Crypto exchange Coinbase’s Quantum Advisory Council has released a report calling for the Bitcoin community to start work now on quantum-proofing the world’s largest cryptocurrency. It found that approximately seven million bitcoins are at risk of quantum theft, which could happen when quantum computers become powerful enough to break Bitcoin’s encryption. How far off that is remains a matter of debate, with some experts saying it’s at least a decade off. Others disagree. Google has set a 2029 deadline for quantum-proofing all of its encryption, citing the accelerating speed of advancements in the field. While those seven million bitcoins include some 1.7 million produced in the early days of the…
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Coinbase for Agents Will Make Payments and Trade Crypto
Agentic AI tool will manage holdings without constant manual oversight
Coinbase has launched Coinbase for Agents, a tool that allows AI agents to make payments, execute strategies, and trade crypto for users of the leading exchange. Coinbase for Agents will connect users’ favorite agents like ChapGPT or Claude directly to their Coinbase account. Operating within limits they control, the agents can now do both financial reasoning and execution, Coinbase said. The agent will operate within its own isolated portfolio, without visibility or access into other holdings. Or, it can simply use your main Coinbase account. Coinbase for Agents will only be able to touch what you’ve given it specific permission to do. Soon, users will be able to set exact…
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Mastercard Launches Payment System for AI Agents
Agent Pay for Machines supports many payment types, from cards to stablecoins
Mastercard has unveiled a new payment system for AI agents, designed to permit secure and permissioned transactions to be settled across its payment network at machine speed. Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M) envisions a future in which businesses create services AI agents can buy and use. Operating at machine speed, these agents will transact continuously with each other at high speed, executing trains of transactions including microtransactions. Mastercard said in a statement that it believes this will “unlock a massive new wave of innovation, business models and economic activity, where any company, from solopreneurs to the largest enterprises, can become a virtual powerhouse.” It gives the example of a florist…
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Humanity Protocol Exploited for $36M
Multisig wallets were compromised, allowing attacker to mint $H tokens
Humanity Protocol said poorly protected multisignature wallet keys have been exploited to the tune of $36 million, driving the proof-of-humanity protocol’s $H token down as much as 85% today. The hack was first spotted Monday evening by onchain analyst Specter, who initially reported that 17 wallets holding the $H token had been drained of $5 million. Several hours later that total had grown to hundreds of wallets, Specter reported. Humanity protocol is a Worldcoin competitor, using privacy-preserving palm prints (instead of Worldcoin’s retina scans) to allow people to prove they are humans rather than bots or AI agents. “We’ve detected a security incident involving the compromise of private keys belonging…
