Morning Minute: Bitcoin's New $15M Quantum Defense Fund - Decrypt
Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written byTyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. GM!Today’s top news:Crypto majors are slightly red. . .
Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written byTyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. GM!Today’s top news:Crypto majors are slightly red as ETF flows weaken; BTC at $65kBTC ETFs see $225M in net outflows, break inflow streak; ETH sees $26M inflowClarity Act will likely miss August recess cutoff date, Thune saysMoonPay announces partnership with Discover to unlock crypto access for millions of cardholdersVlad Tenev’s X hacked to post “vladhood” meme coin, sees $30M volume🔐 BlackRock, Coinbase, and Strategy Back a $15 Million Bitcoin Quantum Defense FundNine of the biggest names in finance and cryptoformed the Bitcoin Security Consortium, pledging a combined $15 million over three years to fund Bitcoin security research and open-source development focused on quantum computing defense. The members are BlackRock, Coinbase, Strategy, Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, Block, Blockstream, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Galaxy. The consortium won’t hold or allocate the money, each member picks which developers and researchers to fund directly, and the group says it will not direct Bitcoin development or take positions on protocol changes. Mike Schmidt of the developer-funding nonprofit Brink will coordinate on a volunteer basis. BlackRock’s head of digital assets, Robert Mitchnick, said Core developers “do incredibly important work” and that the group would make more funding available for Bitcoin’s long-term security. Quantum computers capable ofbreaking Bitcoin’s cryptographydon’t exist today. But roughly 6. 9M BTC ($450B) sit in addresses that would be vulnerable if one arrives, and any fix requires coordinating changes across wallets, exchanges, miners, and users, which takes years. That’s why work is starting now on proposals like BIP 360, a new output type designed to limit public key exposure, alongside post-quantum signature schemes. It makes sense for this particular group to back quantum defense research. BlackRock runs the largest spot Bitcoin ETF, alongside Fidelity and ARK. Strategy is the biggest DAT and holds 843,775 coins. Coinbase custodies much of the institutional supply and most of their products revolve around crypto trading. These firms have billions in client and shareholder exposure to an asset whose long-term security is now something they have to answer for—which makes funding Core developers cheap insurance. It’s been widely known that the quantum risk to Bitcoin is a massive overhang for the foreseeable future, and many investors have come out and flatly said Bitcoin is not investable until quantum is solved. Many don’t believe the core BTC devs can move fast enough (and reach agreement) to make the type of changes needed to solve quantum in time. Enter those with the most skin in the game. If anyone can get it done, it’s likely this group…🌎 Macro Crypto and MarketsCrypto majors are slightly red as interest rate hike odds rattle markets;BTC -1% at $65k; ETH -2% at $1,880; SOL -3% at $75; HYPE -1% at $58. 40BEAT (+4%), HASH (+4%) and INJ (+3%) led top moversOileven at $90; Gold -1% at $4,060Stock futuresare slightly green; DOW +0. 4%, Nasdaq +0. 1%The CLARITY Actis expected to miss its windowbefore the summer recess, with Majority Leader Thune saying he’d like to “at least get Clarity started” but conceding the August 7 deadline likely slipsGoldman Sachs CEO David Solomonbacked the CLARITY Actdespite the banking industry’s objections to its stablecoin yield rules, breaking with peers who’ve lobbied against those provisionsBrian Armstrongwarned that if the Clarity Act doesn’t pass, part of Coinbase would have to move offshoreCoinbaseopened AI agent payments to corporate customers, letting businesses accept money from autonomous agentsUniswappushed deeper into tokenized assetswith permissioned trading pools, letting regulated real-world assets trade in gated venues rather than open liquidityCorporate Treasuries & ETFsThe Bitcoin ETFssaw $225M in net outflowson Thursday, breaking a 7-day inflow streak; the ETH ETFs saw $26M in inflowsJapanmight launch its first Bitcoin ETFas soon as 2028 as the country revises its crypto investment rulesMeme Coin TrackerMeme leadersweremostly red;DOGE -4%, SHIB -2%, PEPE -3%, PENGU -3%, TRUMP -3%, BONK -2%Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev’s X accountwas hacked to promote a tokenduring the Robinhood Chain meme coin frenzy, with the “vladhood” token seeing $30M in volumeRobinhood chainwas led by PONS (+36%) and TENDIES (+49%); Cashcat +7% to $52MSolana leadersincluded looong (+43x), Cupsey (+70%) and World (+30%); ANSEM even at $175M💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol TrackerDiscover Networkpartnered with MoonPayto let US cardholders buy thousands of supported tokens directly, including BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, SOL, TRX, HYPE, and ZECStripeis in talks to buy OpenRouterfor up to $10 billion, per The Information, roughly 8x its last valuation; the AI-model marketplace is led by OpenSea co-founder Alex AtallahKaitoannouncedthat it has entered into a “data agreement with X to power a wide range of use cases”🚚 What is happening in NFTs?NFT leaderswere mostly flat; Punks even at 32 ETH, BAYC -1% at 8. 6 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 4. 1 ETH; Hypurr’s even at 185 HYPEKaito Yapybaras (+93%) and TTT (+42%)led top moversFWAis up 14% on the day to $8M,with the protocol seeingover 30,000 NFT purchases and 1,500 ETH in volume through its first 4 daysDaily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.