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The base layer: network health, mining, adoption, custody, and the debates that shape Bitcoin itself.
Bitcoin's digital signatures could one day be cracked by a powerful quantum computer. None exists yet, and the machines that do are thousands of times too small. Here is what is actually at risk, how far the hardware really is, and the fixes already being written.
These companies exist to own bitcoin. They raise cash from shareholders and lenders, buy coins, and report how many they hold per share. Strategy started the model and holds the most by far. It prints value when the share price runs ahead of the bitcoin, and bleeds when it does not.
Searches for a Bitcoin wipeout spike whenever the price drops. A fall to exactly zero would need a worldwide failure that has not happened since 2009, yet Bitcoin has still lost most of its value more than once. This guide separates a crash from a true zero.
BTCPay Server, the free bitcoin payment tool, told operators to switch off their servers on November 1 after reports that attackers swept funds from internet-connected hot wallets. The project says only older versions were hit, and has not named a loss figure.
The reward for mining a block is cut in half every 210,000 blocks. It has happened four times, the subsidy is 3.125 bitcoin today, and the next cut is about 76,800 blocks away.
A breach of Keystone's website exposed customer names, shipping addresses and order details, the hardware wallet maker said. It confirmed the theft on October 23 and said recovery phrases and private keys were safe, but the leaked contact data still opens the door to phishing and worse.
Electrum shipped version 4.8.3 to close a high-severity flaw that let a hostile server redirect a payment when a user raised its fee. The project says some servers were already running the attack and has urged every user to upgrade.
Tether said 15 mining companies and pools, among them Bitmain, Canaan and Foundry Digital, agreed to build integrations for its open-source Mining Development Kit. The goal is software that can run mining sites across rival hardware brands, with a stable release due by the end of 2026.
Bitcoin's seven-day average hashrate climbed back above 1 zettahash per second on October 22, its first time since March, even as large public miners move rigs to AI. On-chain difficulty hit a record near 140.58 trillion.
Mining bitcoin only pays under the right conditions: cheap power and an efficient machine. Here is the math behind profit in 2026, with a worked example, the break-even electricity price, and what the next halving changes.
Bitcoin Core will patch and reveal vulnerabilities that a simple AI prompt can surface as soon as a fix is ready, ending the months-long secrecy it once applied to low and medium severity flaws. Developer Antoine Poinsot said the old embargo delayed fixes without protecting users.
Bitcoin is pseudonymous, not anonymous. The ledger is permanent and public, and the gap between an address and a name is closed by clustering plus a subpoena. Three US cases show how, and where tracing stops.