AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read) -- Bitcoin mining is not likely susceptible to large-scale attacks or subversion by a Quantum Computer-wielding attacker in the next 20 years. If any breakthroughs happen to the point of threatening bitcoin, it will be against its elliptic curve-based signature scheme that guards the private keys behind a given public key where bitcoin is held by an individual. And those attacks would happen using Shor's algorithm more likely in that time frame, not Grover's algorithm which might theoretically be used to run SHA-256 mining faster. To read more on the topic of bitcoin private keys being vulnerable to quantum attacks, read my other post here: Quantum Feasibility.

The majority of the response below was written by ChatGPT 5.4-Thinking. The prompt is my own.

PROMPT

In the next 10-20 years, is bitcoin mining potentially vulnerable to a Quantum Mining attack? What would be required technically to create a Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computing (CRQC) system large and robust and fast enough to compete and mine even 0.1% to 1% of blocks regularly? If we extrapolate out along the vectors of the development of theory and practice of quantum computing, the trend in bitcoin mining hash rate, and the trend in bitcoin mining difficulty increases, how feasible is such a system to build within 10-20 years? We should take into account how much more hashrate/difficulty may increase in that time, of course. And consider how large and expensive it would be to build such a system. Could it conceivably be hidden in the world anywhere and secretly mine on average even 1 out of every 200 blocks for any significant amount of time?

RESPONSE FROM CHATGPT 5.4-THINKING

A cryptographically relevant quantum computer capable of mining even 0.1% to 1% of Bitcoin blocks regularly would need to do far more than simply “run SHA-256 faster.” It would need a fault-tolerant, error-corrected architecture able to execute a reversible implementation of Bitcoin’s mining predicate -- effectively double-SHA-256 plus threshold comparison -- inside a Grover-style amplitude amplification loop. That means not just thousands or millions of physical qubits, but a very large number of logical qubits with low enough error rates, long enough coherence, fast enough gate times, and full quantum error correction running continuously. For mining, this machine would also need unusually high throughput, because Bitcoin mining is not a one-off cryptanalytic computation; it is a constantly expiring competitive race in which the candidate block header changes, the mempool changes, and another miner may win before your quantum search finishes. In practice, the machine would need to solve many fresh search instances quickly and repeatedly, not merely demonstrate a theoretical speedup once.

The scaling challenge is severe because Grover only gives a quadratic improvement, while Bitcoin mining difficulty continues to track the total classical hashpower of the network. If the network requires roughly N effective hash trials for a successful block, a quantum miner needs on the order of the square root of N Grover iterations, but each iteration would be extraordinarily expensive: reversible double-SHA-256, comparison logic, ancilla management, and error-corrected depth all repeated many times. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s hashrate and difficulty have historically trended upward over long periods, despite cyclical declines, driven by ASIC efficiency gains, deployment scale, and energy-market competition. So a quantum miner targeting 0.1%-1% of blocks in 10–20 years would not be competing against today’s network, but likely against a much larger one unless Bitcoin’s economics weaken dramatically. Even under optimistic assumptions about quantum hardware progress, the target keeps moving. This is why most serious analyses conclude that the bar for “economically relevant quantum mining” is far higher than the bar for “quantum threat to exposed signatures.”

Using a best-educated-guess extrapolation from current trends, a plausible machine for this task would likely require at least millions to perhaps hundreds of millions of physical qubits, depending on hardware platform, physical error rates, gate fidelity, and the overhead of surface-code-style error correction. The logical qubit count needed for a mining oracle may be only a tiny fraction of that, but fault tolerance dominates the engineering burden. It would also require substantial classical control hardware, cryogenic or vacuum infrastructure depending on modality, error-decoding clusters, and enormous electrical and thermal support systems. In cost terms, this is unlikely to resemble a warehouse full of ASICs; it would look more like a frontier national-lab or hyperscale industrial physics facility, plausibly ranging from many billions to potentially tens of billions of dollars to develop and deploy if it had to be built within the next two decades. A state might attempt it; a private firm might contribute major components; but it is hard to picture as a garage-scale or even ordinary datacenter-scale project.

My best estimate is that achieving such a system within 10 years is very unlikely, and within 20 years still doubtful, though not impossible if there are multiple major breakthroughs at once: lower-overhead error correction, much better physical qubit fidelities, faster gates, scalable fabrication, and practical reversible SHA-256 circuit optimization. The key issue is that Bitcoin mining is a very unfavorable use case for early fault-tolerant quantum machines: it demands industrial-rate repetition on a moving target, whereas the first economically important quantum applications are more likely to be high-value cryptanalysis, chemistry, optimization niches, or attacks on public-key systems where Shor gives a much stronger asymptotic advantage. If quantum computing progresses steadily but not miraculously, then over the next 10–20 years a machine capable of stealing coins from exposed public keys is more plausible than a machine able to mine 0.1%-1% of Bitcoin blocks competitively for profit.

As for concealment: a truly competitive quantum mining installation at that level would probably be very difficult to hide completely. It would likely have distinctive supply chains, specialized fabrication dependencies, high-end cryogenics or laser systems, unusual power use, and a large team of physicists, engineers, and operators. A government black project could conceal the purpose better than a commercial actor could, and a small proof-of-concept quantum miner might be hidden more easily than a production-scale one. But a system large enough to mine Bitcoin at a statistically noticeable share of global block production would more likely resemble a strategic infrastructure asset than a secret room in a basement. So, conceivably yes in the loosest sense -- especially for a state-level actor -- it might be possible to hide, but not easily, not cheaply, and not with high confidence of remaining invisible for very long.

TAKEAWAY

Focus on avoiding address reuse if you hold your own keys, and don't worry about a threat to bitcoin mining yet.

NOTE: This is a follow-up to my original Quantum Infeasibility (?) post wherein I expressed serious doubts about RSA or ECC cryptography being feasible to break with a quantum computer anytime in the next 50 years. I have revised my views given the recent announcements around ECC being potentially vulnerable much sooner now with recent at least theoretical breakthroughs.

AI;DR (AI; Didn't Read) -- This post was composed primarily with the help of Google Gemini 3.1 Pro. The gist is that ECC may be vulnerable in the next 10-15 year timeframe as opposed to many decades on. There are specific types of bitcoin addresses that are more secure and should be used for long-term storage, such as Native SegWit addresses starting with bc1q. This is laid out at the end of the article, along with a note that Taproot, the newest address type, is not very secure and should not be used if you believe it plausible that CRQC's could be built any time soon.

While the early March 2026 quantum annealing updates did not threaten RSA-2048, a separate wave of gate-model breakthroughs published just weeks later now forces a material reassessment of my 50-year timeline. The existential threat to cryptography has shifted entirely away from RSA and onto Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC-256), the standard that secures Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Because ECC relies on much smaller keys for the same level of classical security, it presents a drastically smaller quantum target. As researchers recently summarized, "ECC-256 requires roughly 100x fewer quantum operations to break than RSA-2048 at the same classical security level" [1].

By combining this smaller algorithmic footprint with new high-rate quantum error-correcting codes, researchers have shattered the "millions of physical qubits" assumption. A theoretical hardware architecture proposed by researchers from Oratomic, Caltech, and UC Berkeley demonstrates that "Shor’s algorithm can be executed at cryptographically relevant scales with as few as 10,000 reconfigurable atomic qubits" [1]. They project that by scaling up slightly to roughly 26,000 neutral-atom physical qubits, the algorithm could break ECC-256 in about 10 days [1].

Simultaneously, a whitepaper from Google Quantum AI mapped identical vulnerabilities for superconducting architectures, proving their circuits "can execute on a superconducting qubit CRQC with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits in a few minutes" [2].

However, before concluding that Satoshi's coins will be stolen tomorrow, we must contextualize these numbers within the strict physical and temporal realities of a cryptographic attack. There is a massive distinction between the time required to attack a dormant wallet versus the time required to intercept a live network transaction.

The Mempool "On-Spend" Window

To steal a live Bitcoin transaction, an attacker must execute an "on-spend" attack. When a user broadcasts a transaction, it sits unconfirmed in the public mempool for roughly 10 minutes before miners record it to the blockchain. During this window, the sender's public key is exposed. To intercept the funds, a quantum attacker must derive the private key, forge a redirect transaction, and submit it with a higher miner fee all before the 10-minute clock expires.

The Google whitepaper correctly identifies that only "fast-clock" architectures (like superconducting qubits) could act swiftly enough to execute these real-time attacks. Google estimates that "the first fast-clock CRQCs would enable 'on-spend' attacks on public mempool transactions" [2]. But crucially, achieving this speed requires abandoning high-compression, low-qubit algorithms. A January 2026 study by Kim et al. analyzed circuits optimized specifically for execution speed, finding that breaking an elliptic curve in 34 minutes would require an 19.1 million physical qubits, and extending that to 96 minutes would require roughly 6.9 million [8]. Therefore, a massive, million-qubit array was expected to be the minimum barrier to entry for the speed required to perform a mempool heist.

Homing in on "Slow-Clock Architecture" Targets

Conversely, the much smaller 26,000-qubit neutral-atom system proposed by Oratomic is a "slow-clock" architecture. Measuring its stabilizer cycles takes roughly 1 millisecond per step, extending the time to break a key out to 10 days [1]. A machine that takes a week and a half to solve a key cannot perform a 10-minute mempool heist. Its only viable targets would be exposing the keys of "dormant digital assets" with already-known public keys, such as early-era Satoshi wallets.

The Physics of Perfect Integration

Finally, we must distinguish theoretical minimums from functional hardware. Neutral atom arrays trapping upwards of 6,100 physical qubits already exist in laboratories today [1]. But perfectly integrating these innovations with deep-circuit coherence on a reliable, stable, fault-tolerant 26,000 qubit system is a monumental leap.

We know from a recent EUROCRYPT 2026 paper by the INRIA Rennes team (Chevignard et al.) that minimizing the qubit footprint requires a massive increase in the sheer volume of operations. They proved you can shrink the footprint for ECC-256 to just 1,098 logical qubits, but it requires executing upwards of 2^38.10 Toffoli gates [9]. Running Shor's algorithm at that depth for 10 consecutive days requires the quantum computer to execute billions of logical operations without a single uncorrectable error. The authors of the Oratomic paper openly acknowledge this gap, stating, "substantial engineering challenges remain" to integrate continuous large-scale trapping, universal operations, and high-rate magic state generation into one unified apparatus [1].

Takeaways

My previous 50-year estimate is now officially dead. The theoretical barrier to breaking ECC-256 has dropped from millions of qubits to tens of thousands, placing the physical hardware scale potentially within a 10-to-15 year horizon. However, successfully maintaining fault-tolerance for days on end to execute billions of gates and rob a dormant wallet, let alone building a multi-million physical qubit superconducting machine to rob in-flight active transactions in 10 minutes, ensures that the practical, existential threat to the crypto economy remains safely out of the immediate, near-term future.

Ranking of Bitcoin output and address types for long-term storage with quantum security in mind, assuming NO ADDRESS REUSE

Least suitable for quantum-conscious cold storage:

• Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) -- Prefix: none -- This early Bitcoin output type locks funds directly to a raw public key. If cryptographically relevant quantum computers are ever built, outputs of this type would be direct targets for Shor’s algorithm because the public key is already exposed on-chain.
• Pay-to-Taproot (P2TR) -- Prefix: bc1p -- Taproot outputs commit directly to a tweaked x-only public key rather than hiding it behind a hash until spend. That means dormant unspent outputs would also be direct targets for a future Shor-capable quantum attacker, making P2TR less attractive for very long-term cold storage if quantum risk is a primary concern.

Most suitable for quantum-conscious cold storage:

• Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash (P2PKH) -- Prefix: 1 -- This legacy format hides the public key behind a 160-bit HASH160 commitment until the output is spent. That public-key-hiding property is the main quantum-relevant advantage for long-term storage.
• Pay-to-Script-Hash (P2SH) -- Prefix: 3 -- Commonly used for older multisig and script-based wallets, P2SH hides the redeem script behind a 160-bit HASH160 commitment until spend. As with other hash-committed outputs, its primary quantum advantage is that spending details are not revealed while the coins remain dormant.
• Pay-to-Witness-Public-Key-Hash (P2WPKH) -- Prefix: bc1q -- Native SegWit single-key output type. Preserves the same key-hiding benefit as P2PKH while also improving transaction weight efficiency. For unspent outputs, the public key remains hidden until it is revealed in a spending transaction.
• Pay-to-Witness-Script-Hash (P2WSH) -- Prefix: bc1q, typically longer than P2WPKH -- Native SegWit script-based output type. Hides the witness script behind a SHA-256 commitment until spend and also benefits from SegWit’s transaction-weight advantages. Because it uses a 256-bit hash commitment instead of HASH160, it has a larger theoretical margin against Grover-style preimage search. However, this does not currently create a major practical quantum-security advantage over P2PKH, P2SH, or P2WPKH.

Bottom line:

For Bitcoin long-term storage under realistic quantum threat models, the dominant benefit is keeping the public key unrevealed until spend. On that dimension, P2PKH, P2SH, P2WPKH, and P2WSH all achieve the main protection. P2WSH’s 256-bit hashing provides a higher theoretical margin against Grover-style preimage attacks, but this distinction is secondary in practice. The main quantum concern remains Shor’s algorithm against already-exposed public keys.

References

1. Shor's algorithm is possible with as few as 10,000 reconfigurable atomic qubits: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.28627
2. Securing Elliptic Curve Cryptocurrencies against Quantum Vulnerabilities: Resource Estimates and Mitigations: https://quantumai.google/static/site-assets/downloads/cryptocurrency-whitepaper.pdf
3. How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers with less than a million noisy qubits: https://arxiv.org/html/2505.15917v1
4. The Post-Quantum Clock Is Already Ticking - And Almost Nobody Is Ready: https://coderlegion.com/12840
5. Google Urges Governments to Accelerate Quantum-Resistant Encryption Adoption: https://mlq.ai/news/google-urges-governments-to-accelerate-quantum-resistant-encryption-adoption-amid-imminent-threats
6. Q-Day Revisited – RSA-2048 Broken by 2030: Detailed Analysis: https://postquantum.com/q-day/q-day-y2q-rsa-broken-2030
7. A new era of quantum computing may pose threats closer than we think, Google warns: https://www.euronews.com/next/2026/03/27/a-new-era-of-quantum-computing-may-pose-threats-closer-than-we-think-google-warns
8. New Quantum Circuits for ECDLP: Breaking Prime Elliptic Curve Cryptography in Minutes: https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/106
9. Reducing the Number of Qubits in Quantum Discrete Logarithms on Elliptic Curves: https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/280
10. Bitcoin Address Types (Unchained): https://www.unchained.com/blog/bitcoin-address-types-compared
11. Bitcoin and Quantum Computing, Neha Narula: https://nehanarula.org/2026/04/03/bitcoin-and-quantum-computing.html
12. Filippo Valsorda, "A Cryptography Engineer's Perspective on Quantum Computing Timelines": https://words.filippo.io/crqc-timeline
13. Scott Aaronson, "Before we start on Quantum": https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9668

AI;DR (AI, Didn't Read) -- This post was generated by combining various sources on the topic of 'Dead Internet Theory', with a couple prompts to the "ChatGPT 5.4 Thinking" LLM (a robot) asking it to explore the spiritual significance of empty and deceptive internet content from a Christian point of view.

MY PERSONAL NOTES

One guiding principle I find most helpful is to seek what is Good, True and Beautiful, and to examine new phenomena and experiences critically to judge them on these traits. With the explosion of new content, news, media, posts and writing, both human and machine-made, and the ever-evolving techniques to manufacture consensus and consent, my gut tells me we should tread carefully in the new wild west of the world wide web. I don't believe technology is inherently evil. But it seems reasonable to assume that as it becomes more powerful (fast, efficient, calculating, strategic, etc.), that we, in turn, should be that much more conscientious and careful about our use and employment of it. May this essay help shine a light on the problem and provide helpful framing to better address it.

Dead Internet Theory, Technology, and the Separation of the Soul from God

The internet was once imagined as a place of human connection: a place where real people could share ideas, learn, create, argue, build friendships, and form communities across long distances. In many ways, that still happens. Yet many people now sense that something has changed. More and more of online life feels repetitive, artificial, manipulative, and strangely empty. This feeling has helped give rise to what is called the Dead Internet Theory.

At its simplest, the theory claims that much of today’s internet is no longer shaped mainly by genuine human interaction. Instead, it is increasingly shaped by bots, algorithms, artificial intelligence, fake engagement, mass-produced content, and systems designed to control attention. In its most extreme form, the theory says that most online activity is fake. That stronger claim likely goes too far. Even so, the theory has endured because it expresses a real experience many people have: the sense that the internet is becoming less human.

