Network news
GOOGLE SAYS MINING BITCOIN IS EASIER THAN PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED: Breaking the Bitcoin blockchain with quantum computers may not be as difficult as once thought, and Bitcoin’s Taproot technology, which enables more efficient, private transactions, may be partly to blame, Google’s Quantum AI team said in a blog post and newly released whitepaper. The team said the computing power required to break Bitcoin’s security may be far lower than previously thought, raising new questions about how quickly quantum threats can become a reality. In a new white paper, researchers found that cracking the cryptography used by Bitcoin and Ethereum could require fewer than 500,000 physical quantum bits, or often well below “qubits” in recent years. Google has previously pointed to 2029 as a potential milestone for useful quantum systems and said migration must come before that, making the paper’s finding that attacks may require less computing power more significant. Quantum computers use qubits instead of traditional bits and can solve certain problems much faster than today’s machines. One of these problems is breaking the type of encryption that protects crypto wallets. Google said it designed two potential attack methods, each requiring about 1,200 to 1,450 high-quality qubits. That’s a fraction of previous estimates and suggests the gap between current technology and a viable attack may be smaller than investors think. The research also outlines how such an attack could work in practice. Instead of targeting old wallets, a quantum attacker could go after real-time transactions. When someone sends bitcoin, a piece of data called a public key card is revealed. A fast enough quantum computer could use this information to calculate the private key and redirect the funds. — Sam Reynolds Read more.
OPENAI RAISES RECORD $122 BILLION: Artificial intelligence giant OpenAI has closed $122 billion in committed capital for a post-money valuation of $852 billion, a round that dwarfs anything raised in private markets and cements the company as the most valuable startup in history by a wide margin. The funding was anchored by Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank, with continued participation from Microsoft. SoftBank led alongside a16z, DE Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price. The investor list reads like a who’s who of global capital — BlackRock, Blackstone, Fidelity, Sequoia, Temasek, Coatue and ARK Invest all participated. For the first time, OpenAI opened participation to individual investors through banking channels and raised over $3 billion from this tranche alone. OpenAI said it generates $2 billion in revenue per month, up from $1 billion per quarter by the end of 2024. ChatGPT has more than 900 million weekly active users and over 50 million subscribers. The company claims 6 times the monthly web visits and mobile sessions of the second largest AI app and 4 times the total time spent by all other AI apps combined. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.
HOW BITCOIN, ETHEREUM AND SOLANA ARE PREPARING FOR Q-DAY: As quantum computing approaches practical reality, the crypto industry is beginning to confront a question it has long postponed: what happens if the cryptography that underpins trillions of dollars in digital assets no longer holds? The answers so far are anything but uniform. Across many of the best-known ecosystems like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana, the answers diverge along familiar lines: what to do with social consensus and technical iteration, and community members are divided between caution and acceleration. Quantum computing is a fundamentally different approach to computation that uses the principles of quantum mechanics rather than classical physics. Instead of traditional bits that are either 0 or 1, quantum computers use “qubits,” which can exist in multiple states at once, a property known as superposition, which allows them to process many possibilities simultaneously. Combined with another feature called entanglement, this enables quantum machines to solve certain complex problems far more efficiently than classical computers, especially tasks like factoring large numbers that underpin modern encryption. How threatening is quantum computing? Consider this: Quantum computers can solve extremely complex problems in seconds, whereas ‘supercomputers’, the most powerful computing machines available today, would take thousands of years for the same problems, according to IBM. And that’s why the threats to cryptographic networks stemming from quantum computers are worrisome. And even Google, developer of Willow, a quantum supercomputer, is setting a 2029 deadline to migrate its authentication services to post-quantum cryptography, citing advances in the technology. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.
BASE TEAM RELEASES 2026 ROADMAP: Base, the layer-2 network of Coinbase (COIN), is redoubling its push to build what it calls a “global onchain economy,” outlining a 2026 strategy centered on markets, payments and developers. Base is one of the most widespread layer-2 networks in the Ethereum ecosystem, having opened for public use in August 2023. It was originally built using Optimism’s OP Stack as part of the wider “Superchain” ecosystem, although the project has since signaled plans to differentiate its infrastructure as it scales. In February, the Coinbase team said that the chain will increasingly rely on its own internal code. Layer-2 blockchains are built on top of Ethereum and aim to increase the speed and lower the cost of processing transactions themselves, while still relying on Ethereum for security. The model has become a central part of Ethereum’s scaling strategy, enabling cheaper and faster transactions without moving activity away from the network entirely. Recently, however, some Ethereum leaders, including co-founder Vitalik Buterin, have signaled a shift in focus toward scaling the base layer itself, leaving open questions about how layer-2 networks will fit into Ethereum’s evolving roadmap. For 2026, Base said it will focus on three areas: expanding onchain markets, scaling stablecoin-based payments, and growing its developer ecosystem — a push that comes as onchain trading venues and stablecoins see increasing adoption among institutional players. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.
