The Protocol: Bitcoin proposal that could freeze quantum-related coins

Also: AI agents & crypto payments, CoW Swap hijack, ZK proofs on XRPL.

What to know:

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, a reporter at CoinDesk.

In this issue:

• Bitcoin developers are trying to build quantum defenses. Your coins could pay the price.
• AI agents are set to power crypto payments, but a hidden flaw could expose wallets
• Popular DeFi platform warns users to stay away from its site after security breach
• XRP Ledger adds zero-knowledge proofs targeting institutional privacy gap

Network News

BITCOIN PROPOSAL THAT COULD FREEZE QUANTUM-RELATED COINS: Bitcoin was built on a promise that no one can touch your coins without your private key. No government, no bank, nobody. That promise is now, for the first time in Bitcoin's 16-year history, being challenged by the developer community itself as part of measures to build defenses against future quantum computers that could compromise Bitcoin's blockchain and steal your coins. Jameson Loop, one of the outspoken bitcoin contributors, and other cryptographers have proposed a move that could force bitcoin holders to migrate their coins to new quantum-resistant addresses or face having their coins frozen permanently by the network itself. In that scenario, holders would technically still “own” the coins, but lose the ability to move them. It is called Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)-361 and was updated in Bitcoin's official proposal repository with the title "Post Quantum Migration and Legacy Signature Sunset." This comes as a recently released Google report warned that a sufficiently powerful quantum machine could require significantly less firepower to compromise the Bitcoin blockchain than initially estimated. This prompted some observers to cite 2029 as the quantum deadline for bitcoin. — Omkar Goldbole Read more.

AI AGENTS POWER CRYPTO PAYMENTS: The cryptocurrency industry is racing toward a future where AI agents handle everything from booking flights to executing trades and making payments, but new research suggests the infrastructure underpinning that shift may not be secure. McKinsey recently projected that AI agents could mediate $3 trillion to $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030. The team found that so-called “LLM routers,” or services that sit between users and AI models, can serve as a powerful attack vector for malicious actors. These routers are designed to forward requests to models like OpenAI or Anthropic, but they also have full access to everything passing through them, including sensitive data. “LLM agents have moved beyond conversational assistants into systems that book flights, execute code, and manage infrastructure on behalf of users,” the researchers wrote, highlighting how quickly these tools are taking on real-world financial and operational tasks. The LLM routers or attack points leave users extremely vulnerable as they assume they are interacting directly with a reputable AI model, such as OpenAI, Grok or otherwise, when in reality many requests pass through intermediary services that can see and modify that data, the researchers said. — Olivier Acuna Read more.

CoW SWAP SECURITY BREACH: CoW Swap, a decentralized trading interface, said Tuesday it temporarily halted its services after detecting a domain name system (DNS) hijacking incident affecting its website, underscoring ongoing security risks at the front-end layer of DeFi platforms. In a post on X, the team said the attack occurred at 14:54 UTC and warned users to avoid interacting with its interface until further notice. While the protocol’s underlying infrastructure, including its backend and APIs, was not directly compromised, both were paused “as a precaution” as the team worked to resolve the issue. DNS hijacking allows attackers to redirect users from a legitimate domain to a malicious lookalike site, often to drain crypto wallets or harvest private data. The attack vector has become a persistent weak point in decentralized finance, where users typically rely on web-based interfaces to access otherwise secure smart contracts. CoW Swap operates as a decentralized exchange aggregator, sourcing liquidity across venues and using the “Coincidence of Wants” mechanism to match trades directly between users or batch them for more efficient execution. Orders are handled by competing “solvers” that optimize trade outcomes, a design intended to reduce slippage and limit exposure to maximal extractable value (MEV). — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

ZK PROOFS ON XRP LEDGER: The XRP Ledger added native support for zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs by integrating with Boundless, a ZK proving network, in what the company claims is the first such deployment on the ledger. The move is designed to let financial institutions transact privately on the public blockchain while meeting regulatory requirements. It addresses a specific barrier to institutional adoption that has persisted across every public blockchain. Transaction flows, treasury positions, and counterparty relationships are visible by default on public ledgers. For a bank settling cross-border payments or a fund managing OTC positions, that transparency creates competitive risk. Zero-knowledge proofs solve this by allowing one party to prove a statement is true without revealing the underlying data. It's like passing a credit check, where the bank confirms an individual qualifies for a loan without disclosing specifics about income, debts or account balances to the lender. In practice on XRPL, this means a payment can be verified as valid, correctly funded, and compliant without exposing the amount, the sender, or the receiver to the public ledger. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.

