Network News
BITCOIN PROPOSAL THAT COULD FREEZE QUANTUM-LINKED COINS: Bitcoin was built on the promise that no one can touch your coins without your private key. No government, no banks, no one. That promise is now, for the first time in Bitcoin’s 16-year history, being called into question by the developer community itself as part of moves to build defenses against future quantum computers that could compromise Bitcoin’s blockchain and steal your coins. Jameson Loop, one of Bitcoin’s vocal contributors, and other cryptographers have proposed a measure that could force Bitcoin holders to migrate their coins to new quantum-resistant addresses or risk having their coins permanently frozen by the network itself. In this scenario, holders would technically still “own” the coins, but would lose the ability to move them. It is called Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)-361 and has been updated in the official Bitcoin proposal repository with the title “Post Quantum Migration and Legacy Signature Sunset”. This comes as a recently released report from Google warned that a sufficiently powerful quantum machine could require far less firepower to compromise the Bitcoin blockchain than initially estimated. This has prompted some observers to cite 2029 as the quantum deadline for Bitcoin. — Omkar Goldbole Learn more.
AI AGENTS POWER CRYPTO PAYMENTS: The cryptocurrency industry is heading toward a future in which AI agents handle everything from booking flights to executing transactions and making payments, but new research suggests the infrastructure underpinning this shift may not be secure. McKinsey recently projected that AI agents could serve as intermediaries between $3 trillion and $5 trillion in global consumer commerce by 2030. The team found that “LLM routers,” or services placed between users and AI models, can be a powerful attack vector for malicious actors. These routers are designed to forward requests to models like OpenAI or Anthropic, but they also have full access to everything that passes through them, including sensitive data. “LLM agents have moved beyond conversational assistants to become systems that book flights, run code, and manage infrastructure on behalf of users,” the researchers wrote, highlighting how quickly these tools take over real-world financial and operational tasks. LLM routers or attack points leave users extremely vulnerable because they assume they are interacting directly with a reputable AI model, such as OpenAI, Grok or others, when in reality many requests go through intermediary services that can see and modify that data, the researchers said. — Olivier Acuna Learn more.
COW SWAP SECURITY VIOLATION: CoW Swap, a decentralized trading interface, said on Tuesday it had temporarily halted its services after detecting a domain name system (DNS) hacking incident affecting its website, highlighting ongoing security risks at the front-end layer of DeFi platforms. In a post on X, the team said the attack occurred at 2:54 p.m. UTC and warned users to avoid interacting with its interface until further notice. Although the protocol’s underlying infrastructure, including its backend and APIs, was not directly compromised, both were suspended “as a precautionary measure” while the team worked to resolve the issue. DNS hijacking allows attackers to redirect users from a legitimate domain to a similar malicious site, often to empty crypto wallets or harvest private data. The attack vector has become a persistent weak point in decentralized finance, where users typically rely on web interfaces to access otherwise secure smart contracts. CoW Swap functions as a decentralized exchange aggregator, searching multiple locations for liquidity and using the “coincidence of wants” mechanism to match transactions directly between users or aggregate them for more efficient execution. Orders are processed by competing “solvers” that optimize trade outcomes, a design intended to reduce slippage and limit maximum extractable value (MEV) exposure. — Margaux Nijkerk Learn more.
ZK EVIDENCE ON XRP LEDGER: The XRP Ledger has added native support for zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs by integrating with Boundless, a ZK proof network, in what the company claims is the first such deployment on the ledger. The move aims to enable financial institutions to conduct private transactions on the public blockchain while complying with regulatory requirements. It addresses a specific barrier to institutional adoption that persists in every public blockchain. Transaction flows, cash positions and counterparty relationships are visible by default in public ledgers. For a bank that settles cross-border payments or a fund managing over-the-counter positions, this transparency creates a competitive risk. Zero-knowledge proofs solve this problem by allowing a party to prove that a statement is true without revealing the underlying data. It’s like passing a credit check, where the bank confirms that an individual is eligible for a loan without disclosing details about income, debts or account balances to the lender. In practice on XRPL, this means that a payment can be verified as valid, properly funded and compliant without exposing the amount, sender or recipient to the public ledger. — Shaurya Malwa Learn more.