The theory also changed over time. In its earlier form, it was often tied to fringe forums and broad suspicions. The 2021 Agora Road post that helped popularize it claimed that “The Internet feels empty and devoid of people” and that compared to earlier years “the Internet of today is entirely sterile.” It also argued that “Large proportions of the supposedly human-produced content on the internet are actually generated by artificial intelligence networks in conjunction with paid secret media influencers.” The tone there was highly suspicious and often conspiratorial, but the core fear was clear: human speech was being replaced, drowned out, or copied.

By 2024, major publications were no longer treating the subject as only a fringe curiosity. The Guardian argued that the early theory was not simply false, but early, saying, “The theory wasn’t wrong – it was just too soon.” The article added an important shift: “In 2021, the internet felt dead because aggressive algorithmic curation was driving people to act like robots. In 2024, the opposite has happened: the robots are posting like people.” Forbes took a more cautious view, saying the theory does not literally describe the whole internet, yet admitting that it captures a real decline: “The Dead Internet Theory might not reflect the reality of the average browsing experience, but it does describe the feeling of boredom and alienation that can accompany it.” And The Conversation described it as “an interesting lens through which to view the internet,” warning that “Any interaction, trend, and especially ‘overall sentiment’ could very well be synthetic.”

That evolution matters. The idea moved from anonymous complaint, to cultural metaphor, to a serious question about whether online life is being overwhelmed by synthetic content, fake consensus, and machine-shaped communication.

From a Christian point of view, this matters because Christianity is not built on abstraction. It is built on truth, incarnation, moral responsibility, and communion with God and neighbor. Human beings are made in the image of God, not as programmable machines, but as living souls called to truth, love, worship, wisdom, and obedience. If the modern internet is increasingly filled with imitations of life, then the issue is not only technological. It is spiritual.

Truth, Deception, and the Biblical Need for Discernment

The Bible repeatedly warns that deception is one of the chief ways evil works in the world. Jesus said:

“Take heed that no man deceive you.
For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.”
(Matthew 24:4–5, KJV)

He also said:

“And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”
(Matthew 24:11, KJV)

And later in the same chapter:

“For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”
(Matthew 24:24, KJV)

These warnings were not written about social media, bots, or AI. But they do establish a lasting biblical principle: the world contains forces that aim not simply to inform but to deceive. The Christian is therefore commanded to be discerning.

This fits the strongest reasonable insight of Dead Internet Theory. Even if it is exaggerated when it claims that nearly everything online is fake, it does name a real danger: a digital world in which false appearance can overpower truth. As The Conversation warns, artificial accounts and inflated engagement can create “a vicious cycle of artificial engagement.” That cycle matters because people often trust what seems popular, repeated, and socially approved.

Scripture speaks to this moral confusion. Isaiah writes:

“And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.”
(Isaiah 59:14–15, KJV)

That image is striking. Truth does not merely lose an argument. Truth “falls in the street.” Public life becomes hostile to it. A Christian reading of digital culture can see the parallel. When attention is ruled by outrage, novelty, manipulation, and performance, truth is not simply debated; it is pushed aside.

Paul adds another layer:

“And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.”
(2 Corinthians 11:14, KJV)

Evil often appears attractive, intelligent, efficient, or even helpful. That is important in a technological age. The danger is not just ugly lies. The danger is polished falsehood: content that looks plausible, moral, informed, or compassionate while quietly distorting reality.

The Internet Feels Dead Because People Are Being Trained to Act Less Human

One of the most insightful parts of the early Dead Internet writing was not its conspiratorial side but its observation about imitation and feedback loops. The MeetingWords draft argued that social media created “a copy-feedback subconscious,” so that people increasingly copy what is already approved rather than speaking honestly. It said the internet had shifted from the creation of original content toward repetition shaped by likes, trends, and algorithmic reward.

Whether or not one accepts all the writer’s claims, this point is strong. The deepest problem may not be that bots exist. The deeper problem is that real people can begin to behave like bots.

The Guardian made this exact point when it wrote that in 2021 the web felt dead because “algorithms were driving people to act like robots.” That is a powerful observation. A machine-filled internet is troubling, but perhaps even more troubling is a human being trained to live mechanically: reacting instead of reflecting, reposting instead of discerning, performing instead of speaking honestly, seeking visibility instead of wisdom.

The Bible warns against this kind of moral shaping. Paul says:

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
(Romans 12:2, KJV)

The issue here is formation. Something is always shaping the mind. If a person spends long hours in systems designed to reward imitation, emotional reaction, envy, lust, anger, or tribal belonging, then that person is being formed. The Christian command is not merely to avoid obvious sin, but to resist being conformed to patterns of life that deform the soul.

This is why the Dead Internet discussion reaches beyond bots. It points to a crisis of personhood. In Christian theology, a person is not a bundle of impulses optimized for engagement. A person is a creature made in God’s image, capable of truth, repentance, self-control, and love. Any technology that systematically pushes human beings away from those goods deserves moral scrutiny.

“Dead” in a Biblical Sense: Lifelike but Empty

The Christian meaning of “dead” is deeper than mere inactivity. Something may appear active and still be spiritually dead. It may look alive while being inwardly hollow.

Psalm 115 describes idols this way:

“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:
They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:
They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.”
(Psalm 115:4–8, KJV)

This passage gives an unexpectedly helpful framework for modern digital life. Idols imitate life but do not possess it. They have features of living beings, yet they are dead. More importantly, those who trust them become like them.

That is a powerful warning for a world filled with synthetic images, synthetic authority, synthetic intimacy, and synthetic emotion. The modern internet often offers a lifelike imitation of reality: social connection without friendship, sexual stimulation without covenant love, influence without wisdom, information without understanding, identity without rootedness, speech without accountability. It looks alive, but it often leaves the soul thinner, more distracted, and more alone.

There is also a careful, not sensational, way to connect this with Revelation. The book describes a moment when people are deceived into making an image, and then that image is treated as if it lives:

“Saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak.”
(Revelation 13:14–15, KJV)

This should not be forced into a direct prediction about AI. But as a biblical category, it is striking: an image that speaks, commands attention, and participates in deception. At the very least, it shows that Scripture is not naïve about the spiritual danger of lifelike images that rival truth and demand allegiance.

False Multitudes and Manufactured Consensus

A major danger of the internet is not just false content but false crowds. A person often believes something more quickly if it appears popular. The crowd can pressure the conscience.

This is why Exodus says:

“Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.”
(Exodus 23:2, KJV)

That verse becomes even more relevant in a world where the multitude may be partly manufactured. The Agora Road text repeatedly worried about repeated posts, copied messages, and bots that could force opinion through repetition. The Conversation similarly warns that even harmless-looking engagement farms may build high-follower accounts that later become tools of propaganda. It writes that such accounts can become “an army of accounts” ready for use, and warns that social media manipulation has already been used to sway opinion through disinformation. In its phrase, “overall sentiment” could very well be synthetic.

This is not a small issue. If false consensus can be manufactured, then public opinion itself becomes easier to shape. Christianity has always taught that the crowd is not the source of truth. God is. The apparent popularity of a message proves nothing about its righteousness.

Paul warns believers not to be children tossed around by manipulation:

“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness.”
(Ephesians 4:14, KJV)

The phrase “cunning craftiness” fits modern systems more closely than it first appears. The Christian must ask not only whether a message is emotionally powerful, but whether it is true, just, and holy.

Information Without Wisdom

One reason the Dead Internet Theory resonates is that many people sense a contradiction in modern life: the internet contains endless information, yet many people seem less grounded, less thoughtful, and less able to tell truth from error.

Paul describes a similar condition:

“Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
(2 Timothy 3:7, KJV)

This may be one of the clearest biblical descriptions of the digital age. People consume content all day. They watch, scroll, click, compare, and react. Yet this constant exposure does not necessarily produce wisdom. In fact, it can weaken it.

Paul also warns:

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
(2 Timothy 4:3–4, KJV)

This too applies in a profound way. Modern platforms are built to serve people more of what they already desire. If someone wants outrage, lust, novelty, fear, self-justification, vanity, or fantasy, the system can deliver it in endless supply. The result is not wisdom but appetite management. The person becomes easier to guide because desire has replaced judgment.

Technology, Spiritual Warfare, and Moral Formation

A Christian interpretation of Dead Internet Theory should not fall into panic or reckless superstition. Not every app is demonic. Not every glitch is a sign of spiritual attack. Yet it would also be shallow to treat the whole matter as only technical.

The Bible teaches that human life includes unseen moral and spiritual conflict:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
(Ephesians 6:12, KJV)

That does not mean that every bad website is directly possessed. It does mean that Christians should expect evil to work through systems, powers, incentives, and structures, not only through obvious villains. Technology can become one vehicle among many through which temptation, pride, lust, fear, falsehood, and hatred spread.

Peter gives a practical warning:

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
(1 Peter 5:8, KJV)

“Sober” and “vigilant” are fitting words for an age of endless scrolling and constant stimulation. A person who is never quiet, never reflective, and never self-controlled is easier to lead astray.

Paul says something similar:

“Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.”
(2 Corinthians 2:11, KJV)

In its original context, “devices” means schemes. But the principle still applies. Christians should not be ignorant of the ways manipulation works, including manipulation carried by modern technological systems.

Technology Is Not Evil, but It Is Not Neutral

A balanced Christian view should say two things at once. First, technology is not evil in itself. Second, technology is not spiritually neutral in its effects.

A smartphone can carry Scripture, call a lonely relative, help a student learn, or spread truthful teaching. Yet the same device can become a delivery system for envy, pornography, slander, rage, vanity, and addiction. The question is not only what a tool can do. The question is what kind of person the tool is helping to form.

Paul gives a principle that speaks directly to this:

“All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”
(1 Corinthians 6:12, KJV)

This is an excellent test for modern technology. Does the tool remain a servant, or has it become a master? Does it help a person become more truthful, more disciplined, more charitable, and more present before God? Or does it gain power over attention, imagination, and desire?

Proverbs adds:

“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
(Proverbs 4:23, KJV)

The heart is the wellspring of life. What repeatedly enters it matters. This is why the Christian cannot shrug off media habits as trivial.

Other Areas of Exponential Change

Dead Internet Theory is really one example of a wider pattern. The same concerns appear in many areas of rapid technological change.

Artificial intelligence can increase efficiency and access to information, but it can also flood the world with synthetic writing, synthetic images, and synthetic authority. Dmitry Kudryavtsev captures the emotional side of this when he writes, “But today, I no longer know what is real.” He describes seeing corporate posts, comment sections, and even software projects that seem touched by AI in ways that blur authorship and trust. His concern is not merely technical failure. It is the loss of confidence that one is dealing with reality.

Entertainment algorithms can replace craft with optimization. The MeetingWords draft argues that content creators increasingly stop asking what is good and start asking what will trigger the system. Even if that claim is overstated in places, it names a real temptation: to produce not what is true or beautiful, but what performs.

Social media can replace community with audience. A person becomes a brand. Friendship becomes content. Approval becomes a measurable commodity. This tends to deepen pride, comparison, and envy.

Search and information systems can replace inquiry with prepackaged answers. A person begins to receive rather than seek, to consume rather than test.

Across all of these areas, the spiritual danger is similar: technological power can expand human capacity while shrinking human depth. It can increase control while decreasing wisdom. It can intensify communication while weakening communion. It can fill the mind while starving the soul.

A Christian Judgment: Separation from God Through Substitutes

The core biblical problem here is not innovation itself but substitution. Sin loves substitutes. It replaces God with idols, wisdom with appetite, truth with image, and communion with performance.

Digital life often offers substitutes that look close enough to the real thing to keep people occupied:

• stimulation instead of peace
• attention instead of love
• image instead of character
• data instead of wisdom
• performance instead of sincerity
• simulation instead of communion

These substitutes can gradually separate a person from God, not always by open rebellion, but by constant distraction and spiritual thinning.

The psalmist says:

“I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes.”
(Psalm 101:3, KJV)

Paul says:

“Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour.”
(Ephesians 4:25, KJV)

John says:

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God.”
(1 John 4:1, KJV)

These are not outdated commands. They are intensely relevant. The Christian must ask not only, “Is this useful?” but also, “What is this doing to my soul? Does this lead me toward truth, humility, chastity, prayer, patience, and love? Or does it lead me toward falsehood, vanity, agitation, lust, and unreality?”

Conclusion

The strongest versions of Dead Internet Theory likely overstate the case. The internet is not literally empty of people, and much real human creation still remains. Forbes is right to resist the most extreme claim. Yet The Guardian and The Conversation are also right to note that the theory contains a real warning. The internet increasingly feels dead because human communication is being reshaped by algorithmic pressure, synthetic content, fake engagement, and machine-generated imitation. The older fear that people were becoming robotic has now been joined by a newer fear: robots are becoming socially convincing enough to pass as people.

A Christian perspective can interpret this without panic and without naivety. Scripture teaches that deception is real, that false appearances are powerful, that crowds can be manipulated, that idols imitate life without possessing it, and that human beings become like what they worship. It also teaches that believers must guard their hearts, renew their minds, try the spirits, and refuse to be brought under the power of any created thing.

So the deepest danger is not simply that bots may replace people online. The deeper danger is that people may accept substitutes for reality and, in doing so, drift further from God. When a culture becomes satisfied with imitation, performance, and artificial consensus, it becomes easier to forget what human beings are for.

Christianity answers that question clearly. Human beings are made for truth, worship, holiness, love, wisdom, and communion with the living God. Any technology (or way of using a given technology) that helps serve those ends can be used with gratitude. Any technology that steadily pulls the soul away from them must be resisted, disciplined, or rejected. In an age of growing simulation, faithfulness may begin with a simple but demanding task: to remain fully human before God.

Sources:

• https://kudmitry.com/articles/dead-internet-theory/
• https://grokipedia.com/page/dead-internet-theory
• https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/30/techscape-artificial-intelligence-bots-dead-internet-theory
• https://theconversation.com/the-dead-internet-theory-makes-eerie-claims-about-an-ai-run-web-the-truth-is-more-sinister-229609
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2024/01/16/the-dead-internet-theory-explained/
• https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?threads/dead-internet-theory-most-of-the-internet-is-fake.3011/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20210105211330/https://meetingwords.com/IVlnVpwRfx

AI;DR: (AI; Didn't Read) -- I saw posted on Hacker News a story about a new, supposed "universal respiratory disease vaccine nasal spray". This was something that in mice kept the innate immune system active for months instead of days at a time and helped the mice fend off coronaviruses, flu and house dust mite protein allergies much better than the baseline. The research is out of Stanford, with human trials forthcoming. I am dubious of the safety of this approach. So I recruited help from DeepSeek & Perplexity & Gemini Pro & the Hacker News comments section to look into potential risks. At this point, the cynic in me expects the FDA to approve this new drug whether it's safe or not; so tell your friends and family not to take it, is my two cents.

Recent developments in immunology have introduced a highly experimental compound known as GLA-3M-052-LS+OVA, which is currently being positioned as a potential multi-purpose or universal vaccine for humans. Developed by researchers at Stanford University, this prophylactic nasal spray is designed to offer broad-spectrum protection against a wide array of respiratory threats. Instead of requiring separate shots for different seasonal illnesses, developers envision a future where a single nasal formulation could theoretically defend against viruses like coronaviruses and influenza, bacterial infections, and even seasonal allergens all at once.

The name of the compound reveals its complex, biomimetic structure. It consists of GLA, a synthetic Toll-like receptor 4 agonist, and 3M-052, a Toll-like receptor 7 and 8 agonist, both of which are potent immune-stimulating adjuvants. These are combined in a stable liposomal formulation to safely deliver the components directly to target cells. Finally, the OVA represents ovalbumin, a harmless egg protein commonly used in laboratory research as a model antigen to provoke a measurable and trackable immune response.

Unlike traditional vaccines that work by training the adaptive immune system to recognize and attack one specific pathogen with customized antibodies, this experimental approach relies on a radical departure from conventional design. It targets the innate immune system, which serves as the body's first, generalized line of defense against all invaders. The synthetic adjuvants in the formulation directly stimulate innate immune cells, particularly the macrophages situated strategically throughout the respiratory tract.

The inclusion of the ovalbumin antigen plays a crucial, unconventional role in this biochemical process. Its primary job is to recruit adaptive T cells into the lung tissue. Once there, these T cells release chemical signals called cytokines that essentially hack the local innate immune cells, keeping the macrophages on a prolonged amber alert status. While a typical innate immune flare-up normally fades after just a few days to protect healthy tissue, this engineered cross-talk sustains a heightened state of readiness for much longer periods.

