What to know:
- Nine major firms pledge $15 million over three years for Bitcoin security research work.
- Members will select funding recipients without directing Bitcoin protocol development.
- BIP 360 and post-quantum signatures aim to reduce future cryptographic risks to Bitcoin.
Nine financial and cryptocurrency companies have formed a new consortium to support Bitcoin security research and open-source development.
Its members pledged a combined $15 million over three years. The initiative will also examine potential risks linked to quantum computing advances.
According to the report, the Bitcoin Security Consortium includes BlackRock, Coinbase, Strategy, Anchorage Digital, and ARK Invest. Block, Blockstream, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Galaxy are also part of the consortium.
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How Members Will Fund Bitcoin Security
In all, these nine companies are associated with asset management, custodianship, trading, software development, and corporate ownership of Bitcoin.
The consortium will not manage or distribute any portion of the committed capital. The members will individually decide who among the developers, researchers, and organizations to sponsor.
The consortium claimed that they would not manage Bitcoin development or take a stance on protocol change proposals.
Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock digital assets head, said that Bitcoin Core developers were doing “incredibly important work.” According to him, this initiative will provide more funding for Bitcoin security.
The announcement did not list individual contributions, initial recipients, or how much funding came from new commitments.
Why Bitcoin Needs Early Quantum Defenses
Additionally, Galaxy announced an additional $5 million fund this week focused on quantum-resistant signatures, wallet migration tools, and security audits.
It is not clear whether this is included in the $15 million the consortium promised as its Bitcoin Security Improvement Program. Thus, the actual sum of additional funding is still unclear.
Quantum computers capable of breaking the encryption used by Bitcoin do not exist yet.
Developers have already started researching protection against such attacks because any network update may take several years to implement since it is usually associated with some changes.
One of such upgrades being discussed now is BIP 360; it introduces a new output type aimed at reducing public-key exposure. Other researchers study post-quantum signatures and ways of solving the problem of Bitcoin stored in exposed addresses.
What Quantum Threats Mean for 6.9M Bitcoin
According to research by CryptoQuant cited by Galaxy, there are around 6.9 million Bitcoins potentially vulnerable to quantum attack.
That means that apart from the technical part, a lot of coordination will be needed for upgrading the network, which will add up to the whole process taking quite a long time.
Mike Schmidt from Brink will lead the efforts of the consortium in a voluntary capacity. The organization is going to publish materials on the current state of Bitcoin security improvement research. That way, people will get access to information about the progress made in this sphere.
OpenSats and the Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Development Fund are already supporting open-source developers.
Thus, the effectiveness of the consortium will be shown through the fulfillment of pledges. Named backers, identified recipients, and verifiable deployments will show how much funding reaches active research projects.
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