Bitcoin, quantum computing threats, miner sell-offs, and custody strategy discussed on Digital Asset News
A solo presenter episode from the Digital Asset News channel covering quantum computing risks to Bitcoin, Bitcoin miner sell-offs, and personal buying and custody strategy.
Summary
The host, Rob, opens by explaining his ongoing Bitcoin dollar-cost averaging strategy, tied to a thesis that fiat currency debasement makes holding hard assets essential. He then covers Marathon (Mara) and other publicly listed Bitcoin miners transferring Bitcoin to exchanges, arguing this is a natural and necessary part of their business model as they pivot toward AI and high-performance computing. The bulk of the episode addresses quantum computing developments, specifically a new finding that a quantum attack on Bitcoin may require fewer than 900 qubits — down from prior estimates — and the formation of a nine-company quantum alliance to develop post-quantum cryptography solutions. Rob also covers the broader crypto security landscape, noting that nearly $1.2 billion was lost in Q3 2026 alone, with the majority of losses attributed to social engineering rather than protocol exploits. The episode closes with an extended Q&A covering ETF vs. custody options, the three narratives Rob believes will drive the current bull market, and the mechanics of using a custodial service like iTrustCapital.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Rob's DCA Strategy and Current Market Conditions
Rob: As the title and thumbnail suggest, today we take a look at articles coming out fast and furious. It looks like quantum computing is going to break Bitcoin, as there is a reduction in the number of qubits required. But as we're going to see, if it is caused by people, it can be fixed by people. We'll also look at Mara, one of the biggest Bitcoin miners, dumping Bitcoin and taking profits — and I have to tell you, I see no problem with that whatsoever.
With all that news, it is Monday, and because it's Monday, I bought Bitcoin. I've been buying Bitcoin for quite some time now, especially as we've gone below the 200-day moving average. The thesis is this: as long as the government keeps debasing the currency, I will keep buying Bitcoin, meaning I will probably never stop as time goes on — although as risk levels go up, I'll probably take a little reprieve.
Today, risk levels on Ben's website are below 0.5, meaning I am buying the same amount I did last week. As the risk levels go down — meaning the price goes down — I'll be buying 2x, and if they go down even more, 4x, and further still, 8x. That is the whole series of dynamic DCA. If you know about that, no big deal. If you don't, links are in the description.
Today, after all the turmoil going on, the market is pretty much flat — very resilient. Yesterday I was perusing the different prices, which is always fun, and there was a big drop-off. So I put a note out on X: "What's going on? Are we invading another country?" There was some skirmish and uproar in Iran, and some other issues with President Trump talking about a bunker-buster missile being fired, and a whole host of everything. Because of that, there was a lot of turmoil in the markets, but Bitcoin and crypto seemed to be just fine.
Bitcoin ETF Flows and Fear & Greed Index
Taking a look at the Bitcoin ETF flows from last week — on Friday, $82 million went out. Thursday, not too bad, $5 million in. But on Wednesday, $261 million out. The day prior, we had $175 million in and $65 million out. You can see the market really doesn't know what it wants to do — one day positive, one day negative, back and forth. Personally, it's a lot easier to just dollar-cost average and forget it.
As far as the fear and greed index, we are still sitting just above neutral at the greed level. I can understand that. But you have to understand, when I look at this as just normal everyday buying, some people look at it like, "What are you doing? That's crazy." Well, this was crazy in 2022, and it was crazy in 2018 and 2019, and now here we are.
The Fiat Debasement Thesis
The thesis remains the same, and this goes for everybody. What you're looking at here is fiat currency — the Chinese yuan, the Swiss franc, the German mark, the Japanese yen, the US dollar, the rupee, the Canadian dollar, the Venezuelan bolívar, the British pound, the Mexican peso. You get the idea. This is all the fiat currencies from 1972 going forward, after President Nixon took us off the gold standard.
