Satoshi Scoop Weekly, 31 October 2025

Quantum Echoes: Google’s Quantum Breakthrough Could Threaten Bitcoin in 4–5 Years

In a newly published Nature paper, Google demonstrated the first verifiable quantum advantage running the “out-of-time-order correlators” (OTOC) algorithm — named Quantum Echoes. The experiment involved sending a carefully engineered signal to Google’s quantum system (qubits on the Willow chip), perturbing one qubit, then precisely reversing the signal’s evolution to listen for the returning "echo". According to Google, this marks the first time in history a quantum computer has verifiably outperformed the world’s fastest classical supercomputer — by a factor of 13,000×. The algorithm can compute molecular structures and paves the way for practical quantum applications.

Quantum researcher and Pauli Group founder Pierre-Luc Dallaire-Demers warned that this breakthrough could allow quantum computers to break Bitcoin’s encryption within four to five years.

Nick Szabo Supports Restrictions on On-Chain Data Due to Node Risks

Bitcoin pioneer Nick Szabo has been active again on social media. After previously strongly recommending using Knots over Core, he recently shared his view on on-chain arbitrary data:

Arbitrary content on blockchains makes them far more risky, legally and morally, to operate, than with blockchains confined to financial transactions. Running a node where one cannot selectively delete unacceptable content without wider functional disruption is also far riskier than running data services where one can selectively delete unacceptable content without causing wider functional disruption.

In short, Szabo argues that, from the perspective of running a node, Bitcoin should continue escalating fee schedules, byte limits, format enforcement, etc..

Mario Says No to Filters

SpiderPool activated Bitcoin Core v30 and mined an ASCII Mario OP_RETURN transaction reading “Filter this! – Mario”, signaling their stance against filters.

Podcast | Bitcoin Core v30.0 and the Ideological Debate Behind It

The latest episode of 1satpod discusses the controversial Bitcoin Core v30.0 release and the ideological underpinnings surrounding it:

Listen on Spotify | More platforms (in Mandarin Chinese)

Determining Block Template Fee Improvements Using Cluster Mempool

Developer Abubakar Sadiq Ismail discussed a method to track potential fee increase caused by mempool updates and only send miners a new block template when it’s sufficiently profitable. This avoids unnecessary block template builds and related delays.

The proposal uses cluster mempool to evaluate fee improvements without rebuilding the block template. When a new transaction arrives, it may attach to one or more existing clusters, triggering them to be re-linearized. This produces pre-update and post-update fee rate diagrams. The old diagram highlights candidate chunks to be evicted from the block template, while the new one identifies high fee rate chunks worth including. The system then simulates the impact through a four-step process:

Eviction: Remove matching chunks from a template copy, updating modified fees and sizes.
Naive Merge: Greedily add high-fee chunks, while respecting block weight limits to estimate potential fee gains (ΔF).
Iterative Merge: If the naive estimate is inconclusive, use a more detailed simulation to refine ΔF.
Decision: Compare ΔF to a threshold; Rebuild the block template and send it to miners only if fees gained exceed the threshold.

Channel Jamming Mitigation Simulation Results

Carla Kirk-Cohen and collaborators published the latest simulation results and updates regarding the reputation algorithm for their channel jamming mitigation proposal. Key updates include:

Reputation is tracked for outgoing channels
Resources are limited on incoming channels

They used their simulator to run both the resource and sink attack. Simulations show that:

With the new updates, protection remains intact against resource attacks
In sink attacks, misbehaving attacking nodes are cut off quickly
If an attacker builds a reputation first and then targets a chain of nodes, only the final node is compensated; Attacking multiple nodes costs significantly.

In short, the system appears robust; readers are encouraged to experiment with their simulators to test out attacks.

To better understand the basics of channel jamming attacks, you can refer to Carla Kirk-Cohen’s earlier discussion.

Rumble Partners with Tether to Enable Bitcoin & Stablecoin Tipping

Rumble, a video and live-streaming service known for its free speech support, announced the launch of a Bitcoin and stablecoin tipping feature at the Lugano Plan B Forum, with a live demo.