In other news
- Bitcoin’s reputation has historically been built on extreme boom-and-bust cycles, with steep write-downs of up to 90% after all-time highs. This cycle, however, the decline has been closer to 50%, a shift that analysts said reflects the maturation of BTC as an asset class. “Bitcoin’s withdrawals compressing to around 50% is a sign of a maturing market structure,” AdLunam co-founder and market analyst Jason Fernandes told CoinDesk. “As liquidity deepens and institutional participation increases, volatility naturally compresses on both the upside and the downside,” he added, saying that “at that point the narrative shifts from questioning its legitimacy to optimizing allocation.” Fernandes’ comments are in response to Fidelity Digital Assets analyst Zack Wainwright’s X post on Tuesday, in which he noted that growth is becoming “less impulsive,” with a reduced likelihood of extreme downside events as bitcoin matures. — Olivier Acuna Read more.
- In Jack Dorsey’s view of the world, the job most threatened by the AI revolution is the middle manager. Dorsey argues in a new essay, “From Hierarchy to Intelligence,” published with Roelof Botha, Sequoia Capital’s managing partner, an investor in Block, that his company’s decision to cut about 4,000 of its more than 10,000 employees was not a cost-cutting exercise, but a permanent restructuring to replace middle managers with AI. Corporate hierarchy, the essay argues, has always existed to solve one problem: routing information through organizations too large for any single person to oversee. Leaders gather context from below, act as messengers from above, and maintain alignment across teams. AI can now perform these functions continuously and at scale, the authors argue, making the messenger redundant. Instead of management layers, Dorsey and Botha propose two AI-powered “world models.” You gather internal data from code, decisions, workflows and performance metrics to create a continuously updated picture of the company’s operations, replacing the context that managers traditionally had. The second maps customer and merchant behavior using transaction data from the Cash App and Square. — Sam Reynolds Read more.
Legislation and policy
- Australia passed legislation creating its first comprehensive digital asset regulatory framework, requiring crypto exchanges and custodian providers to obtain financial services licenses. The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 passed both houses on April 1, bringing firms that hold digital assets on behalf of clients into the existing Australian Financial Services License regime. Australia’s bill creates two new regulated categories under the Corporations Act: digital asset platforms, which hold crypto on behalf of users, and tokenized custodian platforms, which hold real-world assets and issue corresponding digital tokens. Operators of both must obtain an Australian Financial Services License from ASIC, which brings them under the same core rules as brokers or fund managers, including requirements to protect client assets, provide standardized information, avoid misleading behavior and maintain dispute resolution and compensation systems. Instead of regulating crypto itself, the law targets the companies in the middle that control customer funds, with the aim of reducing risks such as commingling, insolvency and misappropriation of assets that have caused losses in past crypto failures. — Sam Reynolds Read more.
- Hong Kong has missed its own March timeline for HKD stablecoin licensing, with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) yet to approve any issuers despite public signals that the rollout would begin last month. At Consensus Hong Kong in February, Finance Minister Paul Chan Mo-po said licenses would start being issued in March as part of the city’s push to position itself as a regulated hub for stablecoins and tokenized finance. The lack of approvals so far pushes that timeline into April and raises questions about how quickly the framework will move from policy to implementation. “By granting our licenses, we ensure that licensees have new use cases, a credible and sustainable business model and strong regulatory compliance capabilities,” he said at CoinDesk’s Hong Kong conference.— Sam Reynolds Read more.
Calendar
- March 30-Apr. 2, 2026: EthCC, Cannes
- 15-16 Apr. 2026: Paris Blockchain Week, Paris
- 5.-7. May 2026: Consensus, Miami
- September 29-1. October 2026: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul
- 7.-8. October 2026: Token2049, Singapore
- 3.-6. November 2026: Devcon, Mumbai
- 15.-17. November 2026: Solana Breakpoint, London
