Crypto is the canary in the coal mine for the quantum computing threat, experts say

That estimate is consistent with recent hardware developments. Earlier this year, Google researchers revealed that breaking the elliptic-curve cryptography safeguarding top cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether would require fewer than 500,000 physical qubits, a 20-fold decline from previous estimates. That prompted several observers, including Google, to pull forward the so-called Q-Day deadline to 2029.  The White House, meanwhile, is aiming to develop a powerful quantum computer by 2028 and shift high-value assets and federal data to post-quantum cryptography by 2030. That sets the clock. It creates a sense of urgency, Zervigon said.  Consensus speed is the real risk factor  Zervigon isnt alone in pointing to slow governance, not cryptography, as cryptos weak point.  Deutsche Digital Assets framed it as a clear cut speed differential between TradFi and decentralized rails.  “The difference — and this is the honest answer to the Bitcoin is uniquely vulnerable narrative — is governance speed,” the bank wrote on July 23.  It explained that an investment bank like JPMorgan does not need to get a go ahead from millions of pseudonymous global participants before upgrading its cryptographic infrastructure.  “It needs a board resolution, a budget, and a vendor. Large financial institutions can and will migrate to post-quantum standards faster, more quietly, and more

07-27Industry

31 newly discovered vulnerabilities expose 99% of x402 crypto payments to asset theft and free shopping

A new security study reported 31 previously unknown vulnerabilities across 15 major facilitators supporting x402, an HTTP-native standard for programmatic payments. The tested group represented 99% of observed transactions in the study window, and each facilitator failed at least one of eight rules for payment verification or settlement.  The full findings mapped 49 violation instances to four attack classes: free shopping, asset theft, service denial, and gas abuse.  Facilitators are the shared middle layer. They check a clients signed payment proof, construct and broadcast settlement, and often sponsor network fees; merchants use the response to decide when to release a protected service. More than 93% of server addresses in the study were associated exclusively with one facilitator.  The findings do not show that every x402 payment was vulnerable, that each facilitator was exploitable in every way, or that Coinbase was breached.  What the four attack classes proved  In a free-shopping attack, the merchant opens the door before one clean, unique payment has settled. Asset theft gives an attacker a route to facilitator-controlled value. Service denial jams the payment lane with failing or resource-hungry settlements, and gas abuse leaves the facilitator paying the attackers execution bill.  Researchers validated two free-shopping cases end to end. They classified 10

07-27Industry

HashKey Exchange Targets Global Retail Market With New Flagship Crypto Trading App

The race among licensed Asian exchanges to win retail traders is entering a new phase. HashKey Holdings, the Hong Kong-listed digital asset group, has unveiled a new flagship crypto trading app as part of what it calls a “landmark global product and brand strategy launch.” The move signals a direct attempt to broaden its footprint beyond institutional clients and deepen its presence in a market where user experience now dictates scale. According to the official announcement, the revamped platform is designed to unify the trading experience across geographies, though specific feature details remain thin.  HashKey has long operated from a position of regulatory advantage. Early licensing in Hong Kong gave it access to a market that many global exchanges found difficult to penetrate after the city tightened its virtual asset service provider regime. But a license alone does not guarantee retail adoption. The new app suggests the group understands that onboarding everyday users in a jurisdiction where traditional finance is deeply embedded requires an interface that matches what neobanks and fintech apps have normalized. Speed, simplicity, and multi-asset support are now table stakes. The real question is whether HashKey can layer on enough differentiated features—such as staking, yield products, or direct

