story // 3 dispatches over 131 days

The problem story

From apr 1 to aug 10. It travelled bitcoin→mining. Every dispatch below uses at least one of its words: “problem”.

1. apr 1
   DOL's 401(k) Bitcoin Rule Bakes In a Custody Problem

   On March 30, the Department of Labor proposed a rule that clears the litigation barrier keeping crypto out of 401(k) plans. The proposal is not a mandate and is not final. It creates a process-based safe harbor for fiduciaries who document a six-factor review before adding alternatives to a retirement menu. Morgan Stanley has a Bitcoin ETF ready to launch into its $6.2 trillion advisory network. But the ETF Illusion article still applies in full: exposure inside a retirement account is not ownership, and a 401(k) cannot give you self-custodyself-custodyHolding your own bitcoin keys rather than trusting an exchange or custodian. The maxim: not your keys, not your coins..

   “problem”

2. apr 5
   Four Bitcoin Proposals for Surviving a Quantum Attack

   Google's March 31 whitepaper compressed the estimated qubit threshold for breaking Bitcoin's elliptic-curve cryptography by 20x. Bitcoin developers have known the threat was coming for years. There are now four concrete proposals in various states of development — BIP-360, SPHINCS+, SHRIMPS, and Hourglass V2. None are activated. None have a scheduled deployment. The governance problem may be harder than the cryptography problem.

   “problem”

3. aug 10
   The BIP-110 Fork Mined 2 Blocks and Stalled. Its Missing Replay Protection Is Still Your Problem

   BIP-110's mandatory signaling window opened at block 961,632 on August 8 with miner support near 2.5 percent, and the nodes enforcing it split onto a minority chain that mined 2 blocks and stalled. The main network never blinked. The fork shipped without replay protection, and that design choice is the part holders should actually understand.

   “problem” · story reaches mining