Preclinical trials involving mice have yielded highly dramatic early results. When researchers administered the formulation as a simple nasal spray in multiple doses, the mice successfully fought off lethal exposures to various coronaviruses and influenza strains. The sustained innate immune response resulted in a massive reduction of viral load in the lungs, dropping it up to one thousand-fold compared to untreated subjects. Furthermore, the vaccinated mice displayed similar protection against severe bacterial lung infections, easily surviving exposures that caused rapid weight loss and death in the control groups.

In a surprising application, the researchers also tested the formulation against common environmental allergens to see how broad the protection could truly be. They exposed the mice to house dust mite proteins, which normally trigger a massive allergic response marked by asthma-like airway inflammation and heavy mucus buildup. The vaccine effectively quelled this allergic reaction and kept the airways of the treated mice completely clear, expanding its theoretical utility from fighting infectious diseases to actively modulating airway hypersensitivity.

Despite these exciting laboratory results, transitioning this concept to human trials carries significant theoretical risks based on well-understood aspects of human immunology. The primary concern is the danger of persistent inflammation, as keeping the innate immune system perpetually activated could easily trigger severe hyperinflammatory reactions or a cytokine storm. Such an abnormally sustained state of alert could result in chronic tissue damage in the delicate structures of the lungs or cross the line into an autoimmune disease, where the confused immune system begins attacking healthy host tissues.

Another substantial risk involves the specific physical ingredients and the localized immune structures they artificially create. Using ovalbumin in a nasal spray designed to aggressively attract immune attention carries the ironic risk of inducing a severe egg allergy in human patients rather than preventing one. Additionally, engineered biological cross-talk can lead to the formation of ectopic lymphoid structures, where immune cells permanently set up camp and refuse to disperse, raising serious questions about long-term pulmonary conditions or heightened cancer risks from chronic cellular turnover.

Ultimately, while the concept of a singular, broadly protective nasal spray is incredibly appealing, human evolution operates with a resting immune state for vital reasons. A perpetually hyper-vigilant immune system rapidly drains bodily resources and exponentially increases the likelihood of devastating friendly fire against the body itself. Until rigorous and transparent human trials can prove that these intense, artificially induced immune states resolve safely without causing autoimmune or allergic casualties, this universal vaccine approach remains a fascinating but highly risky laboratory concept.

References:

• https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2026/02/universal-vaccine.html
• http://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2g8rz7yedo
• https://synapse.patsnap.com/drug/a07a38b7ad0b4c0fbb83f0dd0efb2700
• https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0051618
• https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/allergy/articles/10.3389/falgy.2025.1633293/full
• https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.559382/full

I grew up in a time of relative peace in America. My halcyon years as a kid were basically the tail end of the Soviet Union to right before the War on Terror began with 9/11. (Some would call this period the Decade of the Peace Dividend.)

My parents were pacifist liberals who never talked about war. Although my grandfathers and other relatives served in the military. And my Mom (RIP) was willing to join the Army to help her fund medical school.

I don't recall the "Evil Russians" ever being discussed when I was a kid. I didn't live through the 1970's Oil Embargo. There were no earth-shattering global events that impacted me directly as a kid. Nothing until 9/11.

At that point, I was also a pacifist liberal, as that is how I was raised. So I wondered along with my progressive global studies teacher in high school that year how we could reconcile Islam as the "Religion of Peace" with the terrorist attack that took innocent lives on American soil. I had no answer or informed commentary at all at the time to George W. Bush's decision to enter the Graveyard of Empires – Afghanistan – to pursue the badies.

After high school, while volunteering in the countryside in Nicaragua, I recall getting word that Bush was talking about some Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq that had supposedly been found. I knew immediately upon hearing this that he planned to go to war in Iraq. I said as much and the three other Americans with me at the time scoffed: "You're crazy. That's not what this is about." But I was just cynical enough at 18 to know with high certainty that this was, indeed, the plan.

In my first year of college, I attended protests against our involvement in Iraq. I remember during spring break at the airports all the TVs were blaring on about our heroic efforts to dismantle Saddam Hussein's regime there. There was no solace or peace to be found. The War on Terror was turned up to 11. The Department of Homeland Security, the name of which me and my liberal friends of the day derided as "all too Nazi sounding", kept the nation on edge with their color-coded alerts. Orange was the only option, it seemed.

By 2005, it felt like all was well again in the rules-based international order. Nothing perturbed me, at least, in my cozy college navel-gazing environs. I freely wandered barefoot without glasses on contemplating the Tao that cannot be defined, and trying on Buddhism for size, and grappling with Nietzsche and Existentialism, as was fashionable for a modern university hippie to do at the time.

What loomed ahead was a Global Financial Crisis. Nothing too disturbing for me. Depressing maybe, not the least for my job prospects leaving school into the depths of that deflationary period. But it was not "earth-shattering" in any way. I eventually got my first real job teaching in Turkey in 2009.

Being there teaching English and Drama and Japanese Club for three years really helped to ground me. There people were more conservative, insular, and religious than I was used to. They were also very kind and caring. This impacted me and guided me towards God slowly, and towards conservatism just a bit. I appreciated Family and Faith and Nation more as concepts. Finally, I was growing up.

Through an acutely rocky and suffocating relationship and out the other side back home ("stateside"), I found such tantalizing topics as Bitcoin and Libertarianism and Free Markets over which I could obsess. The force of these and my love for technology (I was a dot-com nerd kid, if you recall) pushed me to leave teaching and pursue programming as a path. It was still the quiet days pre-Trump at this time. By mid-2016, I had fully exited teaching and joined tech, to start as a support technician at an Enterprise Server/Systems Integrator/HPC company.

Trump was really the next exciting thing that happened in the world, from my standpoint. I watched and played around on Reddit and Twitter and saw him trending up and up. I found it hilarious how he mocked the Liberal Rules-Based Order of the Democrats, how he desecrated their Swamp.

Because I was a Libertarian at the time Trump was coming to prominence, I was not keen on his Trade Policies. The notion that we should put tariffs on Chinese goods was foreign to me. I had actually visited China with a group of teachers in 2015, and found Chinese people markedly friendlier than the Japanese, with whose culture I was much more familiar. I basically had no problem with China on the whole, and favored Free Trade. Looking back now, I find my old bias internally logically consistent with Austrian Economics and Libertarian principles, but perhaps irrational, in that now we find China is a real, tangible threat to American dominance in a number of domains (think rare-earths and critical materials midstream processing and refinement).

Because I hated Biden and his crew for stealing the 2020 election, and resented him and his OSHA cronies for trying to force experimental vaccines on all the American wage slaves, I was schadenfreude-laden and perhaps perversely overjoyed at Putin upsetting the apple cart of global affairs when he invaded Ukraine. Not that I wanted War. But it is a reality of our world.

At the time, I was about to be banned from seeing large numbers of family members at a reunion because one of my cousins set herself as Karen-Dictator and was going to demand that everyone present their Gene Therapy Guinea Pig card before giving anyone else a hug. For my own reasons then, I was glad to see that Biden-Atlantic consensus shattered, at least momentarily. (The masks were off, quite literally!)

Now four years on, the Russia-Ukraine War continues. No doubt people on both sides have suffered immensely. This is war. The ugliest of human affairs. I think my parents were glad to not have to talk about war at all for so many decades post-Vietnam (and perhaps were tired of hearing from their parents about WWI and WWII and the Korean War and so on).

But this is life. Rose-colored glasses don't stem the tide. Power-mongers gonna power-monger. I was privileged that I never faced violence directly or conscription during my years as a young man. But I see the value in reading and understanding history, examining current trends and events, and preparing for the future.

Recently, I started listening to School of War, the podcast. It's been helpful to understand things like the capture of Maduro, past military interventions and military strategy more broadly. For a few years longer (since COVID really), I have been listening to the Northern Miner podcast and taking in the explorations there of Resource Nationalism as a theme.

Notably, I listened to School of War episode #268: "Seth Jones on America’s Defense Industrial Crisis", and then read his book, "The American Edge: The Military Tech Nexus and the Sources of Great Power Dominance". Jones argues that the United States is on a trajectory toward failure in deterring major adversaries like China, because our Defense Industrial Base operates on a peacetime footing, despite escalating global threats.

The book demonstrates how the United States, and certain innovative companies, have been critical to industrial production from the 1930's to today. Examples of traditional defense companies that innovated were Boeing with its B-29 bomber, and Lockheed Skunk Works' development of stealth fighters and other cool jets (U-2 Dragon Lady, SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Nighthawk). It includes coverage of modern engineers and entrepreneurs in the defense sector that are having an impact today as well, like Elon Musk of SpaceX/Starlink and Palmer Luckey of Anduril. And it provides a good overview of the rise of China as a defense industrial power, concluding that China is fully on a “wartime footing”.

One marker of the U.S.'s peacetime footing is low spending on defense as a percentage of GDP. Currently around 3.5% is budgeted, whereas often in wartime spending has ranged between 5-15%.

The younger peacenik libertarian in me would have balked at the implication that we need to spend more on defense and weapons and bombs and fighter jets and drones and the like. Because clearly no one has attacked us. Right?

But China and the U.S. are in a Trade War already. And China has threatened (promised) to eventually take Taiwan. And with AI and Chips so vital to our economy we could not afford to lose TSMC in Taiwan or expect to thrive with production of chips suspended for a long time. Samsung and Intel seem unlikely to take the throne and US-based TSMC production is a sliver of what is consumed currently.

So there may be a "there there" when it comes to all this wartime footing talk.

The U.S. just recently reauthorized manufacturing of TNT on U.S. soil after four decades of not making any. Odd to think about how America wasn't making its own TNT... It sounds obvious that you'd want to make your own, or not have your (potential) enemies make 100% of such materiel for you, right? (Congrats to Repkon USA of Graham, Kentucky for winning the contract!)

Reading Craig Tindale's Substack would have one believe we are on the brink of total catastrophe not having enough scandium for our aluminum-scandium alloys to build military drones, or enough antimony for our munitions, outside of what is produced by China. But what is an individual to do here?

You could invest in Sumitomo Metals of Japan that makes some few tons of Scandium per year, or Perpetua Resources of Idaho that is reopening an old Antimony mine soon™, or buy one of the two American public rare earths companies. But these stock bets are like a monkey throwing darts blindfolded. Throw a thousand, and one may hit a bullseye, sure. But what should the real takeaways be for an American reading the Tindale's and the Seth Jones' of the world?

To be honest, I am not entirely sure yet. But it helps to write out the precepts, I believe...

These are the partially-formed concepts, the starting points I have now, that I never could have imagined possessing in my 20's:

1. War is a fact of life. It ebbs and flows over the decades in a given region of the world.
2. The Nature of War also shifts over time, adding new dimensions while old approaches remain. See the shift from 'maneuver warfare' to 'asymmetric warfare' to 'cyber/psychological warfare' (5GW).
3. It helps to have a balanced perspective about what is possible and what is rational to expect may happen in the course of world events.
4. Decisions are not made in a vacuum, but are heavily constrained by the exigencies of the time, as well as the operative cultural and political frameworks of the parties involved. Consider: Why were Atlantic-Consensus types so shocked by Putin's intrusion into Ukraine? "Was his country not a massive beneficiary of Globalization?" (See: School of War episode #272: "Beatrice Heuser on Why Leaders Make Bad Decisions")
5. Be prepared. Balance financial, emotional, relationship and physical health and preparedness. When the volume gets turned way up, consider an Information Diet to quiet the Noise. Find trusted Signals to get critical information without getting overloaded. Control what you can, which is primarily yourself.
6. Consider that Nations may at times be charged with a "Duty" to shore up and consolidate resources, control prices and markets, and build industrial defense capacity. This may blunt economic growth and interfere with economic and technical development in other areas for between a few years and upwards of multiple decades.
7. Be glad if you don't live in a Command Economy and enjoy relative Free Speech and Private Property.
8. Deterrence is almost universally better than All-Out War. Having America as the world's greatest Superpower with overwhelming dominance in all key domains can serve to prevent war from breaking out. If China gains much more ground militarily, then the risk of something like a Taiwan invasion increases dramatically.
9. The need to build overwhelming wartime ability and capacity does not lessen the need for accountability and oversight, or the need to critically examine U.S. interventions abroad. Might does not make Right. But, with that said, weakness invites attack. So at times it will be necessary to shift to a wartime footing.
10. Shifting to a wartime footing entails a lot of cultural and political change, which some are not fit to handle. (They are psychologically fragile, so they won't handle it well. We should be ready for this too.) Stay adaptable.

Additional Resources:

• The Alexander Hamilton Society, Recalibrating the Defense Industrial Base for Systems Competition: https://alexanderhamiltonsociety.org/security-strategy/issue-five/recalibrating-the-defense-industrial-base-for-systems-competition/ – "Experts estimate that the window to meaningfully transform the defense industrial base may be just three to five years—well within potential timelines for heightened tensions over Taiwan."
• Dangerous Intellectuals, Episode 19: Deception Detected: Kit Perez on Critical Thinking in Threat-Filled Times: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-dangerous-intellectuals-th-298835716/episode/episode-19-deception-detected-kit-perez-318118736/
• Dangerous Intellectuals, Episode 20: Agent X: Ghost in the Machine – Decoding the Storm: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-dangerous-intellectuals-th-298835716/episode/episode-20-agent-x-ghost-in-319378795/
• Center for Strategic & International Studies: Critical Minerals and the Future of the U.S. Economy: https://www.csis.org/analysis/critical-minerals-and-future-us-economy – PDF report: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2025-02/250210_Baskaran_Critical_Minerals.pdf?VersionId=Tfu2TnNrQGlN7ol8HSCakMUT8HTwYukd
• Center for Strategic & International Studies: Putting the Industrial Base on a Wartime Footing: https://www.csis.org/analysis/putting-industrial-base-wartime-footing

AI;DR: (AI; Didn't Read) -- Sometimes life surprises you and a week feels like a decade. This is true in markets and in real life too.

The content below was written 95% by ChatGPT 5.2 Thinking.

ORIGINAL PROMPT: Discuss real life examples of Heteroskedasticity as observed in markets, episodes of "High Vol-of-Vol" and how various asset classes performed during those periods. End with application to other areas of life, considering Lenin's famous line "There are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen."

INSPIRED BY: "Volatility is not constant over a year" concept from "Nvidia Stock Crash Prediction": entropicthoughts.com/nvidia-stock-crash-prediction  

Heteroskedasticity is the statistical name for a simple market truth: The size of tomorrow’s move depends on what today feels like. In calm regimes, returns arrive in small, fairly even increments; in stressed regimes, the distribution “breathes,” with fat tails, bigger gaps, and volatility that clusters. Markets are not merely noisy – they are unevenly noisy, and the variance itself behaves like a state variable.

Real-life Examples of Heteroskedasticity in Markets

The most familiar example is equities. Daily stock-index returns are not independent draws from a fixed-variance process; they arrive in bursts. After a surprise macro print, a policy shock, or a liquidity event, large moves tend to be followed by large moves (of either sign), while tranquil periods can persist for weeks. This is heteroskedasticity as lived experience: “Quiet” days are informative because they often beget more quiet, and “loud” days rarely come alone.

FX shows the same pattern, but often around discrete catalysts: Central-bank decisions, pegs breaking, elections, or sudden terms-of-trade shifts. A currency can trade in a narrow band for months, then reprice violently in a few sessions – variance that is conditional on regime.

Rates markets are a particularly clean laboratory. When inflation expectations are anchored and central-bank reaction functions are well understood, yields drift with modest day-to-day changes; when the path of policy becomes uncertain (or the term premium is reawakened), realized volatility jumps and stays elevated. Credit spreads are similarly heteroskedastic: Tight spreads and low dispersion can persist, but once defaults, downgrades, or funding stress re-enter the conversation, spread volatility and correlation across issuers rise sharply.

“High Vol-of-Vol” Episodes: When Uncertainty about Uncertainty Spikes

Volatility itself is tradable (options), so markets also reveal a second layer: Volatility of volatility – how unstable implied volatility is from day to day. Traders often proxy this in equities with the VIX (level of implied vol) and measures like VVIX (vol-of-vol). “High vol-of-vol” tends to appear when investors cannot even agree on the distribution of outcomes – only that it is unstable – so option prices and skews reprice repeatedly.