07-27Industry

Cyclospora outbreak may be worsened by food industry consolidation

Vegetables on display in a grocery store on August 15, 2025 in Delray Beach, Florida.  Joe Raedle | Getty Images  The cyclospora outbreak that has sickened thousands in the U.S. is drawing renewed attention to a decades long shift in how fresh food moves through the country.  While investigators work to identify the original source of contamination, somefood safety experts say the industrys centralized sourcing and distribution networks after a wave of consolidation can help turn what once may have been an isolated contamination event into a multistate outbreak.  “The general trends that have taken place in the food industry, the way in which food has been sourced, and then distributed has played some role here,” said Dr. David Relman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University.  With the cyclospora parasites long incubation period, the difficulty in tracking its path and what some experts have criticized as a bumpy federal response have all played a role in the widening outbreak, some experts say the structure of the food system has also contributed.Relman said consolidation has changed both how produce is processed and how widely it is distributed.  “Its possible that as food sourcing and distribution becomes consolidated you get pooling and then redistribution of

07-27Industry

AI takes nothing away from crypto, says Coinbase CEO

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has pushed back against calls for crypto founders to pivot to AI.  In a post on Sunday, Armstrong took aim directly at the years-old slogan “If youre in crypto, pivot to AI,” which seems to have become popular in recent months, amid the growth of AI.  “Its zero sum, scarcity thinking,” he wrote, saying crypto is a general-purpose technology.  “If youre in crypto, pivot to AI.”  I used to hear versions of this, and it‘s the wrong way to think about the world. It’s zero sum, scarcity thinking.  Crypto is a general purpose technology. Its infrastructure, the same way electricity or the internet is infrastructure. It…  Coinbase CEO says crypto will power agentic payments  Armstrong put crypto in the same category as electricity and the internet, saying it‘s an infrastructure that doesn’t compete with AI, but rather underpins it.  “AI being a megatrend takes nothing away from crypto. If anything, it makes crypto more important,” said Coinbase CEO.  He noted that the opportunity lies in crypto being a real-time programmable money, a new sector coined as “Agentic Finance (AiFi).”  According to Armstrong, AI agents will eventually need their own financial infrastructure to trade, hold funds, and pay for items, among other things. He believes crypto will

07-27Industry

Proof of Personhood After Deepfakes: A Plain Guide

If you have even half an eye on the internet right now, youve seen it. People you know showing up in videos they never recorded. Fake cops knocking on inboxes. Bots swarming airdrops. The line between human and machine is blurry.  This piece breaks down proof of personhood, the idea that a system can tell you are a real, unique human without demanding your whole identity. We‘ll look at how it works, why it’s suddenly center stage, whos shipping it, and how to judge the tradeoffs before you opt in.  By the end, you‘ll know how PoP differs from KYC, what privacy tech actually helps, where it’s useful, and the red flags to avoid.  Proof of personhood (PoP) is a way to verify that an account is controlled by a single real human, usually without revealing who that human is. It beats bot swarms and Sybil attacks by issuing a one-per-person credential you can reuse across apps. In 2026, PoP matters because AI-generated deepfakes are exploding and regulators are forcing clearer labels on synthetic media, so platforms need stronger signals that a human is behind an action.Goal: one human, one credential, minimal personal dataUsed for airdrop protection, spam control, voting, and reputationBuilt with

07-27Industry

Garden Finance takes app offline after independent solver database compromise

Garden Finance has temporarily taken its application offline after an attacker compromised the off-chain database of an independent solver, leading to the loss of solver-owned digital assets while leaving protocol contracts and user funds unaffected.  SummaryGarden Finance temporarily took its app offline after an independent solvers off chain database was compromised, resulting in the loss of solver owned funds.The protocol said its smart contracts and user funds were not affected because the attack was limited to one solvers infrastructure.Blockaid estimated the attacker drained about $450,000 in USDT from HTLC contracts across multiple blockchains before the incident was contained.Garden has engaged zeroShadow, Quantstamp and Blockaid to trace the stolen assets and support recovery efforts.The incident follows a similar 2025 solver breach and comes as crypto security researchers continue tracking multiple exploits across the sector.  Blockchain security firm Blockaid reported on Sunday that an attacker drained about $450,000 in USDT from Garden Finances hash time-locked contracts (HTLCs) deployed across Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum and BNB Smart Chain, describing the exploit as active while publishing wallet addresses linked to the attacker and the affected contracts.  Garden Finance later told Cointelegraph that the protocol itself had not been breached. Instead, the company said the incident originated from the

