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Today’s Menu

• The Real Story Behind Thinking Machines Collapse

• Coinbase Responds to Growing Quantum Computing Fears

Markets

TODAY IN AI

The Real Story Behind Thinking Machines Collapse

New details are emerging about last week's split at Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab, according to the NYT and The Information, including a tense meeting, secret talks with Sam Altman, and a failed acquisition discussion with Meta.

CTO Barrett Zoph and two other co-founders reportedly confronted Murati just days before his firing, pushing for him to take control of technical decisions. Murati allegedly told Zoph to "just do his job" as CTO and fired him later that week, with nine other TML employees also leaving for OpenAI or receiving offers.

Zoph was reportedly speaking to Altman behind Murati's back for months, with the co-founders unhappy with TML's direction and pushing for a sale to Meta. Zoph will now lead OpenAI's enterprise AI sales plans as part of a reorg to help close the gap between research and product teams.

What started as a messy departure now looks more like another power struggle that had been brewing for months. With TML struggling to raise at its fifty billion dollar target valuation and co-founders pushing for a sale Murati didn't want, the cracks were already showing, and OpenAI and Altman were ready to catch the fallout.

When your CTO talks to Sam Altman behind your back for months while pushing for a sale you don't want, that's not just tension. That's a coordinated exit strategy.

TODAY IN CRYPTO

Coinbase Responds to Growing Quantum Computing Fears

Let's be real. The quantum computing threats to crypto are serious. And those fears are starting to spread through Wall Street. But now the crypto industry is starting to respond.

On Wednesday, Coinbase announced a new advisory board to study how quantum computers could threaten Bitcoin and Ethereum. The board includes researchers from major universities, the Ethereum ecosystem, and Coinbase itself. Their first report is expected in early 2027.

The move comes as big names in finance raise alarms. UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti told CNBC at Davos that quantum computing's effect on crypto security "still needs to be proved." Jefferies strategist Christopher Wood went further, he removed Bitcoin from his long-term pension portfolio last week, citing quantum risks.

Bitcoin uses encryption to keep wallets safe. Today's computers would need trillions of years to crack it. But quantum computers work differently. In theory, they could break that encryption in hours or days. The key phrase here is "in theory."

Research from Chaincode Labs found that twenty to fifty percent of all Bitcoin could be vulnerable. That's four hundred billion to nine hundred billion dollars at risk. But the timeline is the big question. Some researchers say four to five years. Others say eight. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warned it could happen before the 2028 U.S. election. But Bitcoin developer Adam Back says there's no real threat for at least a decade.

Regardless of how far out the quantum threat truly is, the industry needs to work on finding a solution as soon as possible. Crypto investor Nic Carter recently led a twenty million dollar investment in Project Eleven, a startup working on quantum-resistant solutions.

"So far I have only seen denial and complacency from the developers," Carter said. He warned that if Bitcoin developers don't show urgency this year, big investors will quietly start reducing their Bitcoin holdings.

The threat may not be imminent. But the pressure to act is growing.

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Thanks for reading!

Until next time,

Damon James