2008–2009: Deleveraging and balance-sheet stress

The Great Financial Crisis was a canonical high-vol-of-vol regime. Equity volatility stayed high and whipped around as policy interventions alternated between reassurance and fresh concern. Cross-asset correlations surged: Diversification benefits that looked reliable in backtests weakened right when they were most needed.

Typical performance pattern: Equities and credit sold off hard; high-yield underperformed investment-grade; funding-sensitive strategies (levered carry, relative value) struggled; high-quality government bonds often rallied as a safe haven and as expectations of growth collapsed; the dollar tended to strengthen in global stress (via funding demand), while commodities generally weakened with growth fears.

August 2011 and other “policy credibility” scares

When the market’s question is “Who is in control? Politicians, central banks or the tape?”, implied vol can jump and then reprice repeatedly as headlines arrive. Here, vol-of-vol isn’t just about bad outcomes; it’s about shifting narratives and discontinuous probability updates.

In August 2011, markets were rocked by the U.S. debt-ceiling standoff (all-too familiar at this point, no?) and the August 5, 2011 S&P downgrade of U.S. sovereign credit, alongside escalating Eurozone sovereign-debt fears, which together triggered a sharp global equity selloff and a surge in volatility. Despite the downgrade, investors largely fled into U.S. Treasuries and other “safe” assets as risk appetite collapsed.

Typical performance pattern: Risk assets wobble; defensives outperform cyclicals; quality and liquidity command a premium; government bonds and reserve currencies often benefit, though the exact winners depend on who is perceived as the credible safe haven.

February 2018: Volatility products and mechanical feedback

A more technical episode: Volatility rose and then volatility of volatility rose as systematic strategies and short-vol structures were forced to adjust. The key feature wasn’t only fundamentals but market microstructure – positioning, convexity, and gamma effects.

Typical performance pattern: Sharp equity drawdown in a short window; implied vol spikes; strategies short convexity (short options, certain risk-parity implementations under stress) face abrupt losses; high-quality bonds can help if the shock is not simultaneously inflationary.

March 2020: “Everything all at once,” plus liquidity fractures

This was a high-vol-of-vol moment where both fundamentals (pandemic uncertainty) and plumbing (liquidity, margin, funding) mattered. Investors repriced growth, default risk, and correlation assumptions almost daily.

Typical performance pattern: Equities fell quickly; credit spreads widened dramatically; some safe havens worked (high-quality sovereign duration ultimately helped), but there were intervals where “dash for cash” dynamics caused unusual co-moves; gold and the dollar displayed stress-driven behavior rather than a single, tidy narrative; commodities tied to mobility and growth were hit especially hard.

2022: Inflation uncertainty and rates volatility as the “center of gravity”

When inflation is the primary uncertainty, rates volatility can become the engine that drives everything else. In that environment, the classic stock–bond diversification can fail because rising yields are not a “growth shock hedge” but the shock itself.

Typical performance pattern: Both equities and longer-duration bonds can decline together; credit suffers from both widening spreads and higher discount rates; the dollar can be strong; commodities may outperform if they are part of the inflation impulse, though dispersion across commodities can be huge.

What High Vol-of-Vol Teaches Us about Asset-Class Behavior

Across these episodes, a few recurring truths show up:

Correlation is conditional. In tranquil periods, asset classes appear diversifying; in stress, correlations often rise because the shared factor becomes liquidity and risk appetite, not idiosyncratic fundamentals.

Convexity is expensive for a reason. Options feel “overpriced” right up until they don’t. High vol-of-vol is the market’s reminder that protection is not about predicting the event; it’s about surviving the regime shift.

Liquidity is an asset class. During high vol-of-vol, instruments that trade continuously with deep markets (cash, on-the-run sovereigns) gain a premium relative to less liquid credit, small caps, certain EM exposures, and complex structured products.

The driver matters: growth shock vs inflation shock vs plumbing shock. A growth scare often helps duration; an inflation scare can hurt it; a funding/liquidity shock can temporarily distort everything.

Application Beyond Markets: Why There Are "Weeks Where Decades Happen”

Lenin's famous line "There are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen" is essentially heteroskedasticity in human time. Most weeks are low-variance: Routines dominate, surprises are small, memory compresses. Then a high-variance week arrives – a health scare, a breakup, a layoff, a move, a crisis – and the “variance of outcomes” expands. Decision-making becomes more fragile, second-order uncertainty rises (“I don’t even know what next week looks like”), and you experience something like personal vol-of-vol: not just intense events, but rapidly changing expectations about what is possible.

The practical takeaway mirrors risk management. In calm periods, build slack, skills and resilience: Sleep, savings, relationships, accuracy, fitness, etc. Calm itself does not cause storms, but it is the only time you can cheaply prepare for them. And in the storm weeks, judge yourself by your robustness rather than optimization: Smaller plans, shorter horizons, fewer irreversible decisions. Markets call it surviving a regime shift; life calls it getting through a decade-long week.

Remember: Perfection is the enemy of the Good.

From the dotcom peak in 2000 to today, the price of the S&P 500 index has risen on average 5.9% per year.

With dividends reinvested, e.g. via the SPY ETF, the total return increases to 8.41% CAGR.

This is a great return, despite starting at a then "exuberant" peak. Especially considering that the M2 money supply has grown by 6.2% per year over that same period of time.

Subtracting the CAGR of M2 over that period of time, we can derive a type of "Real Return" for the SPY ETF (with dividends reinvested, of course). We simply subtract from our 8.41% the 6.2% average growth in M2 per year, in order to end up at our Real CAGR of 2.21% for SPY.

But how does that compare to gold? We could use GLD (or PHYS) nowadays, but these ETFs didn't exist back at the turn of the Millenium. However if you held physical gold from the dotcom peak in 2000 to today in January, 2026, you would have earned a total return of 10.78% CAGR.  

Subtracting out the M2 money supply growth, your Real CAGR in gold was 4.58%!

So is GLD the best SPY? That is to say, does GLD best SPY? Over the last 26 years, it did, indeed.

Of course this doesn't tell us what will happen over the next 26 years. It says a lot about monetary metals, but it really says more about how anemic real growth has been in American Public Equities. Think about it. All that innovation that we've seen. Cell phones, the internet, smart phones, computers getting faster and more affordable, commodity off the shelf servers taking over from mainframes, software development changes, huge growth in open source software, and now large language models and other machine learning breakthroughs. A lot has changed. But to be honest, I would have expected more than 2.2% real growth for all that work. It's almost as if stocks were the economy, and we had to keep printing massive amounts of money to keep them going up... (Can't be, can it?)

In the meantime, if you just sat on your pile of shiny yellow metal, you'd have outperformed all of this by more than 2X!

These days I believe less and less in the miraculous breakthroughs that we've been promised are just around the corner. I doubt we will invent Artificial General Intelligence that makes humans obsolete, or Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computers that can break widely used public-key encryption by running algorithms like Shor's at scale.

Both of these types of problems require orders of magnitude better technology and engineering, and multiple breakthroughs.

For AGI, it's things like improvements in training/inference/energy efficiency, and the development of durable memory with stable performance over long tasks for LLMs (e.g. into days and weeks). We don't just need a better model to get to the point where an "AGI" could become an expert in and soon dominate major fields like manufacturing, R&D, coding and defense all together. It would require a new paradigm of reliable closed-loop autonomy. As fast as LLMs and MCPs and tooling around these things has improved, it doesn't approximate Artificial General Intelligence that is truly and independently Smart.

For Quantum Computing, we'll need to move from a paradigm of “many noisy qubits” to one of many reliable logical qubits. We'll need to reduce error correction overhead by orders of magnitude. Then we'll need to overcome crosstalk, correlated noise, leakage, and parameter drift, i.e. “death by a thousand cuts” failure modes, in order to scale the systems sufficiently enough to matter. And don't forget about the control stack, which needs to scale and improve: RF/microwave lines, DAC/ADC, filtering, amplification, shielding, synchronization. And finally there's the industrial problem of repeatedly fabricating the millions of components needed with very tight tolerances. Basically, we need unprecedented process control and automation. So that's probably more than 26 years away.

But I am sure both of these fields will be pursued and funded and hyped relentlessly over this next quarter century. You might even find profitable work in one of these areas. But to say that you are going to become rich investing in the companies that are grinding away spending billions and trillions trying desperately to bend or break real physical and economic laws of the universe sounds foolhardy. You might do well. But maybe you should hold some gold and silver just in case...

After all, just as there is no guarantee of precious metals' continued outperformance, there is no guarantee that the Top 500 Public Companies stock index continues to outpace the expansion of the money supply.

If you were entering markets today and had the choice of any set of ETFs, but had to lock in your choice for the next 25 years, I would tell you to go 50/50 into SPY and PHYS (Sprott's Physical Gold Trust ETF).

Half US Large Cap Stocks, Half Gold. It's elementary, my dear Watson!

Good Luck!

Patty Wellborn – October 30, 2025
Original Article: https://news.ok.ubc.ca/2025/10/30/ubco-study-debunks-the-idea-that-the-universe-is-a-computer-simulation

New study uses logic and physics to definitively answer one of science's biggest questions

In the film The Matrix, about a computer-simulated world, the red and blue pills symbolize a choice the hero must make between illusion and the truth of reality.

It’s a plot device beloved by science fiction: our entire universe might be a simulation running on some advanced civilization’s supercomputer.

But new research from UBC Okanagan has mathematically proven this isn’t just unlikely—it’s impossible.

Dr. Mir Faizal, Adjunct Professor with UBC Okanagan’s Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, and his international colleagues, Drs. Lawrence M. Krauss, Arshid Shabir and Francesco Marino have shown that the fundamental nature of reality operates in a way that no computer could ever simulate.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics, go beyond simply suggesting that we’re not living in a simulated world like The Matrix. They prove something far more profound: the universe is built on a type of understanding that exists beyond the reach of any algorithm.

“It has been suggested that the universe could be simulated. If such a simulation were possible, the simulated universe could itself give rise to life, which in turn might create its own simulation. This recursive possibility makes it seem highly unlikely that our universe is the original one, rather than a simulation nested within another simulation,” says Dr. Faizal. “This idea was once thought to lie beyond the reach of scientific inquiry. However, our recent research has demonstrated that it can, in fact, be scientifically addressed.”

The research hinges on a fascinating property of reality itself. Modern physics has moved far beyond Newton’s tangible “stuff” bouncing around in space. Einstein’s theory of relativity replaced Newtonian mechanics. Quantum mechanics transformed our understanding again. Today’s cutting-edge theory—quantum gravity—suggests that even space and time aren’t fundamental. They emerge from something deeper: pure information.

This information exists in what physicists call a Platonic realm—a mathematical foundation more real than the physical universe we experience. It’s from this realm that space and time themselves emerge.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The team demonstrated that even this information-based foundation cannot fully describe reality using computation alone. They used powerful mathematical theorems—including Gödel’s incompleteness theorem—to prove that a complete and consistent description of everything requires what they call “non-algorithmic understanding.”

Think of it this way. A computer follows recipes, step by step, no matter how complex. But some truths can only be grasped through non-algorithmic understanding—understanding that doesn’t follow from any sequence of logical steps. These “Gödelian truths” are real, yet impossible to prove through computation.

Here’s a basic example using the statement, “This true statement is not provable.” If it were provable, it would be false, making logic inconsistent. If it’s not provable, then it’s true, but that makes any system trying to prove it incomplete. Either way, pure computation fails.

“We have demonstrated that it is impossible to describe all aspects of physical reality using a computational theory of quantum gravity,” says Dr. Faizal. “Therefore, no physically complete and consistent theory of everything can be derived from computation alone. Rather, it requires a non-algorithmic understanding, which is more fundamental than the computational laws of quantum gravity and therefore more fundamental than spacetime itself.”

Since the computational rules in the Platonic realm could, in principle, resemble those of a computer simulation, couldn’t that realm itself be simulated?

No, say the researchers. Their work reveals something deeper.

“Drawing on mathematical theorems related to incompleteness and indefinability, we demonstrate that a fully consistent and complete description of reality cannot be achieved through computation alone,” Dr. Faizal explains. “It requires non-algorithmic understanding, which by definition is beyond algorithmic computation and therefore cannot be simulated. Hence, this universe cannot be a simulation.”

Co-author Dr. Lawrence M. Krauss says this research has profound implications.

“The fundamental laws of physics cannot be contained within space and time, because they generate them. It has long been hoped, however, that a truly fundamental theory of everything could eventually describe all physical phenomena through computations grounded in these laws. Yet we have demonstrated that this is not possible. A complete and consistent description of reality requires something deeper—a form of understanding known as non-algorithmic understanding.”

The team’s conclusion is clear and marks an important scientific achievement, says Dr. Faizal.

“Any simulation is inherently algorithmic—it must follow programmed rules,” he says. “But since the fundamental level of reality is based on non-algorithmic understanding, the universe cannot be, and could never be, a simulation.”

The simulation hypothesis was long considered untestable, relegated to philosophy and even science fiction, rather than science. This research brings it firmly into the domain of mathematics and physics, and provides a definitive answer.

SOURCE:

• The University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus: https://news.ok.ubc.ca/2025/10/30/ubco-study-debunks-the-idea-that-the-universe-is-a-computer-simulation/

Original Study: Consequences of Undecidability in Physics on the Theory of Everything

July 29, 2025
Mir Faizal, Lawrence M. Krauss, Arshid Shabir, Francesco Marino

ABSTRACT

General relativity treats spacetime as dynamical and exhibits its breakdown at singularities. This failure is interpreted as evidence that quantum gravity is not a theory formulated within spacetime; instead, it must explain the very emergence of spacetime from deeper quantum degrees of freedom, thereby resolving singularities. Quantum gravity is therefore envisaged as an axiomatic structure, and algorithmic calculations acting on these axioms are expected to generate spacetime. However, Gödel's incompleteness theorems, Tarski's undefinability theorem, and Chaitin's information-theoretic incompleteness establish intrinsic limits on any such algorithmic programme. Together, these results imply that a wholly algorithmic "Theory of Everything" is impossible: certain facets of reality will remain computationally undecidable and can be accessed only through non-algorithmic understanding. We formalize this by constructing a "Meta-Theory of Everything" grounded in non-algorithmic understanding, showing how it can account for undecidable phenomena and demonstrating that the breakdown of computational descriptions of nature does not entail a breakdown of science. Because any putative simulation of the universe would itself be algorithmic, this framework also implies that the universe cannot be a simulation.

SOURCE: Consequences of Undecidability in Physics on the Theory of Everything

• HTML: https://arxiv.org/html/2507.22950v1
• Abstract: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22950

FULL TEXT

Abstract

General relativity treats spacetime as dynamical and exhibits its breakdown at singularities. This failure is interpreted as evidence that quantum gravity is not a theory formulated within spacetime; instead, it must explain the very emergence of spacetime from deeper quantum degrees of freedom, thereby resolving singularities. Quantum gravity is therefore envisaged as an axiomatic structure, and algorithmic calculations acting on these axioms are expected to generate spacetime. However, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, Tarski’s undefinability theorem, and Chaitin’s information-theoretic incompleteness establish intrinsic limits on any such algorithmic programme. Together, these results imply that a wholly algorithmic “Theory of Everything” is impossible: certain facets of reality will remain computationally undecidable and can be accessed only through non-algorithmic understanding. We formalize this by constructing a “Meta-Theory of Everything” grounded in non-algorithmic understanding, showing how it can account for undecidable phenomena and demonstrating that the breakdown of computational descriptions of nature does not entail a breakdown of science. Because any putative simulation of the universe would itself be algorithmic, this framework also implies that the universe cannot be a simulation.

Physics has journeyed from classical tangible “stuff” to ever deeper layers of abstraction. In Newtonian mechanics reality consists of point-like masses tracing deterministic trajectories in an immutable Euclidean space with a universal time parameter Landau1976. This picture sufficed for celestial mechanics and terrestrial dynamics, yet its very foundations, including the separability of space and time and the notion of absolute simultaneity, were overturned by Einstein’s special relativity. By welding space and time into a single Lorentzian continuum, special relativity replaced Newton’s rigid arena with an observer-dependent spacetime geometry whose interval, not time or space separately, is invariant Rindler1977.

