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Officials across Wall Street and Washington are facing a reckoning over Anthropic’s new artificial intelligence model, Mythos.
In the cryptocurrency market, a different kind of cybersecurity threat is looming: quantum computing.
Quantum computing is the fast-evolving field of computer science that has been dubbed the next frontier of technology — one where souped-up computers that harness quantum physics to solve complex calculations could revolutionize medicine, supply chains and the defense industry, among other areas. And yet, for all its potential benefits, the technology is emerging as a colossal risk to the $2.6 trillion crypto market.
The concern: A quantum computer will eventually be powerful enough to break the encryption underlying much of the market — opening the door for hundreds of billions of dollars worth of bitcoin alone to be stolen.
“When that day arrives, if it arrives and we’re unprepared, the whole system goes to zero,” Castle Island Ventures founding partner Nic Carter told MM. “It’s completely existential.”
The quantum threat is likely still years away— and nothing new to those crypto developers and fanatics who have been working to address such concerns.
Yet, in an era where headlines about stock-market bubbles, private credit turmoil and a rocky economy dominate, the mere possibility is a startling reminder that the next major financial crisis — whenever that may be — could very well revolve around cybersecurity. That’s surely why Wall Street titans and some of President Donald Trump’s top lieutenants are rushing to get their arms around Anthropic’s Mythos, which, as my colleagues reported Friday, can “autonomously identify and exploit complex software vulnerabilities.” And that’s why the quantum threat in crypto is only bound to attract more scrutiny.
Cybersecurity “was the issue that kept me up at night when I was at Treasury, and that was true even after we dealt with the 2023 bank failures,” said Graham Steele, who served as assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions under former President Joe Biden. “It only takes one attack to get through for a significant amount of damage to be done.”
Hacks and scams are nothing new to the wild world of crypto, where more than $3 billion was stolen in 2025. On Saturday alone, $390 million was siphoned off in a major crypto theft. But the quantum threat is unlike anything crypto has seen before.
The industry’s push to prepare for a post-quantum world is no small task. One big question is how dormant crypto wallets that hold massive amounts of digital assets, such as bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s, will be safeguarded from quantum-empowered hackers. And the effort is only taking on new urgency as the technology continues to develop.
Google researchers recently warned that a future quantum computer could crack the cryptography system that keeps crypto secure today with fewer resources than once imagined. Last week, Nvidia rolled out a new AI model specifically intended to help make quantum computers a reality. And some are already bracing for the market fallout: In January, Jefferies’ global head of equity strategy, Christopher Wood, dropped bitcoin from his model portfolio due to the threat of quantum computing.
Not everyone in crypto is panicking, of course. Blockstream CEO Adam Back — an OG crypto executive who may be but denies being Nakamoto — has been particularly vocal that the threat of a quantum-fueled upheaval to bitcoin is still years away. Bitcoin Policy Institute Head of Research Sam Lyman told MM that the industry has plenty of time to prepare.
“The quantum threat is neither imminent nor insurmountable,” said Lyman, who recently served as a senior adviser and chief speechwriter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “To all the panicans in the digital asset community, they just need to remember that it’s gonna be OK.”
Lyman pointed to the price of bitcoin, which barely budged following the Google paper last month, as a sign that the market is already pricing in the potential quantum upheaval. But he readily acknowledges that the risk needs to be headed off sooner rather than later.
“Quantum is an inevitability,” Lyman said. “We know it’s going to come eventually. We just want to be fully prepared for it when it does.”
It’s MONDAY — And with the way this week is shaping up, make sure to have your Liz Lemon memes at the ready. Are you heading to the $TRUMP memecoin conference this weekend? We should talk: [email protected]. And, as always, you can send all your tips, suggestions and anything else econ or Wall Street related to Sam at [email protected].
