James Stephens on quantum computing threats to Bitcoin wallets

0:14[music] >> All right, we're live here at Bitcoin 2026, Las Vegas. James Stevens, CEO of Crown Technologies, official quantum wallet of the conference. Quantum is a huge topic. Uh and most people are probably asking, you know, when Lambo? We're in the Lambo now. I'm asking, when quantum attacks, vulnerabilities on

0:42Bitcoin? It's been a huge topic of discussion uh that a lot of people don't know enough about it. They just know there is a potential threat of quantum attacks on on cryptocurrency in the future. You're an expert on it. You guys have built the technology to protect digital assets. It's going to be ever more important as we get closer to Q Day, which we can talk about. Um maybe

1:04we can start from a high level. What is the realistic threat of quantum attacks on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general? Yeah. So, thanks for having me. So, we are in the Lambo for 2026 and and I'm I'm really happy to be with you on this, especially on this subject. This is actually a subject that I'm going to talk about my keynote on keynote on Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. at the Genesis

1:26stage. So, um but what we're seeing is and in fact just happened was the the breaking of even though it was a small standard, the breaking of a key that it was a bit that was tied to a Bitcoin wallet, right? And so, what I always tell everyone is we only know what quantum's really going to allow us to know. Because every time that we we find out something new and it

1:48seems to be every single week we're finding out something new and then there's all these aha moments and everything moves up. So, the timelines that we're seeing, there's there's a reason. It's not happens It's not It's not just some coincidence that that the timelines for NIST standards all the way up to FIPS, you know, it they've moved it up from 2040,

2:05then 2035, now 2030 and then Google just came out with their deal you know, their announcement that it could it takes 20 20 times less cubits, you know, in order to crack it on classical, you know, for a for a quantum computer. And so, I think it's only the beginning. I personally believe it'll be sometime in '27, '28 that you're really going to see

2:25that first major point where someone goes, "Oh, crap." You know, Q Day, yeah. Yeah, the the timeline keeps moving up and like '27, that's literally months away, you know, not not even a year. Um is quantum attacks you know, is Bitcoin a a priority when you know, when quantum gets that powerful? Won't there be other things that quantum might be able to focus on

2:49that's that's better bigger value to hack than the small industry of cryptocurrency right now? There are there may be other sectors or other products or platforms that we could focus on, but when we talk about an industry like crypto, then we talk about billions and billions and even trillions of dollars. Uh for me and our company, for Crown, it's really about Bitcoin. It's really about,

3:15you know, Ethereum. It's really about the Crown network and securing these layer ones, securing these exchanges. You know, we we've had people call us that are like, "Hey, we want to talk to you guys about securing our network or securing our exchange." And there's a reason for that because they're one of the few people these days and these companies that recognize the threat, the

3:31emerging threat that's happening, you know, because it's all over the place. Quantum's all over the place. '26 and '27 is years of quantum. That's that's really what it's about. So, I always say that uh what The answer's yes, but I always say that complacency on these teams and complacency's in these companies are the real threat and the real killer, right? So, um yeah, I I

3:51think I think '26 to '27 is where it's at and I think you're right. It's certainly uh Um you just can't have Imagine a break in a major wallet. Right? Because Q Day's Q Day is not going to arrive like on some, you know, horse and you know, it just with a trumpet sounding, right? It's going to happen quietly. It's going to happen lethally on a on an

4:17infrastructure and it's going to and it will be it will be everywhere. It'll be one of the greatest uh unfortunate headlines in the world. Yeah. Yeah, there's no countdown. And and if there is a an estimated countdown, it keeps accelerating. You don't know the exact day that's going to happen. So, how does Castle Wallet prepare and how do you just prepare the digital asset industry

4:38in general for protection from quantum? You know, if it's going like how do you know what to protect like in in how the attacks will actually happen? When you build something like Castle, what you want to do and it's been in my experience I've been in this industry almost 10 years, this this sector. What I did was I looked back at my own misfortunes. I was

4:58scammed. I was hacked. I was you know, I was the victim of fraud on this stuff. And that was really the catalyst for for creating Crown and creating Castle. You know, I looked at the threats. I knew what they were. I saw what was not being addressed. I was talking about Castle, not Castle, but quantum back in '22, '23 and people would pat you on the back and they would be like,

5:17you know, attaboy. I mean, we're so happy. We're you know, that's that's great. Keep it up. Now, you're getting phone calls. Now, you're getting DMs and things like that, right? So, for us we we approach it from perspective of what is a big need? How do we solve it, you know, and how fast can we get it done without sacrificing our innovation, our execution and our standards?