This would allows 51 million users to tip creators with BTC and stablecoins. This features is built with MoonPay, which is also helping Rumble build its wallet. This feature is currently in the testing phase, scheduled for a mid-December launch.

Babylon’s Bitcoin Vault is Far From “Trustless”

On-Chain Bitcoin’s analysis argues that Babylon’s proposed “trustless vaults” are misnamed. While the design runs on BitVM3 and garbled circuits, replacing custodians and signer committees with off-chain cryptography, it introduces new trust assumptions — such as setup honesty, challenger liveness, and probabilistic soundness. In effect, it trades Bitcoin’s deterministic, verifiable security guarantees for more complex, probabilistic ones. As a result, the construction is better described as trust-minimized, not truly trustless.

Ark Labs Launched Arkade Beta: Another Off-Chain Approach to Scaling Bitcoin

Ark Labs launched the Arkade public beta on Bitcoin mainnet. Arkade aims to transform Bitcoin into a programmable financial platform without compromising security. It is built on the Ark Protocol and introduces Virtual TXOs (VTXOs) — off-chain representations of UTXOs. Key features include Arkade Assets, native multi-asset support for stablecoins and other tokens entering Bitcoin.

Regarding the relationship between Arkade and the Lightning Network, Arkade believes that although Arkade was initially designed as an alternative to Lightning, it has evolved into a complementary system. Both networks use off-chain transactions to scale, but Arkade’s virtualization model supports more complex use cases. In addition, integrations like Boltz allow users to seamlessly move liquidity between Arkade and Lightning.

Messari Report | Hemi: Modular Bitcoin L2 With Embedded Bitcoin Node in EVM

Messari released a report on Hemi, a modular Bitcoin L2 with a Bitcoin full node embedded in the EVM. This allows Solidity contracts to directly observe and react to Bitcoin UTXO state.

Hemi employs Proof-of-Proof (PoP), a hybrid PoS consensus. Sequencers stake HEMI tokens to order transactions; PoP miners anchor Hemi’s state commitments to Bitcoin. Once confirmed on Bitcoin, Hemi blocks achieve Bitcoin finality, mitigating the weak subjectivity and censorship risks inherent to PoS-only systems.

The report also introduces its tunneling framework, DeFi ecosystem, and the ongoing development into ZK settlement and BitVM-based verification.

Common Cryptographic Risks in Blockchain Development

In practice, Web3 development teams often concentrate on business logic and performance optimization, while overlooking the subtle but crucial details of underlying cryptographic implementations. Using insecure random number generators, misusing cryptographic libraries, or misunderstanding algorithm properties can all introduce severe vulnerabilities.

To address this, SlowMist open-sourced a guide on common cryptographic pitfalls in blockchain applications, sharing their practical insights and best practices. This guide aims to systematically identify high-risk security issues hidden in key components such as private key generation, digital signatures, hash functions, and symmetric encryption.

a16zcrypto | State of Crypto 2025: Crypto Went Mainstream

a16zcrypto sees the story of crypto in 2025 is one of industry maturation as:

Traditional financial giants like Visa, BlackRock, Fidelity, and JPMorgan, as well as tech-native challengers such as PayPal, Stripe, and Robinhood, are now offering or launching crypto products.
Blockchain networks currently process over 3,400 transactions per second, more than 100× growth compared to five years ago.
The annual transaction volume of stablecoins reaches $46 trillion (adjusted to $9 trillion), rivaling Visa and PayPal.

Their latest report, State of Crypto 2025, examines this industry transformation, covering topics from institutional adoption and the rise of stablecoins to the convergence of crypto and artificial intelligence. The report also introduces a dashboard for exploring data and tracking industry trends through key metrics.

Key takeaways include:

The crypto market is big, global, and growing
Financial institutions have embraced crypto
Stablecoins went mainstream
Blockchain infrastructure is (almost) ready for prime time
Crypto and AI are converging