Trail of Bits just released "trailmix," five new quantum circuits for the hardest step in Shor's algorithm: elliptic-curve point addition. They beat Google's and every prior published circuit on the efficiency frontier, including a new low-qubit record at around 1,066 logical qubits. Link: https://x.com/trailofbits/status/2062980523232805164 The attack comes down to running that point-addition step billions of times, so a cheaper step means a smaller, faster quantum computer can do the job. The curve being optimized, secp256k1, secures Bitcoin, Ethereum, and most coins, so every improvement is another tick toward "Q-Day," the day a large enough quantum computer exists. No machine can do it today; the point is how fast the gap is closing. Shor's exploits a one-way function. Your public key is derived from your private key in a way that is easy forward and effectively irreversible on a classical computer, but Shor's reverses it on a quantum computer by turning the secret into a hidden repeating pattern that interference surfaces all at once. Ordinary arithmetic then recovers the private key. Breaking ECDSA is not exotic. It is the textbook use case quantum computers were designed for, and the algorithm has been public for over thirty years. No further breakthrough is required. Once a large enough fault-tolerant, general-purpose quantum computer exists, breaking crypto is just running a known program on it: no new physics, no special crypto-breaking hardware, nothing left to invent. What is left is building the hardware and shrinking the circuit. That second part is already a public, ongoing effort: the open challenge at ecdsa.fail (https://www.ecdsa.fail) is a live leaderboard where contributors, including AI agents, compete to make the point-addition circuit leaner, and submissions have already pushed below Google's numbers. Once standard quantum hardware crosses the size threshold, configuring a circuit to break the key is the easy part; that piece is already well understood and getting leaner by the week. The risk to holders is direct. The moment a public key is exposed on-chain, by spending or reusing an address, it can be targeted, and coins already sitting behind an exposed key cannot be retroactively protected. It is the crypto version of "harvest now, crack later." The fix is quantum-safe signatures, hash-based or lattice-based schemes that Shor's has no shortcut against. NIST has already standardized them. One chain was built this way from the start. QRL has been quantum-safe since its 2018 genesis, using hash-based signatures Shor's cannot break. Its upcoming upgrade, QRL 2.0, extends that as a proof-of-stake, energy-efficient, EVM-compatible network where existing Solidity contracts port over with minimal changes. It signs with ML-DSA-87, NIST's highest post-quantum security tier (Level 5), and it is crypto-agile, able to adopt new post-quantum algorithms without a contentious fork; it has already moved its entire signature stack up to a stronger level in about two weeks. Testnet V2 has been live since March 2026, Halborn audited the cryptography library with no vulnerabilities found, and Trail of Bits is auditing the full protocol, with mainnet targeted for 2026 after the remaining audits. Its throughput benchmarks land in Ethereum's range even though post-quantum signatures run tens of times larger than ECDSA's. submitted by /u/alami9 [link] [Kommentare]
Everyone seems convinced the 4-year Bitcoin cycle is guaranteed at this point. The more I read Bitcoin Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube, the more it feels like the cycle is treated as a fact rather than a theory. Historically, markets love making the majority look foolish. What if this is the cycle where it breaks? submitted by /u/2smart2gentle [link] [Kommentare]
When people talk about this industry they usually say "crypto." When they invest in the traditional equities market they will usually tell you specifically which companies. The VAST majority of trading here is automated, and based off of BTC. I'm a firm believer that this market dump was caused (in addition to all of the typical external risk-related things) people becoming spooked about bitcoin. But since the market still behaves as a homogeneous lump, all projects dive automatically when investors (speculators) dive from bitcoin. The bitcoin narratives have evaporated one by one. No one uses it as a currency. It's not digital gold. Hard cap is not guaranteed. It's not unbreakable. It's not a hedge against inflation. It seems clear that, despite whatever tomorrow's new narrative, it doesn't have a lot of practical use. This community has known that, but the TV-viewing public is now realizing it. Meanwhile ETH has been attracting positive attention and development. The biggest criticisms so far (other than 'how has it changed my life day-to-day') have been that the price hasn't reflected the progress made. But the progress is undeniable. Projects ARE happening at some of the largest financial institutions in the world. We've yet to see whether these will bear fruit or not. However, the "projects" related to bitcoin were ETFs, and part of this dump might be related to the fact that the ETF fantasy has proven to mostly fall flat. All this to say, that I believe ETH is being traded automatically based on BTC price movement. Market is dumping bitcoin, therefore market-wide is dumping because of the automated trading. If you're a believer in the future of ETH, this is a pretty great moment to be buying. This would be a great moment to buy any asset that sees a dramatic drop in price because of something unrelated to its investment thesis. submitted by /u/Available_Win5204 [link] [Kommentare]
Im down like 65% now and my portfolio exists off 30 percent SOL%, 23% LINK, 22% ETH only 16% BTC and 8 percent in BONK (only down 30%). Im wondering if its time to cut some losses and move it all into BTC sinds a long bear is probably ahead and altcoins are to unpredictable. BTC is at a good price to do this but these alts have bled a lot more relative to BTC. Im really doubting what to do here because doing this will make recovery to break even way harder but I plan to lump sum at 45000 to almost double portfolio. BTC price needed would go down from ~$170000 to ~117000. Would you stay in the alts at this point or convert I have done my personal research but am at a loss here submitted by /u/Friendly-Direction42 [link] [Kommentare]