5:35Um so, Castle really addresses that from the foundation up and that's what it was built for was quantum. That's why we're here today. That's why we're one of the major sponsors, you know, and that's why we're the official quantum wallet of the Bitcoin conferences, BTC. So, yeah. So, when quantum attacks hit, is having a a quantum wallet storing your Bitcoin or other coins enough or

5:56does quantum actually attack the Bitcoin blockchain at its core? Okay. So, the protocol, okay, the protocol is not the issue yet. It's at the wallet level. All right? So, it's your keys. It's the keys and and that is that is the one thing like we're in decrypt now harvest now decrypt later time frame, right? They've already started harvesting these public

6:17keys and they'll decrypt them later. So, quan- so, Castle was built with these things in mind that this is [snorts] how we need to protect, you know, and people if people have Castle, the only way you're going to to either have a stalemate, neutralize, whatever is if you know, you always heard the old saying fight fire with fire. Well, it's fight quantum with quantum, right? And

6:36so, that's what we're doing, especially with our partners at Quantum Emotion. They're the ones that provide help to provide the quantum random number generation, which is true random entropy. It's the only way that you're going to actually be secure with your keys. There's no other Everything else claims that, you know, oh, we're quantum resistant. But this is actually that's pseudo

6:54randomness. This We have true entropy, true randomness. So, do you guys actually have a quantum computers that are helping defend against this? So, they've been tested. The technology at Quantum Emotion with regard to the QRNG was tested through Qiskit with with IBM. And so, that is the standard and that and that has already been tested and passed and we you know, we so we know

7:14what it what it can do. We know how powerful the electron tunneling technology is. Um so, for us it's not about having the the quantum computer and saying, "Okay, well, let's do this. Let's do this." You know, this They know what it's capable of. They're and so, what they did is they they applied what we know there and then they were able to test that that way. And that's just one

7:34piece to the puzzle. Our stack is over six different PQC's. And so, and we layer them in a strategic way where they're at their strengths, whether it's signatures, whether it's a lattice, but you know, whatever whatever it may be. However it sits, the QRNG on the keys, everything sits where it's it's most powerful in defense. Definitely. You know, in general, they say your

7:58Bitcoin is safer on a hardware wallet than it is on the exchange, but that doesn't apply when it comes to quantum, does it? No. In fact, I have people that had cold wallets and they actually put theirs on Castle. Because the level is is cold level. Even though we are introducing Excalibur next year, our cold wallet it's it's our quantum cold wallet.

8:24We are introducing that, you know, breaking news on your show, by the way. [laughter] Uh but >> to it. It's going to It's amazing, but it's going to it will be it will be the most secure cold wallet in the world. And you know, we're working out right now we're in the prototyping stage of it, but we have all of the pieces to the puzzle there, right? But people that

8:40want that cold wallet protection level, they want that cold wallet feel, they can get that with Castle, but with the convenience and the efficiency of hot. Yeah, no, that's important because from what I understand, Castle is it's it's a hot wallet, but it has that protection level, but some people might not want to move their their life fortune from their

9:00their Trezor that they haven't touched. I feel No, people are scared to to move assets that they've been holding for 10 years. Uh they want something that cold level wallet and I'm guessing that's that's a part of the road map. >> That's part of the road map. It's absolutely part of the road You know, actually, Camelot, which is the name of our ecosystem, you know, people ask me,

9:17"Well, give me the 10-minute spiel." And I've said this before on your show, I think when we last time we did it, but if you can imagine the human body, okay, the the Crown network is the human body and inside that are the organs, all of the ecosystem products and they all run off that self-sustaining, you know, all is secured. Um and that's what that's

9:32how we're building that road map. We're slowly putting all the organs into place under the chain. So, It's very cool. So, if you have this doesn't just apply to Bitcoin, right? It applies to the other chains, other assets. Um to to what extent I don't know if you're storing your meme coins on there, but um Ethereum, Solana, everything. So, is it as simple as just like like you would be