Looking at this as purchasing power, it's not doing so hot compared to gold. Bitcoin didn't exist back then, so gold was a pretty good asset — and I think it still is. But just watch how gold rises, and then when Bitcoin comes in, how it performs. The purchasing power of fiat goes down. Gold pretty much buoys everything — that's why it's a hedge against inflation. Then Bitcoin comes in, there's a genesis block, and of course the numbers are a little skewed if you bought early. But as time has gone on, it's been the same thing over and over again: purchasing power goes up for these assets, fiat goes down over time, and it will continue to keep going down as we debase. So the question I have is: why aren't you holding assets? You can rotate into fiat, but just don't stay in it.
Macro: Korea's KOSPI and NASDAQ Futures Rally on China GDP
Macro-wise, Korea's KOSPI and NASDAQ futures are rallying as China's GDP beats estimates. That's great. Things are just swimming along nicely. The S&P 500 is up — let me refresh that. Yes, it is. The S&P 500 is up, and the QQQ, which is more of the technology sector and a little more risky, is up 1.38%. Five days, though, not so good. One month, six months, one year — actually pretty good.
This was all predicated on Bitcoin and NASDAQ futures and Asian stocks rallying on stronger-than-expected China GDP and falling oil prices lifting risk appetite. I took a look at the oil prices, though — they're not falling, they're going up. I don't know where that came from. Looking at WTI crude specifically, over one month it has gone from around $88 to a max today of $103.61. So I'm not sure that article is entirely accurate. I see oil going up, which means gas goes up. Maybe we're just a little bit off.
Bitcoin Miners Selling: Mara and Others Pivot to AI
Now let's go into crypto, specifically Bitcoin miners. This was a post from Woo Blockchain talking about the largest publicly listed Bitcoin miner, Mara — or Marathon — appearing to be selling Bitcoin, transferring 1,000 Bitcoin to Binance and Gate over five days.
The thing with on-chain analysis is that you can only make assumptions. You can see where things have moved to, but it doesn't tell you the exact story — it doesn't confirm whether it was sold or not. But I'll just say this: if I'm moving my Bitcoin from a cold storage wallet I own into Kraken, for instance, I'm not doing it for giggles. I'm doing it because I want to do something with it, and that usually means I'm going to sell it. So take this with a grain of salt, but that's usually what it means.
Wallets linked to Mara deposited 1,000 Bitcoin worth approximately $82 million into Binance and Gate over the past five days. Mara has previously sold some of its Bitcoin reserves to support operations, manage debt, and fund its expansion into AI and high-performance computing. When we talk about this on the show and say that my goals aren't your goals, and that nobody went broke taking profits — this is what we're talking about. There's a huge difference between what Mara is trying to do, because they have to sell at some point. They can't just keep taking loans like the wealthy do with the buy-borrow-die strategy. They have to sell off the product of what they are mining to increase operations and expand. If they want to get into AI, that's fine. I'm like, this is how it's supposed to be.
I know there are people who say "diamond hands" and "hodl forever." I'm going to take profits along the way, and Mara can do whatever they want because they know what's best for their company.
As a reminder, it's not just Mara that has transferred over. It's Mara, Core Scientific, Riot Platforms, CleanSpark, Hut 8, Iron Kangle, and TeraWulf — they've all pivoted toward AI. Why? Because AI needs compute, it needs the space, and it needs the electricity. And guess what these Bitcoin mining operations have? All of those. CleanSpark is developing and commercializing AI and high-performance computing campuses. Mara is positioning its non-hosted capacity to support AI and IT workloads as part of a broader digital infrastructure strategy. Riot has an AMD data center lease. And TeraWulf signed a 20-year Anthropic lease — the one with Claude.
So it's not too surprising what they're doing. But even when you take a look at the stock prices of these companies, you can see why they have to sell off. Mara Holdings over five days is down 20%. One month, down 44%. Six months, down 36%. One year, down 64%. Over five years, down 85%. So why wouldn't they be selling the Bitcoin? That is always going to be some sell pressure.
Riot is up 4% on the day, but five days down 10%, one month down 40%, six months down 21%, one year down 36%, five years down 50%. Core Scientific is actually doing pretty well — one year is okay, and five years is up 296%. So again, these companies have to keep selling, and that's sell pressure, and that's not unnatural for them.
