BITCOIN RAILS #59#: Post-Quantum Bitcoin Signatures (+ their tradeoffs) | with BIP 360 co-author @Ethan_Heilman and @Blockstream Head of Research @n1ckler 🔗 YOUTUBE: 🌿 SPOTIFY: According to BIP 360 co-author Ethan Heilman, Bitcoin needs a minimum of two soft forks to become quantum resistant: P2MR (or an output type that can safely execute PQ signatures) + a post-quantum checksig (signature scheme). Ethan and the BIP 360 team (including myself and @cryptoquick) introduced the P2MR part via a BIP 360 update late last year—but the question remains, what’s the most appropriate PQ signature scheme for Bitcoin? They all have substantive tradeoffs, but hash-based signatures seem to be leading technical discourse—likely due to recent optimizations by @n1ckler and the broader @Blockstream research team. It was an honor to sit down with both of these men - arguably the two most influential and productive cryptographers in Bitcoin quantum mitigation right now - for an in-depth review of the leading PQ signature schemes and a temperature check on Bitcoin’s post-quantum planning process. TBH, if you want to skip the noise and jump straight to the signal on quantum, this is the interview to watch. In this episode, we discuss: - What needs to happen at the soft fork, infra, and mitigation levels to fully quantum-harden Bitcoin - Recent updates to BIP 360 + breakdown of the leading hash-based signatures schemes for Bitcoin (SHRINCS + SHRIMPS) - Why we may actually get consensus around a stateful scheme for Bitcoin - Comparisons of hash-based signatures vs Lattice and Isogeny-based schemes - Assessing the risks of both waiting too long and acting too fast (and why quantum is a better threat to be facing than a potential classical attack) This episode of Bitcoin Rails is brought to you by my NEW sponsors: - LayerTwo Labs @LayerTwoLabs — developing research, software, and technologies for scaling Bitcoin via the integration of Drivechains (BIP 300/301) - Hashi on @SuiNetwork — a primitive for executing Bitcoin Defi transactions, without having to trust a federated bridge or other centralized entity - BitBox @BitBoxSwiss — an open-source Bitcoin-only hardware wallet, with smooth UX and no compromises on security. Check out Bitbox [dot] swiss and use code BITCOINRAILS to get a discount TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro 02:18 Ethan’s Quantum Wakeup 05:18 How Blockstream Enters Post Quantum 09:25 BIP 360 Explained 12:11 How Bitcoin Transitions to PQ 17:35 Choosing Post Quantum Signatures 23:20 How Blockstream Created SHRINCS 27:22 Signature Budgets Importance Explained 41:13 What are SHRIMPS? 44:51 SHRIMPS vs SHRINCS 47:48 Why SLH-DSA Alone Won’t Cut It 49:24 Is a SHRIMPS + SHRINCS BIP Coming? 51:51 Blockstream’s Big Plans for Liquid 59:04 Quantum Readiness Roadmap 01:02:22 Importance of a PQ Recovery Plan 01:05:35 How Long Would a PQ Migration Take 01:11:17 Quantum Watchlist Recommendations

Looks like the Bitcoin maximalist "have fun staying poor" chickens are coming home to roost. DISCLAIMER!!! Normal, innocent people lost a lot of money because they trusted the bigger voices. This is very tragic and not their fault. They don't deserve to lose money, and they shouldn't be mocked. Those who led them to lose everything, however, should be. That's what this is. For years, ever since the block size wars, toxic Bitcoin maximalists mocked everyone with a difference of opinion and interest in other projects. The mantra: "Have fun staying poor." Petty, shallow, and cruel. Repeated every time some project didn't perform well in the charts, or when a protocol or company was hacked. Used to discourage people from using actual open source, decentralized, freedom-enabling tech. They viciously mocked the less fortunate while propping themselves up as the purveyors of the true, trusted, and foolproof way of securing your wealth for future generations. Well, now the chickens have come home to roost. ColdCard, the "Bitcoin-only" hardware wallet of choice, was exploited due to poor design, losing people untold millions of their savings. The same week, Bitcoin Judas Michael Saylor, their god whose only trick was to buy Bitcoin forever and make everyone rich, announced he's selling $5 billion more in Bitcoin. As mentioned above, I don't want to see people lose money. I don't delight in human misery. But the perpetrators of so much of this are finally seeing their empire of lies crashing down, and I have a keen interest in salting the earth there so that it never grows back to harm anyone ever again. If you haven't mocked a toxic maximalist influencer yet today, maybe this graphic will be useful to you.