07-27Industry

South Korea's KB Kookmin Bank to launch cross-border payment service on JPMorgan's Kinexys: report

Quick TakeKB Kookmin Bank, the largest bank in South Korea, plans to launch a blockchain-based cross-border corporate payments service next month, according to Yonhap.The bank is set to roll out the service under a partnership with Kinexys by J.P. Morgan.  KB Kookmin Bank, the largest bank in South Korea, plans to launch a blockchain-based cross-border corporate payments service using Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, according to local media reports.  Yonhap News Agency reported Sunday that the bank is set to roll out the service next month under a partnership with Kinexys. It will become the first Korean financial institution to use Kinexys blockchain payment network for corporate import and export settlements, per the report.  The service will be available through the banks domestic branches in South Korea and its Singapore branch. Initially, the bank plans to prioritize U.S. dollar transfers across 10 countries: South Korea, the U.S., Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, Thailand, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain and South Africa, according to the report.  KB Kookmin has been expanding its presence in blockchain-based payments. In March, KB Kookmin Card, one of the countrys largest credit card companies, announced that it is building a hybrid stablecoin payment model with Avalanche.  Kinexys is J.P. Morgans blockchain business unit that

07-27Industry

WEMIX says attacker moved about $724,000 after contract breach

Layer-1 blockchain network WEMIX said an attacker moved about 724,000 in USDC.e tokens after compromising ownership of a contract linked to its WEMIX$ stablecoin and issuing tokens without authorization.  The abnormal transactions occurred on Sunday at 9:17 UTC, according to a preliminary incident update from WEMIX. The attacker issued about 5.23 million WEMIX$, which was converted into 30,736 WEMIX and 724,198.27 USDC.e. The USDC.e was then bridged to Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain before being exchanged for assets including Ether and Tethers USDT and distributed across multiple addresses.  WEMIX said some of the funds were deposited into centralized exchanges. The company identified the attackers wallets and requested asset freezes and assistance from exchanges and stablecoin issuers, adding that some exchanges had already frozen addresses linked to the incident.  The company temporarily suspended all bridges connected to its layer-1 network, WEMIX3.0, including Chainlink CCIP and the PLAY Bridge. It also suspended trading in affected liquidity pools, withdrew foundation-provided liquidity, and paused services including the WEMIX$ Module and PNIX decentralized exchange.  WEMIX said the cause and full impact remain under investigation and warned that the preliminary figures could change.

07-27Industry

Japan Sets 2028 Bitcoin ETF Deadline As Asias Policy Engine Leaves The West Behind

The centre of gravity for crypto regulation isn‘t drifting eastward. It has moved. While Washington remains tangled in last‑minute lobbying over a landmark bill, several Asian governments are converting policy papers into infrastructure. The latest signal: Japan has formally elevated on‑chain finance to a national policy objective and is targeting Bitcoin exchange‑traded funds by 2028, according to the weekly roundup compiled by WuBlockchain. That target date isn’t a casual mention in a white paper; it gives market participants and institutions a hard deadline around which to plan products, custody, and liquidity.  On the same day, news arrived that South Korea is moving to expand institutional crypto access even as domestic exchange volumes crater. The combination is telling. A regime does not typically widen the on‑ramp for professional traders while retail activity dries up unless it is preparing the ground for a different kind of market structure. The draft framework suggests a shift from the retail‑driven speculation that has defined Korean crypto for years toward something more institutionally durable. In isolation, each headline might read like a routine policy update. Together, they reveal a coordinated‑looking acceleration across Northeast Asia that carries implications for institutional capital flows, stablecoin usage, and even the geopolitical

07-26Industry
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