Digital Asset News host Rob discusses quantum computing risks to Bitcoin and other market developments
Solo presenter episode from the Digital Asset News channel covering Bitcoin's quantum computing vulnerability, Strategy's Bitcoin sales, and Cloudflare's stablecoin payments initiative.
Summary
Rob, the host of Digital Asset News, opens with a clip from Tom Lee warning that quantum computing could break Bitcoin's encryption as early as 2028 — a concern Lee says Ethereum and Solana are addressing but Bitcoin has not yet reached consensus on. Rob argues that discussing these risks is responsible, not fear-mongering, drawing parallels to warnings that could have protected people from FTX and hardware wallet exploits. He also covers Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) transferring approximately 1,000 Bitcoin worth $66 million, Citibank increasing its Strategy stake, and Cloudflare launching crypto wallets for AI agents to make stablecoin micropayments. The episode closes with an extended live Q&A session with viewers.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and Audio Note
Rob: Usually Tom Lee is a pretty bullish individual, but today he talks about what could break Bitcoin by 2028. We're going to take a look at that, a potential sell-off for Strategy, and also what was behind the scenes for some altcoins.
You may notice that the audio sounds a little bit different today. We are testing out a new type of service, so let me know if it's very echoey or if there is an issue with it. We just want to make sure that the audio is reasonably good and we'll go from there.
Stock Market and Crypto Overview
First up, today's a pretty good day. If you were invested in traditional stocks, things are looking pretty good. We're up five points today — 77. We almost hit another all-time high, almost 8,000. The S&P is just really crushing it now. We had a little bit of a drawdown, but we're coming right back. Over five days, one month, six months, one year, and of course the five-year — that's looking pretty good. This is why it's important to diversify a little bit in your investments. I can't give you financial advice. Maybe you all want to go all into Bitcoin — that's totally up to you. I'm just saying traditionally it's not a bad idea to diversify a little bit.
On top of that, we see that our crypto market's doing pretty good, teetering around the $65,000 level — $64,500 over 24 hours or so — and just a little spattering of greenness, especially with things like Hyperliquid and Zcash.
Tom Lee's Warning: Quantum Computing Could Break Bitcoin by 2028
But today, let's talk about what Tom Lee said. First of all — great head of hair. Tom Lee has been quite bullish on the markets and usually doesn't say too much in the way of negativity, especially when it comes to Bitcoin. There was an exchange where Tom talks about the things that could break Bitcoin, but not Solana and Ethereum. Take a listen to this — about a minute or so.
The interviewer asked about a conversation with Arvind Krishna last week, in which Krishna said that the way quantum computing is going, in three or four years he'd be a little concerned that quantum computers would be able to break the code for any of these assets — Bitcoin, Ethereum, all the way down the line — and whether Tom worries about that.
Tom Lee: Yeah, I mean, that's Q-Day. Google researchers think Q-Day could be 2028 to break all encryption. A lot of crypto blockchains are developing quantum resistance, so it's probably not going to be a problem for Ethereum, Solana, or Canton. But for Bitcoin, they haven't come to a consensus on how to prevent Q-Day.
Rob: You can see right here what Tom is talking about, and it is a big concern. I know people will say, "Rob, why do you spread FUD? Why do you talk about anything negative in the space?" Look, I think we should have been talking a little bit more about the FUD — maybe that would have saved some people who were in Coldcard. Maybe we should have talked more about it — that could have saved a lot of people who were in FTX. So I don't mean to keep reiterating things, but we need to take a look at what's right in front of us and not be the ostrich that puts his head in the sand and says, "Nope, I don't want to hear it."
