Crypto leaders gathered at Cointelegraph’s LONGITUDE conference in Hong Kong emphasized the urgent need to tackle Bitcoin’s technological vulnerabilities, while underscoring that clearer US crypto regulations are overdue.
The Feb. 12 event, co-hosted by crypto exchange OneBullEx, kicked off with a fireside chat featuring Tron founder Justin Sun. During the discussion, Sun outlined the industry’s key priorities — including preparing for the potential arrival of artificial general intelligence (AGI), which many believe could emerge within the next few years.
“We need to establish simple, accessible standards that allow AGI to interact seamlessly with blockchain,” Sun said.
Following Sun’s fireside chat, the conference moved into three panel discussions focused on the quantum computing threat to Bitcoin, the potential ramifications of the US CLARITY Act, and how crypto infrastructure is advancing toward trillion-dollar scale.
Even as the crypto market closed out 2025 on a volatile note, speakers remained broadly optimistic about the industry’s long-term trajectory.
Bitcoiners should ‘discount the value’ until quantum is addressed
Quantum computing — viewed by some in the Bitcoin community as a significant long-term risk — became a central topic of debate.
Charles Edwards, founder of Capriole Investments, argued that the potential threat should be factored into Bitcoin’s valuation until the network is fully quantum-resistant.
“Today, you kind of have to start to discount the value of Bitcoin based on that risk until it’s solved,” Edwards said, adding that rising concerns over quantum breakthroughs were a key reason Bitcoin finished the year below its opening price.
“If you just look at the data, 2025 should have been a great year for Bitcoin,” Edwards said, noting that quantum computing has evolved into a “non-zero threat” and that US-based Bitcoin ETF issuers have started incorporating quantum-related risk disclosures.
However, Matthew Roszak, chairman of Bloq and co-founder of Hemi, struck a more measured tone, signaling less concern about how the situation may ultimately unfold:
“To look at this as a movie trailer and what’s ahead for Bitcoin and quantum. Just the preview here. It’s a two-step process. We’re going to upgrade and chill. That’s it. That’s the process.”
Akshat Vaidya, managing partner at Maelstrom and its co-founder, acknowledged that quantum computing represents an “existential threat” to Bitcoin. However, he expressed confidence that the industry would mount a “coordinated response that’s proportionate” to the risk.
US CLARITY Act seen as pivotal for the industry
In December, White House crypto and AI czar David Sacks said the United States is “closer than ever” to passing the US CLARITY Act, legislation designed to bring greater regulatory clarity to the digital asset sector.
While the bill has yet to be approved, panelists agreed that the regulatory environment in the US has shifted in a more crypto-friendly direction since President Donald Trump assumed office.
Sean McHugh, senior director at Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority and a former TradFi executive in the United States, said a key factor behind his move was the UAE’s more supportive and clearly defined crypto regulatory framework.
“I think one of the reasons why I moved to Dubai is because they were committed to clarity when I left a year and a half ago,” McHugh said, adding:
“The US was in a very different place than it is now.”
Grayscale Investments’ chief legal officer, Craig Salm, highlighted previous clashes between the two primary US financial regulators over crypto oversight during the Joe Biden administration.
“There used to be this whole turf war between the SEC and the CFTC,” Salm said, adding:
“Your regulator fighting over jurisdiction just isn’t productive for anybody.”
Salm added that the regulatory climate has since shifted. Rather than competing for jurisdiction, the SEC and CFTC are now meeting jointly and coordinating their efforts to provide long-awaited clarity for the digital asset sector.
“Which is exactly what I think we all need,” Salm said.
Questions remain over infrastructure readiness
When the discussion turned to whether crypto infrastructure is prepared to support trillion-dollar institutional inflows, panelists voiced reservations.
“I would say probably not yet,” said A.J. Warner, chief strategy officer at Offchain Labs.
Joanita Titan, head of institutional growth at the Monad Foundation, shared Warner’s view. “Billion-dollar payments or billion-dollar processing is not a problem, but trillion dollars, I don’t think we’re there yet,” she said.
Warner added that the biggest constraints remain ongoing scalability, network resiliency, and improvements to user experience — all of which must advance before the industry can comfortably handle flows on a trillion-dollar scale.