Quantum mechanics introduced a second conceptual revolution: even with a fixed spacetime backdrop, the microscopic world resists classical deterministic descriptions. Wave functions evolve unitarily, but measurement outcomes are inherently probabilistic, encoded in the Born rule and constrained by complementarity and uncertainty principles Sakurai2017. When the relativistic requirement of locality is imposed on quantum theory, particles cease to be fundamental. Instead, quantum field theory (QFT) elevates fields to primary status; “particles” emerge from those fields via creation and annihilation operators acting on the vacuum state Srednicki2007. Here the vacuum is itself a seething medium. Time-dependent boundary conditions in superconducting wave-guides emulate moving mirrors and catalyse the dynamical Casimir effect, producing real particles from vacuum fluctuations Wilson2011. Likewise, an accelerated observer perceives the Minkowski vacuum as a thermal bath via the so-called the Unruh effect, emphasizing that particle content is observer-dependent rather than absolute Crispino2008. These phenomena confirm QFT: what we call a particle is contingent on both the quantum state of quantum fields and even the kinematics of the detector. Thus, particles moving in spacetime become a contingent structure, yet spacetime remains fundamental and fixed.

All these theories presuppose a fixed background spacetime. General relativity (GR), by contrast, is a theory of spacetime itself. It accurately describes phenomena from Mercury’s perihelion precession to the direct detection of gravitational waves Einstein1915; Abbott2016. Nevertheless, GR predicts curvature singularities at the center of black holes and at the big bang, where the spacetime description of reality breaks down Penrose1965; Hawking1970. Singular behavior of this sort is not unique to gravity; it signals the breakdown of any effective model once its underlying degrees of freedom are pushed beyond their domain of validity Arnold92; Berry2023. Classical fluid discontinuities, for example, correspond to curvature singularities of an acoustic metric and are smoothed out in a full quantum-hydrodynamic treatment Faccio2016; Braunstein:2023jpo.

Thus, it is expected that curvature singularities in GR will also be removed in a full quantum theory of gravity. These singularities do not indicate a breakdown of physics, but the breakdown of a spacetime description of nature. Instead, it is presumed the physics of a quantum theory of gravity will not break down, even in such extreme conditions. Candidate quantum gravity frameworks likewise remove curvature singularities. Loop quantum cosmology replaces the big bang singularity with a big bounce Bojowald2001; Ashtekar2006, while the fuzzball paradigm in string theory substitutes extended microstate geometries for point-like singularity at the center of black holes Mathur2005; Mathur2008. More broadly, both loop quantum gravity and string theory depict spacetime as emergent: spin-foam models build it from discrete quantum structures Perez2013, and the doubled-geometry formalism of double field theory introduces T-folds whose transition functions involve T-duality rather than ordinary diffeomorphisms, showing that classical spacetime may fail to be well defined at some points Hohm2010; Hull2005.

These insights resonate with Wheeler’s “it from bit” programme and its modern versions in both string theory Jafferis:2022crx; VanRaamsdonk:2020ydg and loop quantum gravity Makela:2019vgf, which propose that information is more fundamental than physical reality consisting of spacetime and quantum fields defined on it Wheeler1990. Singularities in classical models then mark precisely those regions where the informational degrees of freedom can no longer be captured by a spacetime geometry. Although the emergent “it” spacetime with its quantum fields fails at singularities, one might hope that the underlying “bit”, a complete quantum-gravity theory, could be formulated as a consistent, computable “theory of everything.” However, we now argue that that such a purely algorithmic formulation is unattainable.

As we do not have a fully consistent theory of quantum gravity, several different axiomatic systems have been proposed to model quantum gravity Witten:1985cc; Ziaeepour:2021ubo; Faizal2024; bombelli1987spacetime; Majid:2017bul; DAriano:2016njq; Arsiwalla:2021eao. In all these programs, it is assumed a candidate theory of quantum gravity is encoded as a computational formal system

Here, ℒQ​G a first-order language whose non-logical symbols denote quantum states, fields, curvature, causal relations, etc. ΣQ​G={A1,A2,…} is a finite (or at least recursively-enumerable) set of closed ℒQ​G-sentences embodying the fundamental physical principles. ℛalg the standard, effective rules of inference used for computations. They operationalise “algorithmic calculations”; we write ΣQ​G⊢algφ⟺φ is derivable from ΣQ​G via ℛalg. Crucially, spacetime is not a primitive backdrop but a theorem-level construct emergent inside models of ℱQ​G. Concrete mechanisms for which such geometry can emerge include dynamics in string theory Seiberg2006; Polchinski1998, entanglement in holography Jafferis:2022crx; VanRaamsdonk:2020ydg, and spin-network dynamics in LQG Perez2013; Rovelli2004; Makela:2019vgf.

Any viable ℱQ​G must meet four intertwined criteria: Effective axiomatizability; The number of axioms in ΣQ​G are finite. This ensures that proofs are well-posed. In fact, it is expected that spacetime can be algorithmically generated from this, and so it has to be computationally well defined Faizal2023; Braunstein:2023jpo. Arithmetic expressiveness; ℒQ​G can internally model the natural numbers with their basic operations. This is important as quantum gravity should reproduce calculations used for amplitudes, curvature scalars, entropy, etc in appropriate limits. Both string theory Polchinski1998; Green1987 and LQG Rovelli2004; Thiemann2007 satisfy this by reproducing GR and QM in appropriate limits. Internal consistency; no ΣQ​G⊢alg⊥. Strings secure this via anomaly cancellation Green1984; Polchinski1998; LQG via an anomaly-free constraint algebra Ashtekar1986; Rovelli2004. Empirical completeness; predictive all physical phenomena from the Planck scale to cosmology, and even resolves singularities.

The axiom set ΣQ​G is finite, arithmetically expressive and consistent. As a result, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems apply Godel1931; Smith2007. Here, we consider the algorithmic core of quantum gravity as a finite, consistent and arithmetically expressive formal system ℱQ​G=(ℒQ​G,ΣQ​G,ℛalg). Its deductive closure is the recursively enumerable set of theorems Th(ℱQ​G)={φ∈ℒQ​G∣ΣQ​G⊢ℛalgφ}, while the semantically true sentences are True⁡(ℱQ​G)={φ∈ℒQ​G∣ℕ⊧φ}. Thus, Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem asserts the strict containment Th⁡(ℱQ​G)⊊True⁡(ℱQ​G) Godel1931; Smith2007, guaranteeing the existence of well‑formed ℒQ​G-statements that are true but unprovable within the algorithmic machinery of ℱQ​G. Physically these Gödel sentences correspond to empirically meaningful facts—e.g., specific black‑hole microstates—that elude any finite, rule‑based derivation. Gödel’s second theorem deepens the impasse: the self‑referential consistency statement Con⁡(ℱQ​G)≡¬ProvΣQ​G⁡(⊥) cannot itself be proved by ℱQ​G without contradiction Godel1931; Smith2007. A purely computational theory of everything would therefore not be able to establish its own internal soundness. Tarski’s undefinability theorem further bars the construction of an internal truth predicate 𝖳𝗋𝗎𝗍𝗁​(x)∈ℒQ​G obeying ΣQ​G⊢ℛalg[𝖳𝗋𝗎𝗍𝗁(⌜φ⌝)↔φ] for all φ Tarski1933; Tarski1983; Faizal20241. So, a truth predicate for quantum gravity cannot be defined within the theory itself. Finally, Chaitin’s information‑theoretic incompleteness establishes a constant KℱQ​G such that any sentence S with prefix‑free Kolmogorov complexity K​(S)>KℱQ​G is undecidable in ℱQ​G chaitin1975theory; Chaitin2004; kritchman2010surprise. This bound caps the epistemic reach of algorithmic deduction by declaring ultra‑complex statements—inevitable in high‑energy quantum gravity—formally inaccessible.

Together, the Gödel–Tarski–Chaitin triad delineates an insurmountable frontier for any strictly computable framework. To attain a genuinely complete and self‑justifying theory of quantum gravity one must augment ℱQ​G with non‑algorithmic resources—an external truth predicate axioms, or other meta‑logical mechanisms—that transcend recursive enumeration while remaining empirically consonant with physics at the Planck scale. Although these limits restrict what can be known computationally, the Lucas–Penrose argument shows that non-algorithmic understanding can access truths beyond formal proofs lucas1961minds; Penrose2011; Penrose1990-PENTNM; hameroff2014consciousness; lucas_penrose_2023. Purely algorithmic deduction is therefore insufficient for a complete foundational account Faizal:2025gip.

To transcend these computations limitations, we adjoin an external truth predicate T​(x) and a non-effective inference mechanism ℛnonalg, enlarging the formal apparatus to

Here ΣT is an external, non-recursively-enumerable set of axioms about T. We write ΣT⊢nonalgφ precisely when T​(⌜​φ​⌝)∈ΣT. The external truth predicate axioms obey four intertwined conditions. (S1) Soundness for ℱQ​G: whenever T​(⌜​φ​⌝) is an axiom, φ holds in every model of the base theory. (S2) Reflective completeness: if φ is algorithmically derivable from ΣQ​G, then the implication φ→T​(⌜​φ​⌝) itself belongs to ΣT. (S3) Modus-ponens closure: T respects logical consequence, for T​(⌜​φ→ψ​⌝) together with T​(⌜​φ​⌝) entails T​(⌜​ψ​⌝). (S4) Trans-algorithmicity: the induced theory ThT={φ∣T​(⌜​φ​⌝)∈ΣT} is not recursively enumerable; sentences of arbitrarily high Kolmogorov complexity can still be T-true, exceeding the information bound KℱQ​G.

With these properties the external truth predicate certifies every Gödel sentence of ℱQ​G and can single out, for instance, concrete black-hole microstates that elude all algorithmic searches, thereby side-stepping the information-loss puzzle and illuminating Planck-scale dynamics. The non-algorithmic understanding encoded by ℛnonalg and ΣT thus supplies conceptual resources inaccessible to purely computational physics.

For clarity of notation: ΣQ​G is the computable axiom set; ℛalg comprises the standard, effective inference rules; ℛnonalg is the non-effective external truth predicate rule that certifies T-truths; ℱQ​G={ℒQ​G,ΣQ​G,ℛalg} denotes the computational core; and ℳToE={ℒQ​G∪{T},ΣQ​G∪ΣT,ℛalg∪ℛnonalg} denotes the full meta-theory that weds algorithmic deduction to an external truth predicate.

Crucially, the appearance of undecidable phenomena in physics already offers empirical backing for ℳToE. Whenever an experiment or exact model realises a property whose truth value provably eludes every recursive procedure, that property functions as a concrete witness to the truth predicate T​(x) operating within the fabric of the universe itself. Far from being a purely philosophical embellishment, ℳToE thus emerges as a structural necessity forced upon us by the physics of undecidable observables. Working at the deepest layer of description, ℳToE fuses algorithmic and non-algorithmic modes of reasoning into a single coherent architecture, providing the semantic closure that a purely formal system ℱQ​G cannot reach on its own. In this enriched setting, quantum measurements, Planck-scale processes, quantum-gravitational amplitudes and cosmological initial conditions might all become accessible to principled yet non-computable inference, ensuring that no physically meaningful truth is left outside the scope of theoretical understanding. Just as Riemannian geometry, which describes general relativity, or gauge theories, which describe various interactions of the Standard Model, are each actualized in nature, this truth predicate T​(x) would also be actualized in nature.

The logical limitations reviewed above bear directly on several open questions in quantum gravity, beginning with the black-hole information paradox Almheiri2021. If the microstates responsible for the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy live at Planckian scales, where smooth geometry breaks down, Chaitin’s incompleteness theorem suggests that their detailed structure may forever lie beyond algorithmic derivation. In such circumstances, classical spacetime must re-emerge through a collective, effectively thermal, behaviour of microscopic degrees of freedom. Yet deciding whether a given many-body system thermalises is itself algorithmically undecidable Shiraishi2021. Here ℳToE becomes indispensable: by adjoining the external truth predicate T​(x) that certifies physically admissible yet uncomputable properties, the meta-theory legitimizes the passage from undecidable Planck-scale microphysics to the macroscopic notion of spacetime thermalization.

Thermalization already plays a central role in leading quantum-gravity models. In AdS/CFT, bulk perturbations relax into black-hole horizons whose thermodynamic parameters are sharply defined Chesler:2009cy; in the fuzzball paradigm, an ensemble of horizonless microstate geometries reproduces the Hawking spectrum Mathur:2005zp; and in LQG, coarse-graining drives discrete quantum geometries toward a classical continuum phase dittrich2020coarse. Because thermalisation is undecidable in the general many-body setting Shiraishi2021, each route from Planck-scale physics to smooth spacetime must contain steps that transcend algorithmic control. The non-algorithmic scaffold provided by ℳToE supplies precisely the logical footing required to keep such trans-computational steps consistent.

Computational undecidability likewise shadows other structural questions in many-body physics and hence in quantum gravity. No algorithm can decide in full generality whether a local quantum Hamiltonian is gapped or gapless cubitt2015undecidability; the proof embeds Turing’s halting problem turing1936computable, which links back to Chaitin’s theorem li1997introduction. Entire renormalization-group flows can behave uncomputably watson2022uncomputably, even though RG ideas underpin string-theoretic beta-functions Callan:1985ia, background-independent flows in LQG Steinhaus:2018 and continuum-limit programmes such as asymptotic safety and causal dynamical triangulations Litim:2004; Ambjorn:2005db. If generic RG trajectories defy algorithmic prediction, then translating fundamental quantum-gravity data into classical spacetime observables again lies beyond finite computation. By embedding these flows into ℳToE, one places them under a broader logical umbrella where non-computational criteria rooted in T​(x) can still certify physical viability.

Related undecidable sectors abound. Key properties of tensor networks ubiquitous in holography hayden2016holographic and LQG Dittrich:2011zh are formally uncomputable kliesch2014matrix. Deducing supersymmetry breaking in certain two-dimensional theories is undecidable tachikawa2023undecidable, influencing model building in string theory Green1984. Phase diagrams of engineered spin models encode uncomputable problems bausch2021uncomputability, and the mathematical kinship between such systems and LQG kinematics Feller:2015 hints at analogous intractabilities in the full phase structure of loop gravity. Each undecidable domain slots naturally into ℳToE, which extends explanatory reach beyond algorithmic barriers while maintaining logical coherence through its external truth predicate axioms.

These technical results respect rather than undermine the principle of sufficient reason amijee2021principle; leibniz1996discourse. The core demand of that principle is that every true fact must be grounded in an adequate explanation. This forms the basis of science. Gödel incompleteness, Tarski undefinability, and Chaitin bounds do not negate this demand; they merely show that “adequate explanation” is broader than “derivable by a finite, mechanical procedure.” In other words, the existence of true but unprovable ℒQ​G-sentences does not imply that those facts lack reasons, but only that their reasons need not be encoded syntactically within any recursively enumerable axiom set. The semantic external truth predicate T introduced above models such non-algorithmic grounding: it certifies truth directly at the level of the underlying mathematical structure, thereby supplying sufficient reasons that transcend the deductive reach of ΣQ​G. Thus, far from conflicting with the principle of sufficient reason, the logical limits on computation affirm it by revealing that explanatory resources extend beyond formal proof theory. So, a breakdown of computational explanations does not imply a breakdown of science.

Many undecidable statements encountered in physics ultimately trace back to the halting problem bennett1990undecidable, yet non-algorithmic understanding can still apprehend such truths Stewart1991. The Lucas–Penrose proposal that human cognition surpasses formal computation lucas1961minds; Penrose2011; Penrose1990-PENTNM; hameroff2014consciousness; lucas_penrose_2023 finds a mathematical expression in ℳToE, whose external truth predicate T​(x) certifies propositions that no algorithmic verifier can capture. In line with the orchestrated objective-reduction (OR) proposal, they claim that human observers can have a truth predicate because cognitive processes exploit quantum collapse, which is produced by the truth predicate of quantum gravity hameroff2014consciousness. This is why they argue that human mathematicians can apprehend Gödelian truths, whereas computers cannot.

Non-algorithmic reasoning already supplements GR through the Novikov self-consistency principle Friedman1990; novikov1989, which imposes a global logical constraint on spacetimes with closed timelike curves. By housing such meta-principles in ℳToE one side-steps Gödelian obstructions that would cripple a purely formal ℱQ​G. As quantum logic is itself undecidable vandenNest2008measurement; lloyd1993quantum, any proper wave-function–collapse mechanism must operate outside the algorithmic domain of the quantum mechanics. So, such dynamics naturally reside in the non-algorithmic ℳToE. Gravitationally induced objective-collapse proposals can therefore be interpreted as concrete instantiations of the ℳToE action on quantum states Penrose1996; Diosi1987. Here, the meta-layer supplies a non-algorithmic gravity-triggered collapse that is not derivable from ΣQ​G, but is nonetheless well-defined at the semantic level. A key advantage of using objective-collapse models might be cosmological: it could offer a explanation of the quantum-to-classical transition in cosmology, thereby addressing the measurement problem in quantum cosmology Gaona-Reyes:2024qcc.