We did a video on quantum computing — I'll link that in the description — where there are some difficulties moving forward. The different predictions that were coming out were more so about five or six years out, and now we're starting to reduce that time frame. If you take a look at what's going on with AI and how it's being used to really disrupt a lot of different sectors — AI was used to brute-force those Coldcard wallets. Now, people will say, "That doesn't matter because it was just the way the entropy was working and the way the seed phrases were actually being produced — it was just total trash." That may be true. But then people say, "Well, it doesn't matter about that part because there's a passphrase — the 25th word can't get past that." Well, it just happened. They just broke through passphrases — two words, three words, up to four words — and it keeps going because of AI.
So maybe AI can actually extend this timeline out further. But again, it's anybody's guess. I just want people to be aware that if this actually comes in two years, that's pretty darn fast. Hopefully we can become quantum resistant like Tom was talking about with Solana and Ethereum.
Canton Network and Real-World Assets
We also talked about Canton yesterday, and I was referencing the rwa.xyz website. I couldn't remember because they changed some things about the distribution of Canton.
It's a great website — I recommend rwa.xyz. You can see the network asset value distributed: Ethereum at $17 billion, BNB Chain at $6 billion, Solana at $3.7 billion, then Stellar, Avalanche, Liquid Network, ZK Sync, Arbitrum, and some others. The "distributed" category refers to blockchains used as a distribution layer, enabling on-chain investors to subscribe, hold, and manage assets directly to their own wallets or custodians.
Canton kind of came out of nowhere. It was started — correct me in the comments if I'm wrong — roughly in November 2025, the worst month you could possibly launch something. They came out and Canton's been doing quite well. Under the "all" section, or represented assets, it uses the blockchain as a record-keeping layer, enhancing transparency, reconciliation, and operational efficiency. And look at that — is that correct? $379 billion. Wow. So maybe something to look into.
Ethereum and Solana — maybe not a bad play. But I'm still going to be heavy into Bitcoin.
Stablecoin Legislation Update
If we have this FUD keep going around — we've got quantum computing hanging over us, we've got the STABLE Act that was supposed to be passed back in July, now it looks like there's supposed to be maybe some type of provision coming today — and then I just heard about ten minutes ago that Cynthia Lummis says no, we're going to vote on it on the weekend, we're going to stay here. And now of course they're going to keep pushing it out and pushing it out. I just don't think it's going to pass. That's one more issue coming forth.
Bitcoin Price Levels and Moving Averages
Taking a look at the moving averages — we're still teetering around that 200-week, which is roughly around $63,000–$64,000. But if we start getting other things that don't do so well, major sell-offs and so on and so forth, maybe the 250-week moving average is in play at $58,000, or maybe the 300-week moving average at $55,000. It's anybody's guess, but these are the levels I'll remind you of.
If we take a look back at 2021 and 2022, those were the levels we hit for the bottom cycles — $20,000, $18,000, $17,000, $16,000, right below. We didn't hit the 350-week, but it was between those two. So just saying there may be more downside. I am actually hopeful for that downside because that means the price goes down and I can buy Bitcoin again like I did in 2022 and a little bit in 2018.
Strategy Selling Bitcoin Again
I don't know if this is even negative news anymore. From Look On Chain: Michael Saylor's Strategy — they say "dumping," I'm just going to say selling — selling Bitcoin again. Wallets linked to Strategy transferred out approximately 1,000 Bitcoin worth $66 million, again, about two hours ago. Usually when you start to transfer Bitcoin around like that, you want to sell it. So because of that, there might be another sell order. But as a reminder, these last four weeks or so they've been selling and it hasn't really affected the price of Bitcoin whatsoever. So we'll see, but it's not a great positive thing that they're selling off Bitcoin.
On the other hand, Citibank — roughly $3.4 trillion in assets under management — just bought an additional 238,000 shares of Strategy for $22 million, bringing their total stake to $90.5 million. I'd rather Citibank bought Bitcoin directly, personally. But I'll take what I can get here in the bear markets and we'll see where that goes.
Cloudflare Launches Crypto Wallets for AI Agents
Lastly, the story before we get into the Q&A: Cloudflare. You've all seen this — it's on every single website out there. Cloudflare is a fantastic company. I've been using it for free websites like the Amigos STO nonprofit organization we work for — saved them a bunch of money. I also use it for my short-term rentals and for our bookkeeping for the apartments.