In Other News

• The Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial has proposed unlocking 62.3 billion WLFI governance tokens on Tuesday, less than a week after CoinDesk reported the venture had used 5 billion of its own tokens as collateral on lending platform Dolomite to borrow $75 million in stablecoins. WLFI's token was originally sold as a governance-only token with no transferability and indefinite locks. A vesting schedule with a defined path to liquidity changes the economic profile of what holders bought. The proposal would unlock liquidity for insiders who previously had no exit, thereby changing the token's economics. The proposal splits the locked supply into two groups. Early supporters holding 17 billion WLFI would receive a 2-year cliff followed by a 2-year linear vest, retaining all tokens. Founders, team members, advisors, and partners holding 45.2 billion WLFI would face a 2-year cliff and 3-year vest, but with 10% of their allocation, roughly 4.5 billion tokens, burned immediately on passage. (Burns refer to the permanent removal of tokens from supply, usually by sending them to an address that is not controlled by anyone.) In practice, it means insiders would surrender 4.5 billion tokens in exchange for unlocking 40.7 billion previously locked indefinitely, with no vesting schedule attached. Those tokens had no path to liquidity before this proposal. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.
• Some 572 bitcoin worth $42.77 million moved from a Gemini hot wallet into wallets owned by Winklevoss Capital and custody wallets in the past 24 hours, according to Arkham Intelligence data, the first significant transfers into the fund's addresses in over a month. The transfers came in two batches. One of 372 BTC and one of 200 BTC, about 11 hours later. Both moved from addresses tagged by Arkham as belonging to the crypto exchange to addresses tagged as Winklevoss Capital and Gemini Custody. Winklevoss Capital now holds 9,328 BTC worth $689 million across 128 tracked addresses, up from about 8,800 BTC after a $128.5 million deposit into Gemini roughly a month ago that brought holdings to their lowest level since 2012. It also holds 70,588 ETH worth $163.7 million, bringing its total tracked portfolio to approximately $853 million, the Arkham data show. The onchain data shows the direction of movement, not the intent. The transfers could reflect new purchases, internal rebalancing between Gemini's exchange and custody infrastructure, or a partial reversal of last month's deposit. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.

Regulatory and Policy

• Pakistan’s central bank notified all banks and financial institutions in the country that the ban on providing crypto services has been lifted. However, according to the new state bank rules, banks are banned from investing, trading or holding crypto assets using their own funds or customer deposits. The State Bank of Pakistan’s move follows the recent enactment of the 2026 Virtual Assets Act, which establishes Pakistan’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (PVARA to license, regulate and supervise the sector. The central bank replaced its 2018 ban on crypto with new rules that permit regulated banks and other financial institutions to open accounts for crypto firms approved under PVARA. Under the new state bank framework, banks can provide services to virtual asset service providers (VASPs) licensed under the new crypto act, as well as to those seeking approval, subject to strict compliance with anti-money laundering (AML), know-your-customer (KYC), and other counter-terrorism financing regulations. — Olivier Acuna Read more.
• Tom Duff Gordon, the vice president of international policy at U.S.-listed cryptocurrency platform Coinbase (COIN), has left the firm for pastures green. Duff Gordon, who had been with Coinbase for close to 4 years, left the exchange to join OpenAI as head of EMEA Policy, a Coinbase spokesperson said via email. Duff Gordon had previously spent 8.5 years working as a banker at Credit Suisse. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An expert on crypto regulations, Duff Gordon, recently pointed out that U.K. banks are blocking millions of customers from accessing legal and compliant services by failing to distinguish between Financial Conduct Authority-registered firms with low fraud rates and higher-risk operators. — Ian Allison Read more.

Calendar

• Apr.15-16, 2026: Paris Blockchain Week, Paris
• May 5-7, 2026: Consensus, Miami
• Sept. 29-Oct.1, 2026: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul
• Oct. 7-8, 2026: Token2049, Singapore
• Nov. 3-6, 2026: Devcon, Mumbai
• Nov. 15-17, 2026: Solana Breakpoint, London

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