It is impossible for me to not be bullish on Bitcoin right now. Bitcoin is RISING through a real-yield regime it has literally never seen before. The 10Y real Treasury yield hit 2.68% this week - the highest level of the entire Bitcoin era. But the crazier number is 2.44%. That’s the average 10Y real yield over the last 40 Treasury sessions. The highest sustained 10Y real-yield regime in Bitcoin history. Bitcoin is up 17.4% over those same 40 sessions. This matters because real yields are the hurdle rate. When the government will pay you ~2.5% above inflation to sit in Treasuries, the opportunity cost of owning a non-yielding monetary asset is enormous. For much of Bitcoin’s history, collapsing or negative real yields were gasoline. Right now the gasoline is gone. The macro headwind is sitting at a record. And Bitcoin is going up anyway. The lazy model that “Bitcoin only goes up when money is cheap” just ran into a very inconvenient chart:

Strive is just DOMINATING with the SATA machine. +222 Bitcoin only 2 hours into trading?!? Now WHY is this important? Every $1 raised of SATA buys $1 of Bitcoin. The $1 of SATA stays fixed in fiat. Bitcoin compounds. Therefore by continuing to buy SATA... this machine KEEPS the Bitcoin amplified to a high degree. If you don't have a preferred stock mechanism going, you lose a lot more amplification on the way up. Strive seemingly can just keep issuing SATA. It is 1/12th the notional of STRC. SATA being dramatically smaller means incremental preferred demand can plausibly have a much larger effect relative to Strive’s equity/BTC base. How do you value this growth engine for ASST? With a premium. Bitcoin is only at $80k. Bullish $ASST.

Henrik thinks Ethereum's big move is still ahead. @RiskTakers000 When Bitcoin takes all the thunder, Alts don't perform. But when Bitcoin only bounces into a top, that's when Ethereum takes off. He's looking at Bitcoin around 120K and Ethereum somewhere between 8-12K @HenrikZeberg Higher bottom means higher top. @crypto_banter @Banter_Clips

Metaplanet issuing their prefs to buy only 200 BTC/day would be absolutely psychotic. I ran the CEBE math on this scenario (no common stock issuance or crazy mNAV expansion, and only 1,400 Bitcoin per week) Starting point: 40,177 BTC 0.97x EV mNAV $297M debt $149M preferred 2,463 raw sats per diluted share ~2,157 CEBE sats/share after senior claims Now imagine Metaplanet buys 200 BTC/day for 3 years using preferred equity only. No common issuance. That adds 219,200 BTC. Total stack becomes 259,377 BTC Yes, a quarter-million Bitcoin treasury built by feeding yield addicts into the preferred equity wood chipper. At 0.97x CEBE NAV, projected Metaplanet share price: Year 1: BTC to $100k: $1.97 BTC to $150k: $2.73 BTC to $200k: $3.49 BTC to $300k: $5.00 BTC to $500k: $8.04 Year 2: BTC to $100k: $2.62 BTC to $150k: $4.86 BTC to $200k: $7.11 BTC to $300k: $11.60 BTC to $500k: $20.59 Year 3: BTC at $100k: $3.58, +73% BTC at $150k: $8.03, +288% BTC at $200k: $12.49, +503% BTC at $300k: $21.39, +934% BTC at $500k: $39.21, +1,794% The bear case is literally “what if Bitcoin only goes to $100k and Metaplanet only goes up 73%.” Horrifying stuff. At $300k BTC, common equity CEBE rises to ~7,351 sats/share even after the preferred claims. At $500k BTC, it hits ~8,084 sats/share. Preferred investors get their yield. Metaplanet gets Bitcoin. Bitcoin goes up. The dollar senior claim shrinks in BTC terms. Common equity eats the residual like a starving rat behind a Tokyo 7-Eleven. Remember, this is with ZERO common shares issued or mNAV expansion. BULLISH ON THE JAPANESE HOTEL COMPANY: :::