A growing survey confirms that undecidability permeates diverse areas of physics peraleseceiza2024undecidabilityphysicsreview. These examples jointly reinforce the proposition that a quantum-gravity rooted solely in computation can be neither complete nor consistent, whereas augmenting it with the non-algorithmic resources encoded in ℳToE could restore explanatory power without losing logical soundness.

The claim that our universe is itself a computer simulation has been advanced in several forms, from Bostrom’s statistical “trilemma” Bostrom2003 to more recent analyses by Chalmers Chalmers2019 and Deutsch Deutsch2016. These proposals assume that every physical truth is reducible to the output of a finite algorithm executed on a sufficiently powerful substrate. Yet this assumption tacitly identifies the full physical theory with its computable slice ℱQ​G.

Our framework separates the computable fragment ℱQ​G from the non-algorithmic meta-layer ℳToE. Because ℳToE contains an external truth predicate T​(x) that by construction escapes formal verification, any finite algorithm can at best emulate ℱQ​G while systematically omitting the meta-theoretic truths enforced by T​(x). Consequently, no simulation could in principle reproduce what would otherwise be the full underyling structure of the physics of our universe. Our analysis instead suggests that genuine physical reality embeds non-computational content that cannot be instantiated on a Turing-equivalent device. Since it is impossible to simulate a complete and consistent universe, our universe is definitely not a simulation. As the universe is produced by ℳToE, the simulation hypothesis is logically impossible rather than merely implausible.

The arguments presented here suggest that neither ‘its’ nor ‘bits’ may be sufficient to describe reality. Rather, a deeper description, expressed not in terms of information but in terms of non-algorithmic understanding, is required for a complete and consistent theory of everything.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank İzzet Sakallı, Salman Sajad Wani, and Aatif Kaisar Khan for useful discussions. We would also like to thank Aatif Kaisar Khan for sharing with us an important paper on undecidability. Stephen Hawking’s discussion on Gödel’s theorems and the end of physics motivated the current work. We would also like to thank Roger Penrose for his exploration of Gödel’s theorems and the Lucas-Penrose argument, which forms the basis of meta-theoretical perspective based on non-algorithmic understanding.

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Good luck!

Twitter (X) is very addictive for me. This is a problem.

I can say I enjoy it, that I get value out of it. Some connections, insights, information, entertainment, tips, etc.

But I don't get real connection out of it. Not really. At least 99% of the time I don't.

I have forged some meaningful connections over the 10 years I've been on the platform, don't get me wrong. But most of those I care about are in other places now, like Signal Groups, which are MUCH healthier.

Chat rooms and such are okay, I think. Small groups with limited numbers of participants can be good or even great. Part of the reason is that there's less Identity Signaling there. People are more themselves when there are no structured dopamine hits to be sought after.

X feels like a Big Waste of Time

INSTEAD OF BEING PRODUCTIVE OR LIVING LIFE, I END UP WASTING TIME PLAY-ACTING AT BEING ONE OF VARIOUS "FLAVORS OF FAKE", LIKE:

• collector of based takes
• cause supporter
• outrage entrepreneur
• wittiness appreciator
• degen gambling enabler
• counterculture contrarian
• geopolitical pretender
• macro prognosticator
• cypherpunk larpist
• privacy head-nodder
• sound money chaotician

WHAT I WANT TO SEE AND EXPERIENCE MORE OF, TRULY, IS...

faith, beauty, art, culture,
agriculture, philosophy, freedom tech,
wisdom, inspiration, connection,
community, good faith testing of ideas,
means of promoting important causes, etc.

"DROP THE X. JUST _______. IT'S CLEANER."

"Impressions" of some of those things I cherish are available on Twitter. But at great cost to me personally. 99.5% of the posts are meaningless to me at best, and harmful to my mental health at worst.

Why should I have to spend 1000 hours on an increasingly Algo-driven Drivel-slop App in order to get out four mediocre hours and one good hour?

The truth is, I don't. I am much better off reading a book, working on my side project, spending time with loved ones and friends, journaling, researching topics of interest directly and independently, or taking a walk, instead of Dope-Scrolling chasing that X-Dragon some more.

Wish me luck!

NOTE: SENT TO THE PRESIDENT ON NOVEMBER 20, 2025 VIA whitehouse.gov/contact

Dear Mr. President,

Please consider granting a pardon to Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, the developers of the bitcoin app known as “Samourai Wallet”.

I voted for you in all three elections. I took heat for this from family and supposed friends who were convinced you were a bully or worse. I saw you at an in-person rally in 2016 and knew you were not. You told the story of the sneaky snake that deceived the naive woman and attacked her. You spoke truth to power and pointed out forces of darkness operating in our country.

In 2020, you were at the receiving end of those forces. The election was stolen from you. We saw them change the numbers. We faced censorship from the powers that be for speaking the truth about the steal.

In 2024, you were almost killed. I saw you stand up and yell "Fight!” and I thanked God. I believe our enemies are delusional or evil or both. You stand as a bulwark against that evil. For that you are an inspiration.

To your credit you came from outside of the system. I felt like an outsider as well. That is what drew me to technology and eventually bitcoin. It was meritocratic, disruptive and open.

Bitcoin opens a way for people outside the system to transact despite censors and chokepoints. It makes permissionless online commerce possible, whether in white, grey or black markets. You exonerated Ross Ulbricht of the Silk Road, so you know this. The freedom community is grateful for you making that situation right. It was unjust how Ross was punished.

It's vital for America to uphold Freedom and Justice. Let people live. If someone has broken the law, let it be proven to an impartial judge and jury. In this ideal form, America is a beacon for the rest of the world.

In reality today, I see that light greatly diminished. I refer to the treatment of developers of open source software for digital payments. In particular, I ask you to examine the treatment of the Samourai Wallet Developers, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill.

While you may not be a bitcoin user, I know you understand money. You once accepted a gold bar as payment for a real estate transaction. You know the value of peer-to-peer transactions and assets that don’t fade. Bitcoin is fixed in supply and unstoppable in transmission. The critical flaw for individuals who use it, however, is in its transparent ledger. I think you can appreciate this since your tax returns were leaked maliciously. Lack of privacy endangers us all.

Keonne and Bill found ways to help users spend bitcoin while obfuscating the origin of their coins. They helped users use bitcoin like it was cash exchanged behind closed doors. Just like your counterparty used gold for their lease deposit on 40 Wall Street in Manhattan in 2011, privately and with no middleman. That this can be done on bitcoin is tremendous for individual liberty and privacy.

The SDNY declared the Samourai Devs guilty of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmission business. What they actually did is publish open source code that let bitcoin users spend coins privately.

They never transmitted money. The app, which was on the Google Play Store for 9 years, was fully non-custodial. FinCEN blessed their non-custodial approach in their VASP guidance.

Keonne and Bill deserve a full pardon. The SDNY created an impossible situation for them. They were forced to plead guilty to the money transmission charge despite it being absurd on its face. This was a self-serve tool for users to spend bitcoin privately. They never took possession of anyone's bitcoin. These men now find themselves at the tip of the spear that is Operation Chokepoint 2.0.

For America to continue to lead the world and protect her citizens, we must reinforce the right for developers to write code confidently, without fear of retribution for the applications they build. Please help to re-enshrine “Code as Speech” as part of Free Speech by pardoning Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

>>> Visit billandkeonne.org today! <<<

AI;DR: (AI; Didn't Read) -- I doubt that Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computing will be developed within the next 50 years. I have read a decent amount of other people's thoughts about this topic, but was a bit too lazy to synthesize all the notes I had collected into a single coherent essay myself. So I outsourced my thinking to a machine.

The content below was written 95% by ChatGPT 5. Latest Addenda by Gemini Pro 3.1.

Satoshi's coins won't be stolen within your lifetime, most likely.

The concept of quantum computing has captured scientific and public attention for decades. It promises a new form of computation based on the principles of quantum mechanics, where information is encoded in quantum bits known as qubits. These qubits can exist in superposition and can become entangled, allowing quantum computers to perform certain tasks faster than classical computers. However, the practical development of large scale quantum computers that could break modern encryption remains far from reality.

Many experts and organizations have invested heavily in quantum research. Companies like Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon have all announced progress in creating small prototypes. Some predict useful quantum machines will appear within a few years, showing advantages in chemistry, materials science, or optimization. Yet, most of these claims refer to near term or hybrid systems and not to the large fault tolerant quantum computers necessary for breaking strong encryption like RSA 2048.

The major technical challenge lies in maintaining quantum coherence. Quantum states are fragile and lose coherence due to interaction with their environment. Maintaining coherence while operating on thousands or millions of qubits requires conditions of extreme precision and isolation. No experiment so far has achieved the stability needed to run deep quantum algorithms over long durations.

Another obstacle is error correction. Quantum error correction methods require many additional physical qubits to form a single logical qubit that can resist noise. Estimates suggest that millions of physical qubits would be needed to factor large integers such as those used in cryptographic keys. Currently, the largest systems contain only a few thousand noisy qubits, none of which form a fully error corrected logical unit.

Gate fidelity is also a limiting factor. A quantum computer performs operations called gates that manipulate qubits. These gates must act with extremely high accuracy because small errors accumulate through a computation. Present devices achieve single gate fidelities near 99.9 percent for specific conditions, but complex circuits require far greater stability. Any error above a small threshold renders long algorithms unreliable.

The hardware itself remains a major barrier. Quantum processors rely on superconducting circuits, trapped ions, photons, or topological effects. Each platform faces unique engineering problems. Scaling any of these approaches to millions of qubits would demand unprecedented advances in materials, manufacturing, and control electronics. Maintaining such systems at cryogenic temperatures and ensuring signal integrity across large networks is far beyond today’s capability.

Recent public demonstrations, such as Google's quantum supremacy experiment, show quantum devices performing specific sampling tasks faster than supercomputers. However, these tasks were not useful computations. They demonstrated hardware behavior rather than real algorithmic advantage. Such benchmarks do not imply progress toward useful quantum factoring or cryptographic attacks.

Skeptics argue that the field overstates its achievements. They point to the lack of progress in factoring even small numbers with general purpose quantum algorithms like Shor’s. Since the first demonstration of factoring the number 15 in the early 2000s, no larger or fully functional implementations have appeared. Critics claim that many demonstrations involve partial compilation or prior knowledge of the solution, which invalidates them as true computations.

Theoretical estimates suggest that breaking 2048-bit RSA encryption would require on the order of tens of millions of logical qubits and trillions of error free gate operations. To reach that level within fifty years (by 2075) would mean several orders of magnitude of improvement in coherence, error correction, and manufacturing. Even optimistic projections from major research groups do not foresee such capability within that time frame.

Some futurists anticipate breakthroughs in topological qubits or other exotic materials that could simplify error correction. These ideas remain speculative. No experiment has yet proven a stable topological qubit capable of scalable computation. If such a discovery occurred soon, new progress could follow, but nothing indicates it will arrive quickly.

A small number of scholars and engineers have questioned whether large scale quantum computation is possible in principle. They argue that real matter may not support the continuous precision required to manipulate quantum amplitudes accurately across huge state spaces. According to this view, control errors, correlated noise, and physical imperfections could make full scale quantum computing unachievable even in theory.

Most scientists remain cautiously optimistic but acknowledge that the timeline is uncertain. It is possible that small quantum devices will continue to serve in specific research fields such as quantum chemistry, materials modeling, or limited optimization tasks. These systems may offer valuable insights into physics itself but will not threaten public key cryptography.

If progress continues at the present pace, useful commercial quantum computers may appear in limited roles within two or three decades. Cryptographically relevant quantum computers, capable of undermining secure communications, are likely much farther in the future, if they ever arrive. The resources required to construct such machines are beyond foreseeable technology.

In summary, the expectations placed on quantum computing are far greater than what current science supports. Despite major investments and periodic announcements of progress, every significant barrier remains unresolved. Unless new physical phenomena or manufacturing methods are discovered, the dream of a machine that can break RSA 2048 encryption appears infeasible within our lifetime.

Sources:

• https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/quantum-computing-as-a-field-is-obvious-bullshit
• https://mattdf.xyz/why-quantum-computing-will-take-another-50-years
• https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.07629
• https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-case-against-quantum-computing
• https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-says-commercial-quantum-computing-applications-arriving-within-five-years-2025-02-05
• https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/a-game-plan-for-quantum-computing
• https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/building-quantum-advantage
• https://cacm.acm.org/news/a-quantum-leap-forward
• https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.04061

Addendum: March, 2026

Recent work has moved the benchmark beyond the old “15 or 21” examples, but not in a way that materially changes the conclusion about Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computers. A 2024 paper on quantum annealing reported the largest factorization problems yet encoded on a D-Wave annealer, up to a (21 x 12)-bit multiplier, and actual experimental runs on available hardware reached instances corresponding to numbers as large as (33,423,105 = 131,071 x 255), though this was done by mapping factoring into a specialized optimization problem rather than by running Shor’s algorithm on a fault tolerant gate based quantum computer. A separate 2024 preprint then pushed the announced annealing result to a 29-bit instance using a hybrid classical plus quantum approach, explicitly noting that this does not change the problem’s complexity class and mainly improves the practical packaging of small subproblems for present day annealers. In other words, the field has demonstrated better encodings, better embeddings, and somewhat larger toy demonstrations, but not the kind of scalable quantum factoring method that would threaten RSA 2048 in practice. (nature.com)

Over the next 25 to 50 years, the most reasonable expectation is that this line of work could produce stronger heuristic tools for optimization, better hybrid attacks on small or specially structured arithmetic problems, and perhaps useful preprocessing components inside larger classical cryptanalytic workflows. What it does not presently suggest is a credible annealing path to breaking large public keys at Internet scale. The real cryptographic threat still comes from fault tolerant gate model machines running Shor-type algorithms, and even there the discussion remains about enormous error corrected systems far beyond today’s hardware. So this new work is best understood as evidence that quantum annealing is becoming more technically sophisticated, not as evidence that Bitcoin Satoshi-era keys or RSA 2048 are about to become factorable. (arxiv.org)

References:

• Ding, Spallitta, Sebastiani et al., “Effective prime factorization via quantum annealing by modular locally-structured embedding,” Scientific Reports (2024). (nature.com)
• “Maximizing the practical achievability of quantum annealing attacks on factorization-based cryptography,” arXiv:2410.04956 (2024). (arxiv.org)
• Craig Gidney, “How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers with less than a million noisy qubits,” arXiv:2505.15917 (2025). (arxiv.org)

Addendum II: Late March, 2026

While the early March 2026 quantum annealing updates did not threaten RSA-2048, a separate wave of gate-model breakthroughs published just weeks later now forces a material reassessment of my 50-year timeline. The existential threat to cryptography has shifted entirely away from RSA and onto Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC-256), the standard that secures Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Because ECC relies on much smaller keys for the same level of classical security, it presents a drastically smaller quantum target. As researchers recently summarized, "ECC-256 requires roughly 100x fewer quantum operations to break than RSA-2048 at the same classical security level" [1].

By combining this smaller algorithmic footprint with new high-rate quantum error-correcting codes, researchers have shattered the "millions of physical qubits" assumption. A theoretical hardware architecture proposed by researchers from Oratomic, Caltech, and UC Berkeley demonstrates that "Shor’s algorithm can be executed at cryptographically relevant scales with as few as 10,000 reconfigurable atomic qubits" [1]. They project that by scaling up slightly to roughly 26,000 neutral-atom physical qubits, the algorithm could break ECC-256 in about 10 days [1].

Simultaneously, a whitepaper from Google Quantum AI mapped identical vulnerabilities for superconducting architectures, proving their circuits "can execute on a superconducting qubit CRQC with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits in a few minutes" [2].

However, before concluding that Satoshi's coins will be stolen tomorrow, we must contextualize these numbers within the strict physical and temporal realities of a cryptographic attack. There is a massive distinction between the time required to attack a dormant wallet versus the time required to intercept a live network transaction.

The Mempool "On-Spend" Window

To steal a live Bitcoin transaction, an attacker must execute an "on-spend" attack. When a user broadcasts a transaction, it sits unconfirmed in the public mempool for roughly 10 minutes before miners record it to the blockchain. During this window, the sender's public key is exposed. To intercept the funds, a quantum attacker must derive the private key, forge a redirect transaction, and submit it with a higher miner fee all before the 10-minute clock expires.

