Published:
Apr 04, 2026
Author:
Sarah Parsons Wolter
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Quantum risk just hit the snooze button phase.
Google’s latest paper does not say crypto is broken. It does something more powerful. It makes the threat legible. A credible path, a rough timeline, and a framework for how vulnerabilities could be disclosed before they are exploited.
What we do know from the paper is this: progress in quantum computing is non-linear and increasingly private, making it even harder to predict and plan for.
What lived in academic journals is now bouncing around crypto Twitter, where nuance goes to die and narratives move fast. The debate has already split. Is this decades away and overhyped, or the kind of slow-moving risk markets suddenly price overnight?
For fintech, it is not just a crypto problem. The entire system runs on encryption that assumes today’s limits hold. Quantum does not tweak those assumptions. It rewrites them. Wallets, custody, identity, payments. Everything is downstream, and none of it upgrades overnight.
We have seen this movie before. The moment a long-dated risk becomes understandable, timelines compress and incentives shift. You are either early or you are explaining why you waited.
Crypto built a new financial system. Now it has to future-proof the math while the alarm is already ringing.
Portfolio News
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The Quantum Wake-Up Call
Google paper warns crypto on quantum risk ahead of 2029 timeline - Google researchers warned that future quantum computers may be able to break some of the cryptography protecting Bitcoin and other digital assets with fewer resources than previously thought, adding urgency to the debate over how the industry should prepare. The researchers did not indicate such a machine exists today, but said new work suggests the computing power needed to carry out that kind of attack may be lower than many earlier estimates had suggested. Read more
Safeguarding cryptocurrency by disclosing quantum vulnerabilities responsibly - The expected emergence of cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQCs) will represent a singular discontinuity in the history of digital security, with wide ranging impacts. This whitepaper seeks to elucidate specific implications that the capabilities of developing quantum architectures have on blockchain vulnerabilities and potential mitigation strategies. Read more
Industry News
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From foe to ally: The S.E.C. is now writing crypto-friendly policies - The S.E.C.’s sweeping embrace of crypto, an industry with a long history of fraud and market turmoil, has entered a new stage. After dropping a series of enforcement lawsuits last year, the nation’s top financial regulator is now issuing guidance that could open the door for more crypto products and give the industry more flexibility as it lobbies Congress to pass legislation. Read more
Coinbase, Cloudflare, Stripe push to shape future of AI money with x402 - Coinbase, Cloudflare and Stripe are competing to build payment rails for AI agents against at least two competing standards for machine-to-machine commerce, with a rival effort called the Machine Payments Protocol launched by Stripe and the crypto venture firm Paradigm. Read more
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Franklin Templeton agrees to buy crypto spinoff in digital asset expansion - Franklin Templeton, a heavyweight in traditional stock- and bond-fund management, said it would buy a spinoff from the venture firm CoinFund to expand its cryptocurrency-investing offering. Franklin, known for marketing mutual funds for individual investors, made an early entry into crypto in 2018 and has assembled a digital-assets team of more than 50 people. Read more
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Jamie Dimon has a plan for JPMorgan to rescue the American Dream - The nation’s largest bank announced the “American Dream Initiative” this week - a commitment to support small businesses, homeownership, access to healthcare and other economic priorities that Dimon believes are crucial for the well-being of Americans. The bank aims to add 3m new small-business customers and boost lending to them by up to $80b over 10 years. Read more
Proposed GOP bill targets foreign crypto mining hardware - Republican senators on Monday unveiled a bill to stop US crypto mining companies from using equipment tied to China and other foreign adversaries. The legislation, led by Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, would require certified facilities to phase out such hardware, while also codifying President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve within the Treasury Department. Read more
Fintech Monzo shutting down US operations to focus on UK, Europe - Monzo is shutting its US operations after failing to gain traction, cutting staff and halting onboarding, as it pivots to focus growth on its core UK market and European expansion. Read more
Select Financings
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Numos - San Francisco based AI platform built for enterprise finance teams raised $4.25m in Seed funding led by General Catalyst. Read more
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The Better Money Company - New York based developer of a stablecoin clearing house raised $10m in Seed funding led by a16z Crypto. Read more
Uniblock - Toronto based unified Web3 API layer for multi-chain development raised $5.2m in new funding led by SBI. Read more
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