Fixing the Quantum Issue on a Wallet Level | Bitcoin 2026

Good morning everyone. Welcome to BTC 2026. How's everybody doing today? Good. My name is James Stevens. I'm the founder and the CEO of Crowd Technologies, Crowd Network, the creators of the Castle Wallet. So, I want to welcome you all here today. I'm going to start off today. I usually do this. Uh I want everyone um if you have a phone, mobile device, your pocket, you're taking pictures, videos, whatever you're doing, hold that in the air for me real quick. All of you put your phones in the air for me. All right. If that device, keep them up. Keep them up. If that device holds a wallet, digital assets, access to your financial login, whatever it may be, I want you to keep your hands raised. They don't, put them down. All right? Those of you who still have them raised, look around. All right? Look around. What you see in this room is not just people. You're not just seeing phones in here. What you're seeing is one of the greatest threats to financial security that we know. What you see is one uh a user endpoint that's going to be unsecured in very soon. And uh what I want to do is I want to I've got 15 minutes to tell you about this threat. But it's not just a room of people here. Okay. So this attack that I'm about to talk about on the wallet level, the global the quantum attack on a wallet is it doesn't just attack banks first. It it it does exactly what you're doing. It attacks this the wallets the keys. So let's talk about it. The real risk of bitcoins. It's in the keys, right? So Bitcoin itself, it's a protocol. We know that that is not the problem. The problem is the keys. Well, we thought the encryption that we used to think um was impenetrable, can now be decrypted, it can be harvested, whatever you want to, whatever you want to call it, it's fine. But that is no longer impenetrable. So today I'm going to walk you through it. Um I'm going to get talk about some of the criticals as well. Not just where the vulnerabilities um exist but uh where the solution uh where it must begin. All right. So what we're going to do is move this over here and talk about the quantum thread itself. So Bitcoin was built on cryptography that's really stood the test of time. Um, it was really never built u to withstand quantum though and that is why we're talking about this today. That's why you're starting to hear the buzzword all over the place about quantum quantum quantum. At the core of Bitcoin security though is elliptic curve cryptography or what we call easydsa. uh and with with quantum computing uh like algorithms like Shor's algorithm um amongst others but anyway they uh they introduced a new reality that we were not really ready for at the time and the moment that a public key is exposed is a with a sufficiently powerful quantum computer that system can derive the private key that you thought was impenetrable that the cryptographers thought at the time was impenetrable but that's and and at that time it could be broken. Now that's not a network attack. It's not a a mining attack. Um that's a wallet level attack. Okay. And there's a big difference there when we talk about what the protocol is exposed to as opposed to what the keys are. It's quite quite a big difference. So let's move here. The timeline moving forward. It wasn't that long ago that we were talking about and standards were too that it was 2040 2045. this is when this is going to be able to be broke. So, it's something we didn't really have to worry about. It's not true. If you notice the N standards and others, they've moved that ahead, right? Institutions like this. So, um National Institute of Standards and Technology. All right. So, they've they've been preparing for this for years. But the problem is is that they didn't realize exactly how fast quantum would take off. They didn't realize that we only really real. I always say that. I tell people all the time, they say, "Well, what's what's one of the keys? What's one of the scariest things about quantum?" And one of the scariest things about quantum is that we are only allowed to understand what it allows us to because every single new breakthrough, every single new article that you read or whatever is a new benchmark, a new standard, whatever for that threat vector. So, there's been a a global initiative launched uh to replace the cryptography that we use today. and um they've selected and standardized different um different types of techniques and u different types of algorithms things like that. In fact, the industry is already moving ahead with this and so the cryptographic systems that we rely on today um are on a path to being deprecated by 20 2029 2030 at a time when it used to be 2045 2050 now we're down what 20 years now from that. So uh that's not speculation at all. That's direction and that's evident by the continuous changes that we see in the standards. So let's on the shifting timeline I've gone through that. Let's talk about um the Google quantum AI moment. Some of you and a lot of you have come up to me. You've DM'd me. You've emailed me. You said what do you think about the the the Google