Between Mara, Riot, and Core Scientific — the ones we just looked at — that's roughly 47,800 Bitcoin from the latest filing, so you're looking at a few billion dollars of potential sell-off over time. That's just part of the course.
Bitcoin Mining Security Budget: An Underreported Issue
This leads me to the last point before we move on. We actually talked about this with the Blockrunner podcast, and their big thing was about security — specifically about Bitcoin mining. The full video is 39 minutes, linked in the description. Search "Bitcoin security problem Digital Asset News" and you'll find it. But just take a listen to the first 45 seconds where these guys talk about what the problem actually is.
Blockrunner guest: "If you don't do something about this declining security budget, you will not have an asset that's worth $200–$300 trillion like Michael Saylor is saying, just by wishing and hoping. At list of five — Antpool, F2Pool, ViaBTC, Spiderpool, and Luxor — they're all supporting this. This represents over 60% of Bitcoin hash power supporting this second subsidy. When everybody was talking about BIP 110, it only had 1% of hash power. This has 60 times more support, and yet nobody's talking about it. It just seems weird to me."
You can check that video out — search "Bitcoin security problem Digital Asset News." It was a compelling argument, because without the Bitcoin miners and the node operators, it's going to be difficult. I'm sure it'll be just fine, and the reason I think it's going to be fine is because there's just too much money sloshing around.
Quantum Computing: Fewer Qubits Now Required to Attack Bitcoin
This brings us to the last piece: quantum computing. I know people are sick of hearing about this, but I just want to put this into your memory about what's going on.
This is from Bitcoin News. A key step in a quantum attack on Bitcoin now requires fewer than 900 qubits — which is a little less than the 1,157 qubits that Google had previously stated would be needed to hack Bitcoin. Don't worry — right now there are like 55 qubits or something low like that, and that's with everything in perfect harmony. So for them to get to that point, I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. But people get worried about quantum computing. Here's the thing though: if it was a problem started by people, it can be solved by people.
This is a pretty good piece from Decrypt. The reason this is coming out is because there's too much money sloshing around — you can't let this just fall. Although three organizations that should be worried aren't, and we'll get to that in a second.
Crypto firms have launched a quantum alliance, warning that elliptic curve signatures leave roughly 6 million Bitcoin — roughly a third of the supply — quantum-exposed. This is a forecast from the 2020s. The question is: does this only affect Bitcoin? Because if it only affects Bitcoin, then maybe your favorite altcoin will make it. That is not how it works.
Nearly every major blockchain secures accounts with elliptic curve signatures. Once an account's public key is exposed on the ledger — meaning, hey, you want to send me some Bitcoin, here's my public address — a sufficiently powerful quantum computer running Shor's algorithm could theoretically reverse-engineer the private key and seize the funds. If this quantum computer has your public key, which is pretty much all out there anyway — except for apparently the 30% that hasn't been exposed — it can reverse-engineer and get into the private key, which it can then use to do whatever it wants.
The same cryptography guards stablecoins, bridges, oracles, governance contracts, and smart contracts. One compromised privileged key could cascade across platforms. So if you think it's going to be centered around Bitcoin, it won't — it'll be everything, and the entire $2.82 trillion market pretty much collapses. Again, that's not going to happen.
The Quantum Alliance: Nine Companies, Four Working Groups
So we have nine companies forming together for this alliance, but the big three that really should be worried have only committed $15 million to the problem. A consortium backed by BlackRock, Strategy, and Coinbase committed $15 million to the problem. You would think they'd be like, "You know what, maybe we should get ahead of that." But apparently not — here's the change from Brian Armstrong's couch cushions. I think they would be a little more motivated, but maybe I'm wrong.
The nine companies are modeling the IETF and will work in four groups: migration, zero-knowledge systems, wallet security, and cross-chain compatibility. The nine companies are Quantis, American Fortress, IntMax, Keystone, Midnight, Post Quant, Abolan, The Vault, and Hacking. At first I was like, "Okay, I've never heard of these guys — this is going to suck." But I had to look them all up just to make sure.
And I've got to tell you, it is kind of impressive. Here are their bios:
Quantis — a layer-1 proof-of-work blockchain designed from its very first block to be quantum-safe and quantum-resilient.
