More than 100 researchers working with AI coding agents reduced a benchmark for a key step in a potential quantum attack on Bitcoin and Ethereum from 10.75 billion to 1.496 billion between late May and July 26. The research paper was published this week.

Bitcoin and Ethereum use the secp256k1 elliptic curve to secure digital signatures. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could theoretically reverse the underlying mathematics and derive a private key from a public key.

The competition, called ECDSA.Fail, was run by Eigen Labs. It evaluated circuit designs by multiplying the number of logical qubits by the number of Toffoli gates, an expensive operation in quantum computing. A lower score indicates that fewer resources would be required.

The leading design used 1,151 logical qubits and approximately 1.3 million Toffoli gates. A subsequent submission reduced the number of gates to below 1 million. The leading score was roughly half of Google Quantum AI’s March benchmark, although the two projects used different counting methods and are not directly comparable.

Researchers from Eigen Labs, Trail of Bits, StarkWare, Theta Labs, MultiVM Labs and the Ethereum Foundation authored the paper. The work was presented as an effort by the cryptocurrency industry’s security community to measure the cost of a potential attack so that defenses can be planned against a concrete benchmark.

The researchers called the approach “Open Autoresearch,” in which human researchers and AI agents iterate against a shared, measurable target with a verifier in the loop.

The findings come as projects across the cryptocurrency industry work on quantum resistance. The Ethereum Foundation has set a December 2029 deadline for making transactions, validators and storage quantum-resistant. StarkWare has pushed what it described as the first quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction to mainnet, while Ethereum developers have proposed rebuilding the validator deposit contract. Ripple is also working to harden the XRP Ledger.

Galaxy committed up to $5 million to the effort in July. Nine firms, including BlackRock, Coinbase and Strategy, pledged $15 million over three years. The researchers also cited a draft from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, that proposes deprecating classical public-key algorithms at the 112-bit security level after 2030 and disallowing them after 2035.

The benchmark does not predict when a quantum computer capable of attacking Bitcoin or Ethereum will exist, and the research does not indicate that funds are currently at risk. It does, however, show that attack-related research can advance rapidly when AI agents are applied to a defined technical objective.

Macro Crypto and Markets

Major cryptocurrencies were down 1% to 4% ahead of the Consumer Price Index release. Bitcoin fell 1% to $77,000, while Ethereum was unchanged at $2,455. Solana declined 2% to $100, HYPE fell 4% to $79, and Zcash dropped 10% to $1,095.

Among the leading altcoin movers, RAY rose 13%, PONS gained 11% and FF increased 5%. Oil rose 2% to $99, while gold fell 1% to $4,385. U.S. stock futures were higher after oil retreated from its highs, with the Dow and Nasdaq futures each up 0.6%.

Senate Republicans released a revised, 630-page draft of the Clarity Act ahead of a procedural vote scheduled for September 15. The revision adds Commodity Futures Trading Commission registration for protocols described as “decentralized-in-name-only,” while leaving ethics provisions largely unchanged.

Sam Bankman-Fried petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn his fraud conviction. He argued that he was prevented from showing that customers lost nothing and described the $11 billion forfeiture as an excessive fine.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told CNBC that a Bitcoin price of $400,000 by 2030 remains a reasonable target. He said the year-long down cycle had bottomed and expected guidance from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC within weeks. Decrypt reported on Armstrong’s comments.

Binance’s Bitcoin reserves exceeded 693,000 BTC, a two-year high representing roughly 30% of the reserves held by major exchanges. Approximately 77,000 BTC moved onto the platform since late April.

Singapore’s Alpha Ladder began distributing Payward’s xStocks to institutional and accredited investors in selected Asia-Pacific markets through its WealthX platform. The distribution followed a memorandum of understanding involving Payward and MetaComp.

Ethereum developers tentatively set October 6 as the Sepolia launch date for the Glamsterdam upgrade. The upgrade has not yet run stably on any private development network, and no dates have been fixed for Hoodi or mainnet deployment.

Corporate Treasuries and ETFs

U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $283 million in net outflows on Thursday. Ether ETFs recorded $30 million in outflows.

Meme Coin Tracker

Meme coins were broadly lower. DOGE fell 2%, SHIB declined 2%, PEPE dropped 4%, PENGU fell 3%, TRUMP declined 2% and SPX dropped 2%.

Robinhood chain leaders rebounded during the session. Pons rose 10% to a $420 million market capitalization, AI gained 25% to $250 million and Cashcat was unchanged at $160 million. Flybrain rose 830%, Zforge gained 100x, Juggernaut increased 600% and Frong advanced 100% to lead the top movers.

On BNB Smart Chain, Niu Lau jumped 70% to $130 million after its Binance spot listing. BREW rose 100% and Marscoin gained 20%.

Solana’s leading movers included Ember, up 165%, and Fone, up 40%. Ansem fell 7% to a $150 million market capitalization.

The Stonkfun ecosystem rose after STONK moved above $0.30. Stonk gained 55% to $270 million, ZCAT fell 7% to $83 million, KNOTS rose 100% to $44 million, BTC gained 94% to $18 million and PURR advanced 43% to $13 million. LOOP rose 100x, METH gained 7x, LMEOW increased 180%, Stonkcat rose 7x and JUPCAT gained 6x.

Token, Airdrop and Protocol Tracker

Hyperliquid led on-chain protocols with $2.08 million in daily revenue. PUMP ranked seventh with $1.4 million, followed by PONS with $1.14 million and Stonk in 13th place with $760,000.

On-chain real-world-asset perpetual trading volume exceeded $120 billion in August, up from less than $1 billion in October 2025. Open interest was approximately $4.9 billion.

Raydium’s RAY token rose 86% for the week amid its connection with the growing Stonkfun ecosystem. Market data for RAY is available through CoinMarketCap.

NFTs

Leading NFT collections were mostly unchanged. CryptoPunks were flat at 30 ETH, Bored Ape Yacht Club fell 1% to 6.7 ETH and Pudgy Penguins declined 3% to 3.6 ETH. Argonauts rose 40% and The 404 Machines gained 20% to lead the top movers.

Source: Decrypt