9:53withdrawing from the exchange, you're just moving it into Castle Wallet and then by default you have the quantum protection. Yes, so once you're in Castle, you have the protection at rest there, right? Um and then also a new update that we that we that we just pushed is the ability to bridge swap. And that was that was huge because being able to have and stay in the

10:15environment of of Castle and being secure there, you're able to do everything that you want to do. You don't have to go out Used to you'd have to go out to DEXes or or CEXes or whatever, whereas now everything stays there. And that's the whole idea, keep the people protected. We have a solemn duty and and it's really a mission of mine to keep people protected from from

10:35what what I consider to be the scum of the earth, which are these scammers. And they you know, they steal billions and billions of dollars every year, you know? And a lot of it's social engineering. And by the way, we have an announcement making for that with regard to fighting back the social engineering side of that, so so. That's important. There's been a lot of hacks

10:52uh and different vulnerabilities in DeFi in the beginning of of '26 here. Yeah. Is is that something that you know, not just for the wallet, but can you apply this kind of quantum protection for dApps and to to make the whole digital asset ecosystem stronger? >> That is part of what we're going to announce. Yes. Yes, it's coming out today. Well, coming out Tuesday, but

11:13yes, you'll they'll have the ability to protect and and basically come under the umbrella or we can license that to them and they can they can take part in it that way. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I love that fact that cuz I feel like a lot of people when they put their Bitcoin on cold storage, they're like it's it's a hassle to if you want to trade or move into

11:36other assets, but that's very easily possible on Castle, right? >> Yes, it is. Yeah, Ethereum, Solana, whatever. We've built them natively into Castle. So when you download Castle and you actually bring up the main screen on it, you've got everything. You've got BTC, you've got Crown, you've got Ethereum, you got Ether, you got Soul, you got Base, and you've got all the

11:56different, you know, networks. So it's really important to do that because what you want to do is even though they may not choose you, they may have everything on another chain, at least give these people the option to be more protected for it, right? And then they can rethink it later on. Definitely. So you guys have announced this six-year partnership with

12:13the Bitcoin conference and also the Futurist conference in in in Canada, the biggest Canadian conference. Uh I think, you know, if this Q-Day comes around in the next 12 months or more, uh you guys are just ahead of the curve on this. So that was the plan from the beginning. It was The plan was to lock it down with BTC on the front side there and then to come back around the back

12:36side and lock down the security side of it, right? So we did that with Quantum Emotion on that five-year exclusive deal. No quantum products can be sold except through Crown, right? On in this sector. And the other side of it was BTC, which was that we wanted the exposure, but we we also, you know, we've had we had technical meetings with them. We had I mean, it was really a lot

12:53of DD going on, you know, before they would agree to something as as big as exclusive quantum wallets and things like that, right? It's huge. They don't put their name on something for no reason. So we were very honored about that, but yes, so we have that six-year partnership with BTC. We have the five-year I'm sorry, six-year deal also with Futurist in Toronto as well as

13:11Miami. So and we'll take we'll own Miami. We're going to We're the title sponsor there. So it's it's a really big deal. Yeah, and when it comes around in '27, '28, whatever it may be, as you start to see these hacks evolve and you start to see the the you know, the the news spread and you know, every time you wake up and you turn on the news channel or you're or you're

13:28hearing something, you know, on your feed and it's like a quantum attack has done this, has done this, whatever. Every time these people now go for the next six years to these conferences, it's going to be a staple of everything that they see and know. So that was the plan. It's very exciting. So is the primarily go to the App Store or Android Store,

13:47you can just download the wallet and transfer your assets in to start getting protected really quickly? Absolutely. Yeah, so there's monthly and annual options. You can save two months if you do annual. You can go monthly if you want to. And then you'll store everything in there. You just sign up and you're all set to go. It's the app. Yeah, go to App

14:02Store, go to Google Play, download it, all set. Sounds great. I I appreciate you taking the time enlightening me on on all this quantum stuff. It is it's going to be crazy and I think a lot of people they're just going to wake up one day and and realize, oh, I really should have put my digital assets in like quantum protected wallets ahead of time and not out scrambling after the fact.

14:22Or they're going to wake up and go, thank god. >> [laughter] >> Ash, thank you so much, man. We appreciate it. Yes, sir.