American Fortress — developer of a name and identity layer that translates complex wallet addresses into human-readable private payments using quantum-resistant signature security.
IntMax — a stateless zero-knowledge rollup built on top of Ethereum.
Keystone — a hardware manufacturer that builds air-gapped crypto wallets, also quantum-resistant.
Midnight Foundation — a data privacy-focused blockchain linked to the Cardano network by Charles Hoskinson.
PostQuant Labs — core developers of the Quip network, an upcoming decentralized marketplace built to connect everyday users directly with quantum computing hardware.
Abolan — a layer-1 blockchain using lattice-based cryptography, the mathematical backbone behind modern post-quantum data security.
The Vault — a security tech provider building post-quantum cryptography.
Hacking — a prominent Web3 blockchain security firm.
So at first I was like, "I don't know these guys, this is going to suck." But taking a look at what they do and their areas of expertise, I feel much better. Let me know what you think about that in the comments section.
Crypto Hacks: $1.2 Billion Lost in Q3 2026, Mostly Social Engineering
Lastly, there are some things we really should worry about, and they're happening right before our eyes — people getting hacked left and right. And it's not just people; it's actual platforms and projects.
Crypto audits give investors a false sense of security. In Q3 2026 alone — just the last three months — almost $1.2 billion was lost. Security research found that 77% of third-quarter losses involved compromised suppliers and delayed fixes on systems outside the latest security reviews.
I asked Claude to break this down over the last two years — where is this money being stolen from, and who was screwing up? What it came back with was this: in 2025, it was a 40/60 split. 40% was technical — the platform, the layout, the actual project that got hacked. And 60% of the money was from people like us: social engineering, human factor. "Hey, this is a Nigerian prince," or "Good news, you just got a job working for Elon Musk personally," or "This is from YouTube" — that stupid stuff you get from phone calls, emails, or direct messages. People fall for that. And if you take a look at that, it was roughly $3.4 billion. That's a lot. And actually, if you take away the Bybit hack — which was apparently social engineering and was $1.5 billion — yeah, Bybit got hacked for $1.5 billion, I think it was January 2025.
If we take a look at 2026, it's not much better. We're looking at $2.5 to $2.8 billion, and now it's even more. 63% for people like us, and 37% technical or protocol-related. So everything that's going to get hacked is going to be on our backs, and we have to protect ourselves as much as possible, because these numbers keep going up. It's not that we're getting dumber — I just think with AI and the sophistication of hacks out there, they're going to start stealing more and more.
So I'm just begging you: please diversify not only your portfolio, but your storage.
ETF vs. Custodial Services: How to Move Bitcoin Without a Taxable Event
I want to make something clear, because I must have failed everybody on this and I apologize. I have multiple Tangem wallets, multiple Ledgers, and you can get into a Bitcoin ETF or a Solana ETF or an XRP ETF, whatever you're into. Or you can use iTrustCapital, which is a custodial service, and I do all of them.
What I failed to explain clearly was this: a viewer — Geek Dice — said, "Hey, I want to get into an ETF but I'm kind of upset that I have to sell my Bitcoin to get into one." And I said, "Why don't you just do a custodial service?" He said, "You can't do that." I said, "Yeah, you can."
So just to make this crystal clear: if you want to get into an ETF and you want to use the Bitcoin you already have — no dry powder — here's how it works. Let's say you have Bitcoin worth $100,000. You don't want to get it hacked. So what do you do? You sell it. You bought it for $20,000, it went up 5x to $100,000. Congratulations, you're a genius. You've got an $80,000 gain, which is a taxable event — federal taxes depending on whether it's short-term or long-term, and whether you have state or country taxes. I lowballed it at 15%, so you're able to put $88,000 of that $100,000 into the ETF. Regular investors can't deposit crypto directly into an ETF — cash only. There is a provision, though — I believe it's BlackRock and a couple of others — they'll allow in-kind transfers if you have a million dollars or more. If you don't, you've got to sell it.