Why am I talking about Cloudflare so much? Two reasons. First, over on Ivan on Tech's Bull Mania, it was one of those stocks that came up as flipping bullish, and I bought some not too long ago and it's actually up 20% or more and it's looking pretty good. If you believe the AI thing is going to pan out, it might do pretty well.
And Cloudflare is also betting on it: Cloudflare introduces crypto wallets for AI agents planning stablecoin payments. Stablecoin payments, I think, are the future. Here's what it is: US cloud infrastructure company Cloudflare said that the product aims to simplify how AI agents identify themselves and pay for application programming interfaces and digital content through stablecoin micropayments, enabling what it calls "agentic commerce." There's no bigger company to do that than these guys. I'd like to see mass adoption. I'd like to see this move forward.
Live Q&A with Viewers
All right, let's get into the Q&A where you can ask me questions, tell me what I got wrong, talk about this audio, and we go from there.
CR is here catching up from beautiful Sri Lanka — very nice. Good morning.
Oh no, this thing picks up everything. There's a low frequency — that's my little fan next to me that you never hear, but we're checking this new audio setup.
"Tom Lee is a hack — otherwise it's fine." I'll take it. Let me ask you, Dubsky — were you listening on headphones or just a regular speaker? Because with headphones you can hear everything — you can hear a mosquito buzz by.
"Whenever you say Tom Lee, I change the channel or shut off the clip — I'll make an exception." Thank you. I appreciate it. Tom Lee is a smart guy, but I'm going to guess that he has some pretty big incentives for Ethereum to win. Just going to throw that out there. I could be wrong.
Joe Kernen — I like Joe Kernen on Squawk Box. Always entertaining. I remember he had on this economist — I forget the name — but he was on Diary of a CEO and talked about how everything's going to collapse and it'll be awful. He had all this different data and it was very compelling. And then he was on Squawk Box and Joe Kernen's like, "Hey, you know that you were right twice out of the last 52 times you've called it." And he's like, "Excuse me?" And then him and Joe Kernen went into it and the guest said, "Ah, whatever, this is your show — I'm out of here." But it was really good to learn that that guy was like Michael Burry — just predicting stuff left and right until something hits.
"Can you put the clown face on Tom Lee if you must show him?" I don't want to get sued. But I could ask Claude to make another filter. If you guys don't remember, there was this filter we could use — a clown filter — and for the most FUD-dy, clownish news I would put it on and just read the news. It was pretty fun. But then TikTok — or as President Trump says, "Tic Tac" — they shut down that part of the platform so we couldn't use it anymore. Maybe I should just recreate it with Claude.
"I thought Saylor just bought some Bitcoin." Nothing wrong with a little sell and buy. I know I've given Saylor and Strategy a lot of grief about the way they say things, and I had to try to convince people that it's okay to take some profits — because even though a billionaire says he's never going to sell, that's cool, but maybe you want something for your kids or your life. But as a reminder, they didn't do a bad job. They are kind of selling the cycle bottoms — $59,000, $60,000, $63,000, and now potentially a new one. But you have to remember they bought at a very low cost basis — $11,000 back in 2020, $10,000. So if you're doing FIFO — first in, first out — those are still fantastic gains. Who wouldn't have liked to have bought at $19,000, $21,000, or even $31,000? It gets muddled around $43,000, $37,000. Look at $20,000 in 2022, $17,000. Not too bad. It's just the buying the tops. But Saylor did say he was going to buy the tops forever, and he did not disappoint.
"The fan is a spy device — it was a gift from Gary Gensler." I don't know why he'd give that to me, but whatever. I'll take it.
"Watching on TV — it sounds fine." Good.
"Ethereum is solid in my opinion." I think that's correct. Ethereum is solid. Just got to shore up some things, that's all.