Monday… Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO Charlie Scharf speaks with David Rubenstein at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. at 11 a.m. …
Tuesday… Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Young Kim (R-Calif.) discuss technology and finance at an Axios event, beginning at 7:30 a.m. … SEC Chair Paul Atkins speaks at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. at 8 a.m. … The Senate Banking Committee holds a nomination hearing for Kevin Warsh to be Federal Reserve chair at 10 a.m. … The House Financial Services Committee marks up legislation at 10 a.m. … Fed Governor Christopher Waller speaks at the Brookings Institution at 2:30 p.m. …
Wednesday… Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s financial services and general government subcommittee at 10 a.m. … Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testifies before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee at 10 a.m. … U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer testifies at the House Ways and Means Committee at 10 a.m. … The House Financial Services Committee’s housing and insurance subcommittee holds a hearing on reinsurance and credit risk transfers at 10 a.m. … The House Financial Services Committee’s national security panel has a hearing on U.S. sanctions programs at 2 p.m. …
Thursday… Greer testifies at the Senate Finance Committee at 10 a.m. … The SEC has a closed meeting at 2 p.m. …
Saturday… Top investors in President Donald Trump’s memecoin attend a conference at Mar-a-Lago. Advertised speakers include Trump, ARK’s Cathie Wood and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino.
Here we go again — Just days after the U.S. stock market notched record highs, Wall Street investors are back on edge. S&P 500 futures dropped on the market’s open Sunday night, while oil prices jumped back close to $100 a barrel.
The renewed anxiety came after a tense weekend surrounding the all-important Strait of Hormuz, as Iran reexerted its control over the passageway, Trump vowed to no longer be “MR. NICE GUY!” and the U.S. Navy seized an Iranian ship. It was a remarkable U-turn from Friday, when both Trump and Iran declared the Strait open for business. And the path out is still not entirely clear to some.
“I just see few areas of agreement,” former U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Bloomberg TV.
Still, Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are set for further peace talks with Iran in Pakistan today. But administration officials are clearly trying to brace Americans for the economic fallout: On Sunday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said during a CNN appearance that gas prices may not fall below $3 again until 2027.
ICYMI — ‘We’re not going back’: Iran war forces global energy shift by POLITICO’s Sara Schonhardt and Zack Colman
SCOTUS takes a new look at SEC — A showdown over the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ability to extract massive amounts of money from bad actors in the financial markets is due to play out at the Supreme Court today.
The justices will hear oral arguments in a case surrounding the SEC’s authority to obtain ill-gotten gains, or disgorgement, from bad actors — and whether the agency must show that investors suffered economic losses. Disgorgement is a crucial tool in the SEC’s enforcement kit — the agency collected more than $10 billion of ill-gotten gains in the last fiscal year. The case is the latest in a series of recent Supreme Court battles tied to the Wall Street cop’s enforcement powers.
Labor clash — Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Labor Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito are caught in what Nick Niedzwiadek calls an “awkward dance”, as D’Esposito, an ex-cop who serves as the agency’s internal watchdog, investigates Chavez-DeRemer and her inner circle.
The investigation, Nick reports, “could prompt Chavez-DeRemer’s exit as the White House juggles multiple high-level vacancies and crises ahead of the midterms. A messy departure would also risk muddying the White House’s pro-worker campaign messaging and its efforts to stave off criticism of the president’s stewardship of the economy.”
— “It is such a fucking distraction,” one DOL official said.
New guidance — “Federal bank regulators issued updated model risk management guidance Friday, or protocols for how banks should treat quantitative models used to predict the risks associated with certain banking and investment activities,” Aiden Reiter reports.
First in MM: Torres presses CFTC over well-timed wagers — Rep. Ritchie Torres is calling on Wall Street’s top derivatives regulator to take a look at “a significant and well-timed $760 million trade” in the oil futures market that reportedly took place Friday just before an Iranian official announced the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
The New York Democrat called on CFTC Chair Michael Selig in a letter first obtained by MM to expand an already ongoing probe around other similarly prescient wagers to include the trade, noting “this pattern of trading activity raises profound concerns” about potential market manipulation.
It’s midterm season — And in case you were looking for a vibe check on the upper chamber’s status, POLITICO’s Erin Doherty, Lisa Kashinsky, Liz Crampton, Aaron Pellish and Myah Ward have you covered. Spoiler: Republicans aren’t feeling great.
“Democrats still face steep odds in their bid to flip the chamber, but interviews with nearly two dozen GOP operatives, party chairs and strategists across the country’s battlegrounds found a persistent concern that the longer the Iran war drags on and the economy sputters, the more it could complicate their path to keeping their majority in November,” they report.
Checking in on approps — “House Republican appropriators voted Friday morning to approve their Financial Services funding bill in subcommittee, backing about a 4 percent cut for fiscal 2027,” Jennifer Scholtes reports.
Petrina Thomas is now the federal government relations manager at Zillow. She previously served on Rep. Maxine Waters’ House Financial Services Democratic staff, most recently as member services director.