Block and Coinbase Join Fight to Promote Bitcoin Security

The Bitcoin Security Consortium, announced in a news release Thursday (July 22), is backed by $15 million in pledges for its members, and is designed to promote the long-term security and survival of the bitcoin network.

The group’s founding members include Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, Galaxy and Strategy.

“As long-term holders, we have every incentive to see Bitcoin remain secure for generations,” said Strategy CEO Phong Le. “Funding the people who do this work, and helping inform the conversation around it, is a natural way for us to contribute.”

According to the release, the consortium will help fund and support researchers and developers working on bitcoin security, including the work of getting it ready for quantum computing.

“Large-scale quantum computers capable of threatening Bitcoin’s cryptography do not exist today, and credible estimates place such capability years away,” the release added. “Preparing post-quantum protections is nonetheless a meaningful long-term priority, and one the Bitcoin technical community is already actively working on.”

The consortium says it is modeled on the industry’s support of open-source software, providing resources and awareness without controlling the underlying work.

“It does not develop or direct bitcoin’s protocol, takes no position on specific protocol changes, and does not speak for bitcoin or its developers,” the release added. “Bitcoin’s development is, and will remain, the work of a global, decentralized community of contributors.”

The announcement follows a report earlier this month from Reuters that the cryptocurrency sector was preparing defenses against quantum computing-related threats, out of concerns that the technology could circumvent the cryptography protecting crypto transactions and digital wallets.

As that report noted, the $2 trillion crypto space already has a history of hacks. Quantum computing could aggravate that problem, as it could be used to unscramble the standard digital encryption methods.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote in May that the factors destabilizing digital assets are the same ones affecting a variety of sectors, trucking logistics networks, eCommerce companies, industrial supply chains, financial institutions and enterprise software systems among them.

“The infrastructure designed to establish trust online, from passwords and digital certificates to vendor onboarding systems and payment rails, is increasingly vulnerable to industrialized fraud, AI-enabled impersonation and next-generation cryptographic threats,” that report said.