Show Notes
Jonas Nick and Mikhail Komarov join Marty to break down their new research paper on hash-based signature schemes for Bitcoin. They explain why quantum computers pose a real threat to Bitcoin's current elliptic curve cryptography and how SHA-256-based signatures offer a conservative, quantum-resistant alternative. The conversation covers the trade-offs between signature size and verification time, why NIST's Sphincs+ standard needs Bitcoin-specific optimizations, and how these changes would impact HD wallets, multisig setups, and address reuse. A technical but accessible look at preparing Bitcoin for a post-quantum future. STACK SATS hat: https://tftcmerch.io/ Our newsletter: https://www.tftc.io/bitcoin-brief/ TFTC Elite (Ad-free & Discord): https://www.tftc.io/#/portal/signup/ Discord: https://discord.gg/VJ2dABShBz Opportunity Cost Extension: https://www.opportunitycost.app/ Jonas on Twitter: https://x.com/n1ckler Mikhail on Twitter: https://x.com/kudinov_mikhail The paper: https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/2203.pdf Bitkey https://bit.ly/4apTDkq Unchained https://unchained.com/tftc/ Obscura VPN https://obscura.net/ SLNT https://slnt.com/tftc CrowdHealth https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/tftc 0:00 - Intro 0:32 - Explaining hash based sigs 5:20 - Post-quantum 9:49 - SPHINCS+ 16:43 - Signature size 19:51 - Bitkey & Obscura 22:12 - Potential optimizations 28:11 - Stateless sigs 31:20 - HD wallets 36:56 - SLNT & SOTE 39:38 - Other sig schemes 44:11 - How close is quantum? 51:02 - How to transition 1:02:20 - Dangers of haste Join the TFTC Movement: Main YT Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/TFTC21/videos Clips YT Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQcW3jxfQfEUS8kqR5pJtQ Website https://tftc.io/ Twitter https://twitter.com/tftc21 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tftc.io/ Nostr https://primal.net/tftc Follow Marty Bent: Twitter https://twitter.com/martybent Nostr https://primal.net/martybent Newsletter https://tftc.io/martys-bent/ Podcast https://www.tftc.io/tag/podcasts/
