Co-produced by StarkWare and Pete Rizzo, the series brings together the world’s leading voices on quantum computing, cryptocurrency, and cryptography.
StarkWare and Pete Rizzo, The Bitcoin Historian on X, have joined forces on a new podcast tackling Bitcoin’s toughest question yet: can it survive the quantum computing threat?
Rizzo has spent 13 years reporting on cryptocurrency. Now, alongside StarkWare, he’s taking on his hardest story yet – and he hasn’t done it alone. For Quantum Bitcoin Countdown, the pair have lined up some of the biggest names in Bitcoin and quantum computing to tackle one of the most consequential technical questions facing Bitcoin today: can it survive and thrive in the quantum era?
Co-hosting is Nathan Jeffay, a journalist and co-author of the new bestselling book on blockchain, Zero Knowledge, Infinite Trust, who also heads media at StarkWare.
The series is a genuine two-way collaboration: Rizzo brings the journalism, StarkWare brings the cryptography. The firm is home to some of the field’s sharpest quantum minds – including Eli Ben-Sasson, who pioneered quantum-safe ZK systems, and Avihu Levy, who published a way to make Bitcoin wallets secure without any protocol-level change – and that bench of expertise sits directly behind the show.
Together, Rizzo and StarkWare built Quantum Bitcoin Countdown to cut through the noise for Bitcoin and crypto holders who feel lost – or worse, stuck relying on social signaling – helping them interpret quantum developments for themselves: what quantum computers actually are, how close a Bitcoin-breaking machine really is, and which parts of Bitcoin are genuinely vulnerable.
Listeners build their mental model alongside Rizzo, who brings a decade of crypto journalism from CoinDesk, Bitcoin Magazine, and Forbes – but freely admits he’s no quantum expert himself, which is exactly why he leaned on StarkWare to build the show right. Bitcoin has faced existential debates before: over block size, over spam, over its very purpose. Every time, the community’s ability to push through depended on how well it understood what was at stake. With credible experts now saying quantum is coming, Rizzo and StarkWare built this show on a simple bet: Bitcoin holders deserve a rigorous, honest, and accessible account of the threat before they’re asked to respond to it, not after – a complete picture that lets them form their own view.
Upcoming episodes dig into nation-state competition and governance fights, and go deep on the proposals now on the table – BIP 360, Blockstream’s SHRIMPS, and StarkWare’s QSB – with the researchers and developers who wrote them. Confirmed guests include Ethan Heilman (BIP 360 co-author), Jameson Lopp (BIP 361 co-author, Casa co-founder), and Avihu Levy (StarkWare CPO), with more to come.
The crypto community, unlike admirers of fiat, prides itself on understanding the systems it faces – and that’s the whole point of the show. Jeffay and Rizzo, backed by StarkWare’s bench of researchers, want everyone to get the chance to understand what quantum means for Bitcoin, past the clichés and the headlines and into the actual details. The ethos of crypto is that everyone gets to understand everything, and that’s exactly what this collaboration is aiming for. Bitcoin’s toughest questions deserve its sharpest minds and clearest storytellers working together – and that’s exactly what’s happening here.
Quantum Bitcoin Countdown is available on all major podcast and video platforms.
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyiuf_zHTBQ
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6HYqnLZdysT5VB52ZCFWBv