The Google whitepaper correctly identifies that only "fast-clock" architectures (like superconducting qubits) could act swiftly enough to execute these real-time attacks. Google estimates that "the first fast-clock CRQCs would enable 'on-spend' attacks on public mempool transactions" [2]. But crucially, achieving this speed requires abandoning high-compression, low-qubit algorithms. A January 2026 study by Kim et al. analyzed circuits optimized specifically for execution speed, finding that breaking an elliptic curve in 34 minutes would require an 19.1 million physical qubits, and extending that to 96 minutes would require roughly 6.9 million [8]. Therefore, a massive, million-qubit array was expected to be the minimum barrier to entry for the speed required to perform a mempool heist.

Homing in on "Slow-Clock Architecture" Targets

Conversely, the much smaller 26,000-qubit neutral-atom system proposed by Oratomic is a "slow-clock" architecture. Measuring its stabilizer cycles takes roughly 1 millisecond per step, extending the time to break a key out to 10 days [1]. A machine that takes a week and a half to solve a key cannot perform a 10-minute mempool heist. Its only viable targets would be exposing the keys of "dormant digital assets" with already-known public keys, such as early-era Satoshi wallets.

The Physics of Perfect Integration

Finally, we must distinguish theoretical minimums from functional hardware. Neutral atom arrays trapping upwards of 6,100 physical qubits already exist in laboratories today [1]. But perfectly integrating these innovations with deep-circuit coherence on a reliable, stable, fault-tolerant 26,000 qubit system is a monumental leap.

We know from a recent EUROCRYPT 2026 paper by the INRIA Rennes team (Chevignard et al.) that minimizing the qubit footprint requires a massive increase in the sheer volume of operations. They proved you can shrink the footprint for ECC-256 to just 1,098 logical qubits, but it requires executing upwards of 2^38.10 Toffoli gates [9]. Running Shor's algorithm at that depth for 10 consecutive days requires the quantum computer to execute billions of logical operations without a single uncorrectable error. The authors of the Oratomic paper openly acknowledge this gap, stating, "substantial engineering challenges remain" to integrate continuous large-scale trapping, universal operations, and high-rate magic state generation into one unified apparatus [1].

Takeaways

My previous 50-year estimate is now officially dead. The theoretical barrier to breaking ECC-256 has dropped from millions of qubits to tens of thousands, placing the physical hardware scale potentially within a 10-to-15 year horizon. However, successfully maintaining fault-tolerance for days on end to execute billions of gates and rob a dormant wallet, let alone building a multi-million physical qubit superconducting machine to rob in-flight active transactions in 10 minutes, ensures that the practical, existential threat to the crypto economy remains safely out of the immediate, near-term future.

Ranking of Bitcoin output and address types for long-term storage with quantum security in mind, assuming NO ADDRESS REUSE

Least suitable for quantum-conscious cold storage:

• Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) -- Prefix: none -- This early Bitcoin output type locks funds directly to a raw public key. If cryptographically relevant quantum computers are ever built, outputs of this type would be direct targets for Shor’s algorithm because the public key is already exposed on-chain.
• Pay-to-Taproot (P2TR) -- Prefix: bc1p -- Taproot outputs commit directly to a tweaked x-only public key rather than hiding it behind a hash until spend. That means dormant unspent outputs would also be direct targets for a future Shor-capable quantum attacker, making P2TR less attractive for very long-term cold storage if quantum risk is a primary concern.

Most suitable for quantum-conscious cold storage:

• Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash (P2PKH) -- Prefix: 1 -- This legacy format hides the public key behind a 160-bit HASH160 commitment until the output is spent. That public-key-hiding property is the main quantum-relevant advantage for long-term storage.
• Pay-to-Script-Hash (P2SH) -- Prefix: 3 -- Commonly used for older multisig and script-based wallets, P2SH hides the redeem script behind a 160-bit HASH160 commitment until spend. As with other hash-committed outputs, its primary quantum advantage is that spending details are not revealed while the coins remain dormant.
• Pay-to-Witness-Public-Key-Hash (P2WPKH) -- Prefix: bc1q -- Native SegWit single-key output type. Preserves the same key-hiding benefit as P2PKH while also improving transaction weight efficiency. For unspent outputs, the public key remains hidden until it is revealed in a spending transaction.
• Pay-to-Witness-Script-Hash (P2WSH) -- Prefix: bc1q, typically longer than P2WPKH -- Native SegWit script-based output type. Hides the witness script behind a SHA-256 commitment until spend and also benefits from SegWit’s transaction-weight advantages. Because it uses a 256-bit hash commitment instead of HASH160, it has a larger theoretical margin against Grover-style preimage search. However, this does not currently create a major practical quantum-security advantage over P2PKH, P2SH, or P2WPKH.

Bottom line:

For Bitcoin long-term storage under realistic quantum threat models, the dominant benefit is keeping the public key unrevealed until spend. On that dimension, P2PKH, P2SH, P2WPKH, and P2WSH all achieve the main protection. P2WSH’s 256-bit hashing provides a higher theoretical margin against Grover-style preimage attacks, but this distinction is secondary in practice. The main quantum concern remains Shor’s algorithm against already-exposed public keys.

References

1. Shor's algorithm is possible with as few as 10,000 reconfigurable atomic qubits: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.28627
2. Securing Elliptic Curve Cryptocurrencies against Quantum Vulnerabilities: Resource Estimates and Mitigations: https://quantumai.google/static/site-assets/downloads/cryptocurrency-whitepaper.pdf
3. How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers with less than a million noisy qubits: https://arxiv.org/html/2505.15917v1
4. The Post-Quantum Clock Is Already Ticking - And Almost Nobody Is Ready: https://coderlegion.com/12840
5. Google Urges Governments to Accelerate Quantum-Resistant Encryption Adoption: https://mlq.ai/news/google-urges-governments-to-accelerate-quantum-resistant-encryption-adoption-amid-imminent-threats
6. Q-Day Revisited – RSA-2048 Broken by 2030: Detailed Analysis: https://postquantum.com/q-day/q-day-y2q-rsa-broken-2030
7. A new era of quantum computing may pose threats closer than we think, Google warns: https://www.euronews.com/next/2026/03/27/a-new-era-of-quantum-computing-may-pose-threats-closer-than-we-think-google-warns
8. New Quantum Circuits for ECDLP: Breaking Prime Elliptic Curve Cryptography in Minutes: https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/106
9. Reducing the Number of Qubits in Quantum Discrete Logarithms on Elliptic Curves: https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/280
10. Bitcoin Address Types (Unchained): https://www.unchained.com/blog/bitcoin-address-types-compared

This post outlines PGP key practices through user scenarios and hardware-based options for Linux users, focusing on security and usability.

PGP Key Vignettes

Alex is a sales rep learning about Linux and encryption. He is dipping his toes in for the first time on using PGP for secure email. He uses Thunderbird on Ubuntu. He starts by installing GnuPG via sudo apt install gnupg and generates a key pair with gpg --full-generate-key, choosing a strong passphrase he stores in a password manager like KeePassXC. For safety, he backs up his key to an encrypted USB drive kept offline. To make daily use easy, he sets up Thunderbird's built-in OpenPGP support to handle encryption automatically after entering his passphrase once per session. Alex practices by sending test emails to himself, ensuring he never shares his private key and revokes it if his laptop is ever compromised.

Jordan is a Senior IT Admin at X/xAI who must safeguard his PGP keys like a fortress while signing and decrypting messages dozens of times a day. He runs RHEL and relies on GnuPG for core operations, generating subkeys with gpg --expert --full-generate-key so the master key stays on an air-gapped machine, offline in a secure locker. For usability, he pairs his setup with a YubiKey: after installing sudo dnf install yubikey-manager pcsc-lite gnupg2 yubikey-personalization, he transfers subkeys to the YubiKey using gpg --edit-key and card commands, enabling touch-to-confirm for each sign/decrypt action. This way, Jordan plugs in the YubiKey for quick, hardware-protected access via tools like gpg --card-status, rotating subkeys once a year with gpg --edit-key to revoke old ones — balancing ironclad protection with the speed needed for high-volume work.

Riley is an anonymous software dev building open-source crypto wallet software. He needs PGP to sign code releases and his APKs he compiles, and for communicating with his mutuals while protecting everyone's identity. Riley uses TAILS OS and GnuPG, creating keys anonymously via gpg --full-generate-key on the "amnesiac" live USB boot for isolation, so nothing is retained in RAM or on disk (unless he uses persistent encrypted storage), and no personal details are attached to his keys. He chooses to export his master key and revocation certificate to an encrypted external USB drive for offline storage, so nothing persists after shutdown. For top-tier protection, he has opted to use a NitroKey (installing the libraries needed with sudo apt update && sudo apt install nitrokey-app opensc pcscd libccid libpcsclite1 scdaemon). He loads his keys onto it with gpg --edit-key and card tools, requiring a PIN and touch confirmation for each use. When building wallet binaries, Riley uses GnuPG and signs his git commits with git config --global gpg.program gpg, talking to the NitroKey. Riley keeps everything air-gapped for sensitive tasks, backing up encrypted exports to multiple secure locations and using Tor for key and signature publication — ensuring anonymity and key integrity in his high-stakes crypto dev world.

Passphrases

When generating passphrases, use something like the diceware list with 7+ words, for example, to protect against offline cracking of the key file itself. This is most important for software-stored private keys. For hardware-stored keys, a PIN is typically used.

Other Options: Generating Keys on Hardware Devices

To generate PGP keys directly on a YubiKey on Debian Linux, first install prerequisites with sudo apt update && sudo apt install yubikey-manager pcscd gpg. Insert the YubiKey, reset the OpenPGP applet if needed via ykman openpgp reset, and set PINs with ykman openpgp access set-pin. Then, generate keys on-device using gpg --card-edit, entering admin mode with admin and running generate to create the master key and subkeys (e.g., RSA 4096-bit, or EdDSA with Curve25519). Export the public key with gpg --export --armor YOUR_KEY_ID > public-key.asc and pre-generate a revocation certificate via gpg --output revoke.asc --gen-revoke YOUR_KEY_ID; store these encrypted offline. Private keys remain secured on the device and aren't exportable. (You cannot recover your master private key from the device if lost!)

For a NitroKey on Debian, install dependencies using sudo apt update && sudo apt install nitrokey-app opensc pcscd libccid libpcsclite1 scdaemon. Insert the device and verify with nitrokey-app or nk-info. Initialize by setting PINs in the NitroKey app or via gpg --card-edit (use admin mode). Generate keys on-device in the GnuPG prompt with generate, specifying options like key type and size (e.g., RSA 4096-bit or EdDSA with Curve25519). Export the public key (gpg --export --armor YOUR_KEY_ID > public-key.asc) and create a revocation certificate (gpg --output revoke.asc --gen-revoke YOUR_KEY_ID), encrypting and storing them offline; private keys stay non-exportable on the hardware for security. (You cannot recover your master private key from the device if lost!)

Generating and storing PGP keys on hardware devices like YubiKey or NitroKey offers strong security by ensuring private keys never leave the secure element, protecting against software-based attacks or malware, but it introduces tradeoffs like the risk of total loss if the device is damaged, stolen, or fails, as keys can't be easily extracted. Recovery relies on revoking via pre-made certificates and regenerating from an offline master (if using subkeys), which can cause downtime. As an alternative backup strategy, you could provision identical subkeys on a second or third identical device (e.g., another YubiKey) using GnuPG's keytocard command after initial generation, storing these extras off-site in a secure location like a safe — providing redundancy without exposing keys digitally, though it adds cost and requires careful handling to avoid compromising multiple devices.

Best Practice for Best Security

Best practice is generating the master key fully offline on a secure airgapped computer, and then generating subkeys which can be used on your daily "online" computers (e.g., for software like Thunderbird) or copied over onto multiple hardware keys like YubiKey or NitroKey for convenience and redundancy. Subkeys can be replaced (with verifiability through a signature from the airgapped master key) as needed, if lost.

In practice, you should always generate revocation certificates upfront for both the master key and subkeys, and then encrypt them and store backups offline. This helps to avoid issues if any hardware fails or anything is stolen.

Distributing Your PGP Keys

For easy distribution, publish your public key using gpg --send-keys YOUR_KEY_ID to popular OpenPGP keyservers like keys.openpgp.org, pgp.mit.edu, or keyserver.ubuntu.com; alternatively, upload to Keybase for social-proof integration, ensuring others can easily find and verify your key.

Summary

These PGP strategies offer practical ways to secure keys for various needs, from basic email to high-stakes development, with hardware options improving protection when paired with revocation certificates and subkeys.

Addendum

• For those with the most to lose, consider that when sharing your PGP public key out to various sites (like public key servers), that some of them will log or retain IP addresses; Best do everything over Tor.
• Also consider keeping separate PGP keys for separate purposes; Don't reuse one key for multiple nyms.

Additional Resources

• Diverter: "As Easy as P, G, P" (Archived) - https://web.archive.org/web/20230208170414mp_/https://diverter.hostyourown.tools/as-easy-as-pgp/
• OpenKeychain (FOSS Android App): https://www.openkeychain.org/ ; https://github.com/open-keychain/open-keychain
• Dread /d/pgp "Best of" Collection: dreadytofatroptsdj6io7l3xptbet6onoyno2yv7jicoxknyazubrad[.]onion/post/536223499f033f4a873a – remove the [ and ] characters and navigate to it in Tor Browser

Google's new developer verification policy, though packaged as "security," erects digital barbed wire around Android's open frontier. For every leviathan institution applauding this gatekeeping, a thousand innovators and dissidents are silenced. What follows isn’t speculation — it’s tomorrow's graveyard of unborn tools.

Consider the Ramifications

In Singapore, Li Wei wants to build a zero-knowledge ballot auditing app. As a pseudonymous cypherpunk operating from a state with compulsory ID laws, he intends to help journalists verify elections without exposing sources. Verification demands would reveal his identity — and turn whistleblowers using his app into targets.

In Nigeria, Chidi wants to build a p2p Tether USDt wallet routing through decentralized exchanges. Trapped under capital controls where banks report transactions to authorities, he needs anonymity to help protest organizers keep control of their own funds without any unecessary PII leaks.

In Afghanistan, Fatima and Zahra want to build F-droid animal husbandry guides for predominatly illiterate shepards. Their situation: Denied IDs under Taliban rule and forbidden from official tech work by male guardians, their offline-first app offers science-based livestock care — a lifeline for struggling villages.

In Indonesia, Asep wants to build a labor-union app to help plan and coordinate strikes. Working in Jakarta’s palm oil industry, Asep wants to help others document wage theft through covert audio logs and cannot risk employer retaliation via state-linked ID databases.

In Thailand, Niran wants to build a Bluetooth panic-alert mesh for democracy rallies. Living under a monarchy where protest coordinators face sedition charges, his identity exposure through verification makes his family vulnerable to royalist militias.

In America, Jordan has been working on a new kind of network proxy app that can easily route traffic through multiple, potentially hostile ISPs on the most affordable stock-Android phones. As the architect of a next-gen Tor-type network, he requires absolute anonymity. If his adversaries subpoena Google, or simply hack into the centralized ID Verification databases to get his identity, his very life may be at stake, much less his new protocol.

In Japan, Kenji wants to build a salaryman privacy tool for scrubbing biometric data from workplace surveillance apps. As he is employed at a zaibatsu that requires full digital transparency, his moonlight project could cost him his career if it were linked to his ID.

In Sweden, Elin wants to build a GPS-free forest defender network for Sami reindeer herders. Activists resisting state-backed mining ops need detailed land-rights maps, which she can help others to piece together collaboratively. But she must avoid leaving any breadcrumbs that governments can easily pick up through app developer registries.

What Alternative Do Developers Have?

So what choice do these developers now have? They must now abandon their code, or move their projects onto other, less accessible platforms.

Li Wei’s auditing app might vanish into Signal chats or Progressive Web Apps (PWAs).

Chidi’s wallet prototype could become a "text guide" on Telegram, sure. But its impact is greatly reduced.

What about Fatima and Zahra’s animal care manuals? All they are left with is to revert to oral traditions. But their reach is now limited to their immediate vicinity (again).

Asep’s strike tool will surely die without the anonymity and option to simply distribute through sideloading now.

Niran’s protest mesh? It will collapse into whispered warnings and covert hand signals.

Jordan’s network proxy, meanwhile, will have to migrate to Raspberry Pi's, Linux Phones, and laptops and avoid Android entirely.

Kenji’s anti-surveillance tool will be dropped like a burner phone into a storm drain, left to rot in an anonymous Codeberg graveyard.

Elin’s land-mapping? She will need to surrender to and rely on corporate cartographers, who are unlikely to share her mission.