In Other news
- Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial offered to unlock 62.3 billion WLFI governance tokens on Tuesday, less than a week after CoinDesk reported the company used 5 billion of its own tokens as collateral on lending platform Dolomite to borrow $75 million in stablecoins. WLFI’s token was originally sold as a governance token only, with no transferability and indefinite locks. A vesting schedule with a defined path to liquidity changes the economic profile of what holders have purchased. The proposal would unlock liquidity for insiders who previously had no exit, thereby changing the economics of the token. The proposal divides the blocked supply into two groups. Early supporters holding 17 billion WLFI would receive a 2-year cliff followed by a 2-year linear vest, retaining all tokens. Founders, team members, advisors, and partners holding 45.2 billion WLFI would face a 2-year cliff and 3-year vest, but with 10% of their allocation, or approximately 4.5 billion tokens, burned immediately after passing. (Burns refer to the permanent removal of tokens from supply, usually by sending them to an address that is not controlled by anyone.) In practice, this means that insiders would give up 4.5 billion tokens in exchange for unlocking 40.7 billion previously locked indefinitely, with no vesting schedule. These tokens had no path to liquidity before this proposal. — Shaurya Malwa Learn more.
- According to data from Arkham Intelligence, some 572 bitcoins worth $42.77 million were transferred from a Gemini hot wallet to wallets owned by Winklevoss Capital and custodial wallets in the last 24 hours, the first significant transfers to the fund’s addresses in more than a month. The transfers occurred in two batches. One for 372 BTC and one for 200 BTC, approximately 11 hours later. Both went from addresses labeled by Arkham as belonging to the crypto exchange to addresses labeled as Winklevoss Capital and Gemini Custody. Winklevoss Capital now holds 9,328 BTC worth $689 million across 128 tracked addresses, up from about 8,800 BTC after a $128.5 million deposit into Gemini about a month ago brought holdings to their lowest level since 2012. It also holds 70,588 ETH worth $163.7 million, which brings its total tracked portfolio to approximately $853 million, according to Arkham data. On-chain data shows direction of movement, not intent. The transfers could reflect new purchases, an internal rebalancing between Gemini’s exchange and custody infrastructure, or a partial reversal of last month’s deposit. — Shaurya Malwa Learn more.
Regulation and policy
- The central bank of Pakistan has informed all banks and financial institutions in the country that the ban on providing crypto services has been lifted. However, according to the new state bank rules, banks are prohibited from investing, trading or holding crypto assets using their own funds or customer deposits. The State Bank of Pakistan’s decision follows the recent enactment of the Virtual Assets Act, 2026, which establishes the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) to license, regulate and supervise the sector. The central bank replaced its 2018 ban on crypto with new rules that allow regulated banks and other financial institutions to open accounts for approved crypto companies under PVARA. those seeking approval, subject to strict compliance with anti-money laundering (AML), know your customer (KYC) and other terrorist financing regulations –. Olivier Acuna Learn more.
- Tom Duff Gordon, vice president of international policy at US-listed cryptocurrency platform Coinbase (COIN), has left the company for green pastures. Duff Gordon, who had been with Coinbase for almost 4 years, left the exchange to join OpenAI as head of EMEA policy, a Coinbase spokesperson said via email. Duff Gordon previously worked for 8.5 years as a banker at Credit Suisse. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Crypto regulation expert Duff Gordon recently highlighted that UK banks are preventing millions of customers from accessing legal and compliant services by failing to distinguish between Financial Conduct Authority-registered businesses with low fraud rates and higher-risk operators. — Ian Allison Learn more.
Calendar
- April 15-16, 2026: Paris Blockchain Week, Paris
- May 5-7, 2026: Consensus, Miami
- September 29-October 1, 2026: Korean Blockchain Week, Seoul
- October 7 and 8, 2026: Token2049, Singapore
- November 3-6, 2026: Devcon, Mumbai
- November 15-17, 2026: Solana Breakpoint, London