Or you just use custody. I use iTrustCapital for custody and also for my Roth IRA. Here's how that works: you bought for $20,000, you have $100,000 worth of Bitcoin — roughly 1.1 Bitcoin at current prices. You take that Bitcoin and say, "I want to move this into custody with you guys." There's no sale. There's no taxable event. That 1.1 Bitcoin goes into the custody account at 1.1 Bitcoin. You don't pay a fee. That's it.
And then you have to ask yourself: who's custodying that? It's Coinbase Prime, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Fireblocks. They move it across three custodians. You get institutional-grade custody for free. And that's the same custody that BlackRock and Michael Saylor's Strategy use.
Your question right now is probably: "Nothing's for free." And you're absolutely right. When you sell it, it is 1%. And people say, "I'm not paying 1%." You don't have to. But I'd rather pay 1% than get hacked and lose everything because I did something stupid and got socially engineered. That's it.
Q&A
Zen Cliff Dweller asks: Rob, what do you think of Midnight? Privacy could be a good play this cycle.
I own some of it and I bought some recently, and I think it's going to be a good project. People ask, "What the hell is Midnight?" So, you know how well Zcash has done lately — I think it's kind of manipulated, but I could be wrong. People love it, and it's also proof-of-work. I think it's already quantum-resistant — correct me in the comments section if I'm wrong.
But the big thing is privacy. Like, let's say you owe somebody $10,000. You say, "I'll send it to you in Bitcoin." And they look at the public address and go, "Hey, I didn't know you had 20 Bitcoin just sitting in there." Like, "I don't have 20 Bitcoin." "Yeah you do, I looked on the ledger." That's also really bad if you don't want to get wrench-attacked. So you probably want to keep things a little bit private.
With Midnight, instead of just using one chain, you can put that in with your Bitcoin or Solana or XRP or a whole host of different cryptos and make it a private transaction. Pretty cool, right? With Midnight, I can see that working out pretty well, especially for the banks — I think they would really like that. But yeah, I don't own a lot of it. I just thought it was a good buy and I picked some up.
You Don't Joe says: You don't pay 100% when you get scammed.
Of course you don't pay anything — it's just that the "tax" for getting scammed is losing everything. That's true.
Lordy says: Rob, you're going to have to give a detailed class on ETFs and selling Bitcoin.
It really just comes down to this. Let's say you want to go to Fidelity and get a Bitcoin ETF, and you don't have any Bitcoin — you've got $1,000. You set up the account, they KYC and AML you, and boom, $1,000 is in your account. Easy.
But let's say you've got 20 Bitcoin and you don't want to get wrench-attacked. You want to move it somewhere safer. What you'd do is say, "Okay, I've got $1,000 in this Bitcoin ETF. I have 20 Bitcoin. I'd like to de-lever and stop this risk of having so much on me. I'm going to take two Bitcoin and stick it into that ETF." How do you do that? Well, if you're not a millionaire, they're going to need you to sell it, get the dollars, and then get into the ETF. You bought at $20,000, it's now worth $80,000, so you're going to pay capital gains. You do that, you pay capital gains at year end, and then you start off at whatever the price is — $80,000. If it goes up, more capital gains. Goes down, you have a loss.
However, Lordy, to make it simple: if you don't want to sell your Bitcoin to get into an ETF, and you're not a millionaire and can't do an in-kind transfer to the ETF providers, then you just say, "All right, iTrustCapital — I can move this in-kind, not sell it, and put it right into that custodial account, and you guys use Fidelity Digital Assets, Fireblocks, or Coinbase Prime." Yes, that's right. Do you have to sell anything? No. And when you want to sell it, you are not going to like that part. It sucks selling on iTrustCapital — it's a pain and takes over a week. Mine almost took two weeks. And you're like, "Well, why would I do that?" It's because you want it to be such a pain and so hard to do that it's very hard to hack. Someone could wrench-attack you all day long and you'd be like, "Okay, well, it takes two weeks to get this out." Anyhow, I hope that made sense.
John Louise says: Strategy has repurchased $193 million of stock and acquired 267 Bitcoin, diluting shareholders again.