"There's a clown in the office of the president of the United States." Say what you want — that guy is a billionaire. Of course, it's on the back of two very famous meme coins. Fun times. It's fun when your president rugpulls you. "Oh, but Rob, anybody could rugpull." Of course, there was no insider trading whatsoever.
"Michael Burry with The Big Short says the tech market is near the top — crash is imminent. Tech stocks reporting record profits yet dump when the earnings are announced." We just saw that with SpaceX. They just exceeded their earnings, but I think one of the big issues was the amount of payments they were using for AI. But Starlink — one of the darlings, the internet service, which is actually what I have — massive, massive profits, only going to go up.
Yeah, remember there are still people that think $30,000 is on the table. A lot of people said it's ridiculous to not think there's a super cycle coming, and there's a banana zone and it's going to be awesome and we're all going to go crazy, and $250,000 is the base case. If you like to track those people just for giggles, there's a great website called Dan Teaches Crypto — there's a link in the description. At the very top it says "Profits" and it's going to take you to Price Profits, which is a subsidiary of Digital Asset News. It's not a website I created because I was so tired of people getting away with the most ridiculous price predictions and then never shutting up about it and just being totally wrong. So now we track all those people — like Raoul Pal, who said Q1 2026 $140,000, or Q1 2026 $160,000, or a whole host of other things. He did say that end of 2026 will be $450,000. That still could happen — not likely, but sure.
And then you can track some other people. Oh, look at this one — I said that by November 2026 we'll be between $42,000 and $54,000. Just saying. And you know what's crazy? My price prediction and Peter Schiff's price prediction are closer to each other than my price prediction and Raoul's or Tom's or even Plan B's. Interesting times. Strange bedfellows.
Anyhow, what's important is you guys — you can put in your own price prediction. Just click on "Submit a Call" and it automatically comes in. Let's see what the normal people are talking about.
Camper Dan: $51,000 by September 2026. That sounds good. $49,000. The Raven from Canada. Syncal: $45,000. $48,000. Henry Thoreau. Johnny Crypto. $54,000. Blockhead — that's funny. Geek Dice: $39,000 — that's pretty ballsy. Gaba Ghoul: $181,000 by September. We'll see. T-Bone Maui. William Davidson: $126,000 by December 2026. Interesting. The Raven: $136,000 by August. Rusty: $169,000 on Digital Asset News episode. Bitcoin price prediction pro tracking accountability is here — thanks, Rusty. Echo: $248,000. Ray: $250,000. North Viking. All good stuff.
I just can't see a million dollars in three months. Maybe I'm being a little too conservative. You got to loosen up, Rob — we might hit a million dollars tomorrow. Who knows?
"Last bear cycle, Bitcoin was 27 days below the touring average. This bear we have 44 days below the tour week. I kept some feet on the sidelines." Very true. And that's a good point — if we take a look at the four-year cycle, going back four years, we were 65% down from the all-time high. Today we're only 49% down. Diminishing returns, but also diminishing volatility. I'll take it.
"Jimmy is also correct — SpaceX is a big unlock coming in the next week. That's likely why they're dumping." Sure — all the early investors get to sell. Good for them.
"BIP 110 — won't split." What is this? Essentially — go watch Matthew Kratter at Bitcoin University, he has the best insight into this — but it comes down to: do you want to have larger blocks for Bitcoin so data can be stored, so you can have meme coins essentially on Bitcoin? Some say it's not needed and they want to reduce the block size. I don't see a problem with that. I go for that for sure, but I don't know what's going to pass.
"Bit10 Jack: $125,000 going into the new year." I hope you're right. I hope you're right, because just two days ago I bought Bitcoin at $62,000. I'm feeling pretty good.
"Rob, I think you're responding with Bitcoin not hitting a million anytime soon." You know what? I'm going to take that as a victory.
"Runes." That's what it's called — Runes. That's the word I was looking for earlier.