announcement? Okay. Okay, so the Google announcement was that it's takes 20 times less cubits to break um certain cryptography than it would be like the private keys than what we originally thought. I'm going to tell you I think personally that's going to move faster. I don't think it's going to slow down. I think it's only going to move faster. So they demonstrated that breaking the cryptography used in the systems like uh Bitcoin that the fact that it took far fewer was actually a very scary moment. It was a moment of realization that they had where it was like crap, we did build it. We built it in a way we thought it would be impenetrable and now it's not. And so in that what happened was they realized that okay all of the public keys that we that we see can now be decrypted and that's called that it's called harvest now decrypt later. And with harvest now decrypt later, what happens with that is is that they take the private the public key information and then they hold that and they store that for you guys like not for you but for them and then once the time comes that sufficiently powerful enough quantum computer comes by millions of those keys are exposed. Now this is called Qday. Qday is not going to come riding in on some type of horse and uh you know trumpets or anything like this. uh it's going to be powerful. It's going to be quiet. It's going to be lethal. And the moment that the quantum systems become powerful enough, we're going to know it, but we're going to know it in a very, very ugly way. There will be no countdown, no announcements, nothing like that. So, and once it's crossed, everything exposed uh becomes vulnerable. All right. So, I talked about harvest now decrypt later. We'll move forward with that. That's already happening. Um, I want to move on now to why wallets are ground zero. Wallets are ground zero is because they are the entry point and the edge point that make it much easier to attack than the protocol levels are. So, we've spent years focusing on securing blockchains, but Bitcoin doesn't, you know, Bitcoin doesn't fail at the at the the protocol level. Like I said, it gets compromised at the edges. So that's wallet exploits, that's weak entropy, key generation flaws, and user side vulnerabilities. If Quantum breaks anything first, the first thing it'll break, it'll break the point where the keys are created, where they're stored, and where they're used. So what that means is basically the future of Bitcoin security in itself is not just onchain, but it's in your pocket. Many of you raised, in fact, probably about 90% of you today raised your phones and you said, "I have a wallet on my phone. I have digital app on my phone. I'm connected to my bank." Guess what? You just held and you hold the most vulnerable item, the most vulnerable thing you could have um in the history of mankind with regard to financial infrastructure. So, let's talk about let's move forward with what we what we're going to call uh the fix. All right. So, it went back. There we go. The layers of defense. All right. So, here's the solution. Here's the solution. Okay. So, we ask ourselves, how do we fix it? Get that all the time, James. How are we going to fix this? How do we fix this? So, the first thing we're going to do is what's called TQC, postpone cryptography. All right. We're going to move beyond the elliptic curves. You're going to adopt like Kyber, that lithium speaks. Crown also has some proprietary uh security architecture as well. But what we want to do is these items here that a lot of people say well that's theoretical but it's not theoretical. It's actually um they're being standardized. In fact when we look at different standardizations like let's say NIST uh Kyber lithium and sphinx plus are on that list as they move up in what we call FIPS um they're adding they're continuing to add more and more of these algorithms. So the next thing is called true entropy. So what is entropy? Entropy is a randomness that happens. Let's say you're trying to secure keys or numbers or whatever it may be. And that's tied to what's called a QRG, a quantum random number generator. True entropy at the quantum level is an entropy that cannot be um cannot be guessed at. It cannot be figured out because it is as random as the universe itself. So um on the on with regard to true HP I also want to talk about the um the pseudo random generation no longer being enough. There are many many of the the techniques many of the architecture the security architectures that are used now they say well we have a random number generator or we have whatever it may be they do not they are pseudo random 99.9% of them are pseudo random meaning that they may be random but they're not as random as what true entropy and what a QRNG u can give you and we'll talk about that with our partners at quantum motion in just a minute all right moving on So the next one, so why do why is true entropy matters? So true entropy the first thing is that true entropy strengthens wallet security through its moment the moment that the keys are created. So it it secures it from the moment it's created all the way