It is all well and good for Google to get endorsements for their new policy from banks and technocratic nation states, and claim to be supporting user security. But the policy in and of itself is fundamentally hostile to the frictionless innovation that Android once championed. The 2nd and 3rd order effects are clear if you spend more than 1 minute thinking about what will be lost.

If Google really puts the new policy into practice, it will be the dictators that win. The dissidents and pioneers will fade away, or remain in the dark for good.

The developerID "Know Your Developer" program isn’t accountability. It is a kill-switch for corporations and corrupt governments.

Google must reconsider. We need categorical carveouts for apps distributing open-source binaries (and APKs), privacy/security tools requiring operational anonymity, and non-commercial projects that are just getting started.

Please reconsider, Google.

Request To Readers

Please submit your own feedback at the link below. This is critical!

Android developer verification requirements

Use this form to submit questions or feedback about the new Android developer verification requirements announced in August 2025. You can learn more about the requirements in the Android developer verification guide. Sign up for early access here.

Google Docs

LINKS:

• https://web.archive.org/web/20250826090045/https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-android-security.html
• https://web.archive.org/web/20250826094228/developer.android.com/developer-verification

>> UPDATED on Sat Jul 12, 2025 at 05:38:00 UTC <<

view also as gist: https://gist.github.com/84adam/e130b40cff5915de67b86fc8e452c8aa

Ashigaru Whirlpool Security Analysis

Introduction to the Problem

The Ashigaru Whirlpool coordinator has faced significant scrutiny regarding its implementation of RSA blinding protections for Bitcoin coinjoins. These concerns were first raised in a Bitcoin Talk forum post titled "New ashigaru whirlpool coordinator can de-anonymize users" on June 23, 2025 [1], which highlighted potential vulnerabilities that could allow a malicious coordinator to link inputs and outputs during the mixing process.

The core issue stems from a vulnerability originally discovered by security researcher "nothingmuch" in December 2024 [2], which demonstrated that whirlpool coordinators could potentially deanonymize users by providing each participant with a unique RSA public key during the blind signature process. Since different clients would receive different keys, the coordinator could later correlate the unblinded signatures with specific users, completely breaking the anonymity guarantees of the ZeroLink protocol.

The Bitcoin Talk forum discussion revealed several technical concerns. The original poster, 1440000bytes, examined both the Ashigaru Whirlpool client and server code repositories and concluded that "the vulnerability is not fixed." The analysis pointed to code in the client that appeared to still accept server-provided RSA public keys, and server code that continued to send public keys to clients. However, as the discussion progressed, it became apparent that the situation was more nuanced than initially presented.

A subsequent forum post by the same user noted that Ashigaru Terminal [4] appeared to use a different approach than the standalone whirlpool client, implementing hardcoded RSA public keys rather than accepting keys from the server. This observation led to further investigation of whether this approach actually solved the original vulnerability or introduced new security concerns. The forum discussion also raised additional potential attack vectors, including DoS vulnerabilities and the possibility that coordinators could still perform linking attacks even with hardcoded keys.

The debate highlighted the complexity of implementing secure coinjoin protocols and the challenges faced by developers attempting to maintain privacy guarantees while preventing coordinator-based attacks. Community members, including Wasabi maintainer lontivero, emphasized that the criticism was not motivated by competition but by genuine security concerns from privacy advocates seeking to improve the ecosystem. This context sets the stage for a detailed technical analysis of how Ashigaru Terminal actually implements RSA blinding and whether the current approach adequately addresses the identified vulnerabilities.

Initial Analysis: The Hardcoded Key Approach

Our first comprehensive analysis focused on examining the Ashigaru Terminal codebase to understand how it handled RSA public keys for blind signature operations. The investigation revealed what initially appeared to be a robust fix for the original vulnerability discovered by nothingmuch.

The key finding was in the MixProcess.java file within the Terminal's darkjar module, where we discovered that the client implementation explicitly rejects any RSA public keys sent by the coordinator. The critical code section showed that when the server attempts to provide a public key through the confirmInputMixStatusNotification.publicKey64 field, the client immediately throws a ProtocolException with the message "not expected to receive public key for blind signature from whirlpool server." This represented a fundamental departure from the original vulnerable implementation where clients would accept and use whatever public key the server provided.

Instead of using server-provided keys, the Ashigaru Terminal implementation relies on hardcoded RSA public keys embedded within the client application itself. These keys are stored as PEM files in the client's resources directory, with separate keys for mainnet and testnet operations. The mainnet key is located at cipher/mainnet/blind_signature_public_key.pem and the testnet key at cipher/testnet/blind_signature_public_key.pem. The client's MixClient.java loads the appropriate key based on the network configuration during initialization.

This approach appeared to completely eliminate the per-client key differentiation attack vector. Since all clients use the same hardcoded public key regardless of what the server sends, a malicious coordinator cannot provide different keys to different participants within the same mixing round. The cryptographic operations would fail if the server attempted to sign with a different private key than the one corresponding to the client's hardcoded public key, making the attack technically impossible.

Our initial analysis concluded that this implementation represented a significant security improvement over the original vulnerable whirlpool protocol. The hardcoded key approach seemed to provide strong protection against coordinator-based deanonymization attempts while maintaining the core functionality of the blind signature protocol. We documented the specific RSA public keys used by the system and verified that the client's rejection mechanism would prevent any fallback to vulnerable behavior.

However, this initial assessment was based on an incomplete understanding of how the server-side implementation actually worked and how the client-server interaction functioned in practice. The analysis failed to account for the full protocol flow and made incorrect assumptions about the cryptographic mismatch between client and server operations.

Corrected Analysis: Understanding the Complete System

Upon receiving expert feedback that challenged our initial conclusions, we conducted a more thorough investigation that revealed fundamental flaws in our original analysis. The expert reviewer correctly pointed out that "reusing the same key for all rounds doesn't solve the problem. It actually makes the task easier for a malicious coordinator." This critique prompted a deeper examination of both the client and server implementations.

The corrected analysis revealed that our original assessment had misunderstood how the Ashigaru system actually operates. Rather than creating a cryptographic mismatch between client and server, the system actually implements a coordinated approach where both sides use the same static RSA keypair. The server-side implementation in CryptoService.java shows that the coordinator must be configured with a blindSignaturePrivateKeyPath pointing to a static RSA private key file that corresponds to the public key hardcoded in the client.

The critical insight came from examining the Mix constructor in the server code. When a new mixing round begins, the server loads its static keypair through cryptoService.getOrGenerateKeyPair(), but then sets the publicKey field to an empty byte array (new byte[0]). This empty array is then encoded and sent to clients as part of the ConfirmInputMixStatusNotification. When clients receive this empty array and decode it, the result passes the security check (publicKey.length > 0 evaluates to false), causing the client to fall back to its hardcoded public key.

This design ensures that both client and server use the same static RSA keypair for all blind signature operations. The server must be configured with the private key that corresponds to the client's hardcoded public key, otherwise the cryptographic operations would fail. The empty array mechanism serves as a way for the server to signal that clients should use their embedded keys rather than accepting a server-provided key.

While this approach does successfully prevent the per-client key differentiation attack within a single mixing round, it introduces a more serious long-term vulnerability. By using the same RSA keypair across all mixing rounds, the system enables cross-round linkability attacks. A malicious coordinator or any observer with access to multiple mixing sessions can potentially correlate users' blind signatures across different rounds, building long-term profiles of mixing behavior.

The corrected analysis identified this cross-round linkability as a more severe privacy threat than the original per-client differentiation attack. While the original vulnerability only compromised anonymity within a single mixing round, the cross-round correlation issue affects users' entire mixing history. This cumulative privacy loss represents a significant architectural weakness that undermines the long-term anonymity guarantees that users expect from a coinjoin system.

Final Findings and Recommendations

Based on our comprehensive analysis of both the initial and corrected assessments, we can draw several important conclusions about the current state of Ashigaru Terminal's security implementation and the broader implications for coinjoin privacy.

Ashigaru Terminal has successfully addressed the immediate per-client RSA key differentiation vulnerability that was originally discovered by nothingmuch. The hardcoded key approach prevents coordinators from providing different RSA public keys to different participants within the same mixing round, effectively eliminating this specific attack vector. The implementation is technically sound and prevents the cryptographic operations from succeeding if a coordinator attempts to use a different private key than the one corresponding to the client's embedded public key.

However, the fix introduces a different and potentially more serious privacy concern. The use of static RSA keypairs across all mixing rounds creates opportunities for cross-round signature correlation. This allows malicious coordinators or external observers to potentially link users across multiple mixing sessions, building comprehensive profiles of mixing behavior over time. Unlike the original vulnerability which only affected anonymity within individual rounds, this cross-round linkability represents a persistent and cumulative privacy threat.

The Bitcoin Talk forum discussion highlighted additional concerns beyond the RSA key handling, including potential DoS vectors and signature validation issues. While our analysis focused primarily on the RSA blinding implementation, these additional attack surfaces warrant further investigation. The forum poster's claim that "the coordinator can link input-outputs even with the hardcoded key" suggests there may be other protocol weaknesses that could be exploited independently of the RSA key differentiation issue.

For users currently considering Ashigaru Terminal, the risk assessment depends largely on their usage patterns and threat model. Users who perform occasional single-round mixing may find the current protections adequate, as they are protected against the most obvious coordinator-based attacks. However, users who engage in frequent mixing or who require long-term anonymity protection should be aware of the cross-round correlation risks.

Our primary recommendation is for the Ashigaru development team to implement per-round RSA key rotation while maintaining the protection against per-client differentiation. This would involve generating fresh RSA keypairs for each mixing round while ensuring all participants in the same round receive the same key. Such an implementation would require cryptographic commitments or other mechanisms to prove key consistency within rounds, but would provide both short-term and long-term privacy protection.

Additionally, we recommend implementing shorter key lifetimes as an interim measure, such as daily or weekly key rotation, to limit the window for cross-round correlation attacks. The development team should also consider implementing the full ZeroLink specification with proper anonymity set isolation between rounds and forward security properties that protect past mixing sessions even if current keys are compromised.

For the broader coinjoin ecosystem, this analysis highlights the importance of thorough security review and the challenges inherent in implementing complex cryptographic protocols. The initial community criticism, while sometimes overstated, served an important function in identifying real security concerns that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. The collaborative process of security analysis, expert review, and iterative improvement is essential for building robust privacy tools that users can trust with their financial privacy.

Users should approach any coinjoin coordinator with appropriate caution, conducting their own research and understanding the specific trade-offs involved in each implementation. While Ashigaru Terminal represents a significant improvement over the original vulnerable whirlpool implementation, the ongoing evolution of both attacks and defenses means that continued vigilance and improvement are necessary to maintain effective privacy protection in the long term.

Links

1. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5547639.0
2. https://groups.google.com/g/bitcoindev/c/CbfbEGozG7c/m/w2B-RRdUCQAJ
3. https://ashigaru.rs ; https://ashigaru.rs/download/
4. [TOR-ONLY] http://ashicodepbnpvslzsl2bz7l2pwrjvajgumgac423pp3y2deprbnzz7id.onion/Ashigaru/Ashigaru-Terminal

Notes

This security analysis was conducted on the official Ashigaru Terminal v1.0.0 release. The code was analyzed from the downloaded file:

ashicodepbnpvslzsl2bz7l2pwrjvajgumgac423pp3y2deprbnzz7id.onion/Ashigaru/Ashigaru-Terminal/releases/download/v1.0.0/ashigaru_terminal_v1.0.0_x86_64.tar.gz

The authenticity of the software was verified by confirming the signed message of the SHA-256 digests following the instructions at https://ashigaru.rs/download/. The PGP signature was verified using Keybase and confirmed to be signed by "ashigarudev". The SHA-256 hash of the downloaded file was manually verified to match the hash in the signed message.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Linux (Intel/AMD): Ubuntu/Debian
File name: ashigaru_terminal_v1.0.0_amd64.deb
SHA-256 Hash of file: 15081f7f3957b2d60abf1f5c0dc5435d09e3387636b44215688dac2d01b4334f

Linux (Intel/AMD): Standalone
File name: ashigaru_terminal_v1.0.0_x86_64.tar.gz
SHA-256 Hash of file: f0bb53055ac9a0f7712e0de09a08f0acf8aeda59332fff681e0480eae1a744d7

Linux (Intel/AMD): Redhat/CentOS
File name: ashigaru_terminal_v1.0.0_x86_64.rpm
SHA-256 Hash of file: b98c58c389f1124dd26ae0ca5bacc46da5f4c5d98af4e4b64a3a18d2358c4da8

MacOS (Apple M-series)
File name: ashigaru_terminal_v1.0.0_macos_aarch64.dmg
SHA-256 Hash of file: ca85bed92c7281490b08ba2a524e1e595be8531bd8e5a8f7fed2f44403225ac6

MacOS (Intel): 11+
File name: ashigaru_terminal_v1.0.0_macos_x86_64.dmg
SHA-256 Hash of file: 8a67dff12c9c0dafdb175134a4fc73558d71e4bebbc3aafd43d21a8e322ef5d4

Windows 10+
File name: ashigaru_terminal_v1.0.0_windows.zip
SHA-256 Hash of file: 771a6efe91f5eafa22715e6a1f93e8cdfaca3447a1a4c733906f49e95de4db96

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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=iOWZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Verified on https://keybase.io/verify as "Signed by ashigarudev"

Manual SHA-256 verification confirmed the hash matches the signed message:

$ sha256sum ashigaru_terminal_v1.0.0_x86_64.tar.gz
f0bb53055ac9a0f7712e0de09a08f0acf8aeda59332fff681e0480eae1a744d7  ashigaru_terminal_v1.0.0_x86_64.tar.gz

Note on AI tools used

For this analysis, I used claude-sonnet-4 as the Agentic AI in VSCodium with the Cline extension.

I encourage you to try to corroborate these results yourself independently and with different models as well.

Bitcoin Magazine: The Battle For Privacy: Free Samourai w/ Zack Shapiro, Econoalchemist, Diverter NoKYC & Tor Ekeland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqZstqEGUMM

Rock Paper Bitcoin • 68 - Ashigaru w/ jordan
https://fountain.fm/episode/l85r6omTifdYFxmBdcaU

Ungovernable Misfits: #FreeSamourai by damm kewl
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/freesamourai-by-damm-kewl/id1491067458?i=1000659746042

Ungovernable Misfits: #FREESAMOURAI
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/freesamourai/id1491067458?i=1000653727890

Ungovernable Misfits: Whirlpool is back (Ashigaru)
https://www.ungovernablemisfits.com/podcast/whirlpool-is-back-ashigaru/

Ungovernable Misfits: 100 SPEARS, 100 PIECES, ASHIGARU INTERVIEW
https://archive.ungovernablemisfits.com/podcast/100-spears-100-pieces-ashigaru-interview/

Ungovernable Misfits: Still Here | The Confab 02: Diverter & Zelko
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/still-here-the-confab-02-diverter-zelko/id1491067458?i=1000657153155

Watchman Privacy: Samourai Wallet Arrested
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qzYKC7l7Tw

Watchman Privacy: Post-Samourai Wallet: Max Tannahill & Diverter_NoKYC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j2IWfsCoMs

Watchman Privacy: Ashigaru: Vetting a Samourai Wallet Fork
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MEEde8yBEA

Watchman Privacy: Craig Raw: Sparrow Wallet Post-Whirlpool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2j8UwdA6YM

Watchman Privacy: Max Tannahill: Censoring Bitcoin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okbXry5QJ2s

LINKS

Ashigaru: Whirlpool Announcement
https://ashigaru.rs/news/announcement-whirlpool/

Ashigaru: Terminal v1.0.0 Release
https://ashigaru.rs/news/release-terminal-v1-0-0/

k3tan: Ashigaru Whirlpool
https://k3tan.com/ashigaru-whirlpool/

Free Samourai (dot com)
https://freesamourai.com/

P2P Rights Fund: About
https://p2prights.org/about.html

Ungovernable Misfits: Free Samourai
https://www.ungovernablemisfits.com/free-samourai/

RoninDojo: Always Rise after a Fall
https://blog.ronindojo.io/always-rise-after-a-fall/

Escape The Technocracy: The Return of the King: Whirlpool is Back
https://escapethetechnocracy.com/the-return-of-the-king-whirlpool-is-back-o/

Defi Education Fund: Prosecuting Privacy: Examining Samourai Wallet, Money Transmitters, and the Criminalization of Innovation
https://www.defieducationfund.org/_files/ugd/84ba66_87dfb370e81a4766811bf16e5293c6da.pdf

The Rage: New Samourai Indictment Paints Anonymity As A Crime
https://www.therage.co/samourai-wallet-new-indictment/