Bitcoin Quantum Upgrades and Solana Inflation Reduction

Bitcoin's quantum defenses are being upgraded to protect against potential attacks from powerful computers. A researcher at StarkWare tested an experimental transaction on the Bitcoin mainnet that uses a quantum-resistant scheme called Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB). This scheme combines hash-based one-time signatures with computational searches that bind an authorization to a specific transaction, but it's not practical for everyday use due to long processing times and high costs.

The researchers at Blockstream have also proposed a long-term upgrade to protect every transaction. They published a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) on August 27th to upgrade Bitcoin with the SHRINCS signature scheme, which is post-quantum resistant but still larger than Bitcoin's existing signatures and comes with trade-offs.

Solana validators have approved a proposal to double their annual disinflation rate from 15% to 30%, reducing issuance by 18.9 million SOL over six years. This will help Solana reach its terminal inflation rate of 1.5% in about 2.8 years, compared to 5.7 years under the previous schedule.

A new report claims that US President Donald Trump's digital asset ventures have left investors at least $4.7 billion underwater since 2022 through various schemes, including his Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin and World Liberty Financial governance token.