Decrypt’s Morning Minute newsletter said Tuesday that Anthropic believes an unreleased version of its most powerful model, Claude Mythos Preview, found two previously unknown attacks on cryptographic algorithms. One of them targeted a post-quantum scheme competing to become a U.S. federal standard.
Claude Mythos targets the HAWK signature scheme
The scheme in question is HAWK, a digital signature system designed to prove that a transaction came from a user without revealing the private key. It was built to remain secure against quantum computers.
The newsletter said the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, moved HAWK into the third round of its post-quantum competition in May. At that stage, it was the last lattice-based candidate still standing. Anthropic said Claude identified a symmetry in HAWK’s mathematics that no human had used before.
Based on the figures cited in the report, that discovery reduced the cost of stealing HAWK’s smallest key from 2^64 operations to 2^38 operations, which is roughly 67 million times less work.
Anthropic also said patching HAWK would require roughly doubling key sizes. In its words, that “eliminates many of the reasons” HAWK looked attractive in the first place. The report tied that directly to blockchains: signature size takes up block space, and block space affects fees, so any chain evaluating a quantum-resistant replacement has to care about bytes per signature. HAWK’s core pitch was compact keys and fast signing, and the proposed fix would cut into that advantage.
No live crypto network was broken
The newsletter made a separate point for crypto holders. HAWK has never been deployed anywhere, and Bitcoin still runs on ECDSA, the pre-quantum signature system these candidates are eventually meant to replace. That means nothing already running in the field was broken by this result.
Still, the piece framed post-quantum security as one of the biggest unresolved issues hanging over crypto. It said the quantum defense push seen in recent weeks and months — including the BlackRock-Coinbase-Strategy consortium, Vitalik’s post-quantum roadmap, and roadmaps from NEAR and Zcash — depends on the assumption that the schemes replacing today’s cryptography are themselves sound. In that context, Claude Mythos exposed a weakness in a leading candidate before it ever shipped.
The same report added a note of balance: the same kind of tool that finds flaws can also help defend systems. That, it said, is why the industry is racing to turn AI on its own code first. The open question now is whether AI can rebuild cryptographic defenses as quickly as it can break them.
Crypto and macro markets ahead of the FOMC
Major crypto assets were in the green before the FOMC decision. BTC was up 2% at $64,400, ETH gained 2% to $1,910, SOL rose 1% to $74, and HYPE added 1% to $54.90.
Among larger altcoins, Kaito was up 10%, JUP rose 8%, and UNI climbed 7%.
In other markets, oil gained 4% to $83 while gold was flat at $4,030. Stock futures were mixed ahead of the FOMC, with the Dow down 0.3% and the Nasdaq up 0.3%.
BlackRock, Fidelity and others back the CLARITY Act
The newsletter said BlackRock, Fidelity and other Wall Street firms publicly backed the CLARITY Act. It specifically named BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs and SoFi as urging passage of the bill.
At the same time, JPMorgan was described as splitting from the group over rules tied to stablecoin yield, while the Senate’s window to act was narrowing.
Regulation, market structure and institutional products
Wall Street veteran Don Wilson said regulators are getting perpetual futures wrong. He argued that one of crypto’s biggest trading innovations is being misunderstood by both the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, and CME as they fight over on-chain oversight.
Ondo dropped plans for a tokenized-asset blockchain and instead chose to build a private, high-speed trading network. The report described that as a notable pivot for one of the biggest names in real-world asset tokenization.
Ethereum startup EthSystems is betting that privacy is the key to getting banks on-chain. It is building tools aimed at letting institutions use public blockchains without exposing their activity.
Michael Saylor called Bitcoin’s code “a constitution” and said changes such as BIP-110 are attacks on “economic rights.”
Morgan Stanley launched spot Ethereum and Solana ETPs under the tickers MSSE and MSOL. The report said each product stakes a portion of its holdings and passes the rewards through to investors.
1inch publicly launched its Aqua shared-liquidity layer across 13 chains. The product lets liquidity providers keep tokens in their own wallets while backing several positions at once. 1inch called it the first “risk-controlled” DeFi liquidity venue.
Russia charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with aiding terrorism and placed him on an international wanted list. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, alleged that Telegram failed to remove channels used to coordinate attacks inside Russia.
ETF flows and treasury watch
Bitcoin ETFs posted $50 million in net outflows on Tuesday, while Ethereum ETFs recorded $9 million in net inflows.
Meme coin tracker
Meme coin leaders were mixed. DOGE rose 1%, SHIB gained 3%, PEPE fell 2%, PENGU was flat, TRUMP lost 3%, and BONK added 1%.
On Robinhood chain, PIPEDOG led the move with $66 million in volume and a run to a $45 million market cap. Other movers included Cashcat, up 22%, Stonkbroker, up 70%, and AI, up 16%.
The Cashcat team announced a new launchpad, letscash dot fun, and said fees from the platform would be used to buy back and burn cashcat tokens.
On Solana, leaders included frank at 44x, Jimothy up 110%, and Untie up 150%. ANSEM rose 10% to $180 million, while EPIK gained 10% to $14 million.
Tokens, protocols and airdrops
Zcash activated its Ironwood upgrade after the counterfeiting scare, with the stated goal of ensuring counterfeit coins can never enter circulation. ZEC was down 1.5% at $457. Earlier in the newsletter, it also said 3.8% had migrated out of Orchard so far.
Perps DEX Lighter rolled out its Web V3 redesign, updating the trading interface with changes to navigation, market views and trading workflows.
TradeXYZ said it covered liquidation losses after an oracle issue involving SKHYNIX triggered large liquidations.
JurassicFi tokenized “Deaton,” described as a museum-grade Triceratops prorsus skull, and called it the first dinosaur fossil tokenized as a real-world asset on Solana.
NFT market check
NFT leaders were mostly flat. CryptoPunks fell 1% to 32.3 ETH, BAYC slipped 1% to 8.35 ETH, Pudgy was flat at 4.06 ETH, and Hypurr’s rose 1% to 189 HYPE.
Among top movers, StonkBrokers climbed 50% to 3 ETH, Satari rose 26%, and TTT added 20%.
FWA rebounded 23% to $21 million overnight after dropping as low as $14 million. The protocol added several new ERC20 assets, including MOG and REKT.