans to censor elliptic curve crypto by 2035
– Transaction compression could scale to hundreds/sec