through. In other words, no one can guess at what that key is going to be when it enters or when it creates its entropy. So what we did was we partnered with proud partnered with quantum emotion and it's led by my friend my friend and colleague Dr. Francis Bolo um he's the CEO there. So an incredible leader quantum encryption uh space they continue to lead by example because what they did was they actually came up with the hardware and came up with what's called QRG2 technology which creates that completely random number generation that cannot uh be broken. So what we've done is together we've integrated uh true quantum random number generation in all the security that we do. That's why we partnered with them as well and uh we're very happy to be on the team there. So now what I want to talk about next is when we're really getting into the meat and potatoes of it, this Castle Castle wallet. So this is exactly why we built Castle Crown uh and Quantum Emotion uh came together in a partnership and uh I got to tell you, it's not just another wallet. It's it is one of the most superior quantum secured uh architectures for self custody I've ever seen and I think today anywhere in the world. But it has the postquantum cryptographics frameworks that we built that upon and looking at what the threat vector was for the future. It's also powered by the QRG2 technology with quantum emotion. It's a multi-layer of authentication on top of that and it's designed for the real world threats. What we did was we went through and we looked at we said okay what does the threat landscape look like? How can we mitigate the type of attacks that are happening right now and in the future? And we put all of that together when we built council. We started from the foundation up. We said, "Okay, we're going to put this here. We're going to put this here." And we have so many different layers and they all sit in Castle at the strength of what they do. Whether it's dilium signature, whether it's QRNG, a key generation, whatever it may be, that's what Castle was built um for. So, so what happened was I'm going to tell you kind of just a story so you kind of understand. Um it was really built I think we didn't build it because it was trendy. um it it really it was built because we saw where it was going, right? And so I made a decision to build something that really closed that gap um of security. And so that's where Castle came in to be. All right. So the thing I want to talk about with you real quick before we go is only 15 minutes. I give you 15 minutes. Um we're going to do the closing of the sendoffs here. But the one thing that we always make sure that we do, we always say we build it right, we build it secure, and we build it ready. And the one thing I like to say is Bitcoin represents sovereignty, right? It represents freedom, ownership. Um, but what I like to say is sovereignty without security is just exposure. And that's where, you know, that's where we need to understand where we're going with it. So, we're entering a new era where the question is no longer how can you hold on to your keys or whatever, but the question is how can you protect your own keys? Can you protect them against what's coming? and the future of Bitcoin security and the blockchain sector itself. It's not going to be decided at the protocol level like we talked about. It's going to be decided at the wallet level and that's the scariest part for all of us on that. All right, final buildup on this one for you guys. I want to talk about this is very important. I want to take a minute real quick. They don't give you much time. Take a minute to say thank you to every single person here today, but there's something I need to tell you. So, thank you to the Bitcoin conference team uh for creating this platform that we have. I want to personally recognize the Chrome network team who's here in attendance today as well. Um the engineers, developers, visionaries that we've worked with on multiple networks. Uh thank you to all of them. So we're not here just to participate in the future. We're here to build it, right? And the work that we do right now, I feel the decisions that we make today uh will define what security looks like for the next generation. And that's the entire purpose of Castle Wallet and what Crown Network is doing. So again, let's build it right. Let's build it secure. and um let's move forward with that. So, I appreciate you all. And there is something real quick before we go. Man, time goes so fast. It's like literally um if you're here to attend us today and you hold the crown coin, the crown network, and you're one of the crownies. I know you guys are here. I see a lot of you here today. Uh there's one question, one slogan that we always use and uh I have to ask, what's in your bag? Thank you so much, everyone. Come by the castle booth. Come see us real quick. It was only 13 minutes, but come learn more about Castle. Thank you again. Every year this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year the stage gets bigger. Sound money, center stage. So, where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.