Hey, that's what you do when you're running a billion-dollar company. My goals aren't Michael's goals, and Michael's goals aren't my goals. Unless you're sitting there with a billion-dollar company, our goals are not the same. I just want to take some profits and be able to live my life without so much stress. Is that so much to ask? I think not.
Frosty says: So it takes two weeks to sell from iTrustCapital and pull the money?
That's a great question — let me rephrase what I said. Thank you, Frosty. You sell immediately when you hit the button. You can go in there and sell your Bitcoin and it gets converted to cash automatically. To get the cash out is where it takes two weeks. So, Frosty, thank you for flagging that. This is why I love live streams — it's the best part of the show, mostly because of the things I learn about where I'm screwing up.
Jenna Tulle says: Hey Rob, I've been watching you while I work for a while now. Can you explain again the three big things you think are going to drive this bull market?
Sure. The three things are:
First, payments. All we have to do is look at how much traction you see with Visa, Mastercard, the banks, third parties, institutions, stablecoins, and the rails they're building. I think payments are going to be a pretty big thing — especially payments for commerce, for companies, for large corporations. You know, I work with a nonprofit here, Amigos de los Animales, and when we set up PayPal, because we're a registered 501(c)(3), all the transactions go through the PayPal Giving Fund with no transaction fees. But for the majority of people using PayPal, it's 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. Some larger corporations get 1.99% plus 49 cents. Now let's say you've got another third-party option using crypto rails — Solana, XRP, Ethereum, Binance, Tron, Polygon, Cardano, whatever they end up using — and you drop those rates as much as possible. And then for people throughout the world who don't have bank access — and I always found this a very interesting statistic: 90%-plus of people even in developing countries have smartphones — they have internet connectivity and a smartphone, and they can transfer and pay for things right on their phone without needing KYC and AML. So I think payments will be a pretty big thing.
Second, tokenization of real-world assets. If you can tokenize money market accounts, stocks, and options and have finality — moving these things around even during weekends when markets shut down or on holidays — you can do more transactions and more volume. That's why the rails are going to be there for tokenization of real-world assets: equities, commodities, land, real estate, a whole host of things.
Third, AI agent payments. AI agents aren't going to use 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction to do bot-to-bot transactions. They're going to need millisecond finality, and they're going to want to do that across tens of thousands of transactions per day. So I think that'll be the big three.
Now, we've had narratives before that didn't pan out. Remember the metaverse? It was going to be awesome, and then nothing. Facebook changed its name to Meta, and that week every metaverse-related crypto jumped up like crazy. Remember Decentraland? Awesome. Now? Worthless. Mark Cuban came out and said, "I know a little about real estate and the internet. If you can create an infinite amount of space and land just by pressing a couple of keystrokes on your computer, then you don't have anything that would be considered scarce. So these decentralized places probably aren't going to work too well." I was like, "Oh really, Mark? You think you're so smart?" And guess what? He was right. So take it with a grain of salt, because not every narrative pans out.
A viewer asks: If one moves their Bitcoin to iTrustCapital, is it custodial, or do they use a third party? If so, whom?
This is a good question, and I had been screwing it up for quite some time until I had Jared Feldman on — he was head of client services. He said, "Rob, we have three places for custodial services. You're always preaching to your followers about diversifying their storage, but if you just go to one ETF, that's just one custody service." He said, "We use three: Coinbase Prime — which is what BlackRock and Michael Saylor's Strategy use — Fidelity Digital Assets, and Fireblocks. Other institutions use those as well, but we diversify our custody account between those big three." And I was like, "Oh, I guess I was screwing that up." Thank you. And again, let me tell you — getting your money out sucks.
The truth does hurt to hear for Decentraland and Mana holders. Yeah, that was a good one too. I own both of those. I actually had an NFT — there was one that gave you access to different golf clubs across the United States. I forgot the name of it, but my MetaMask wallet got hacked. I don't know how it happened, but it got hacked and I lost about $17,000 and all my NFTs. The other NFTs were worthless, but that golf club one — that one did hurt.
Rational says: So Rob, you're saying there's a chance of peace in the Middle East?
Let's hope so. But a couple of millennia of history has proven to us — maybe not.