Maelstrom's Bitcoin Grant Program has awarded its sixth recipient: Tadge Dryja. A co-creator of the Lightning Network, Dryja will use the funding to research how to harden Bitcoin against quantum computers.
The grant supports Dryja's work on post-quantum cryptographic defenses for Bitcoin. He's developed a 'Lifeboat' scheme that protects transactions from quantum attacks and proposed a mechanism called OP_CIV for efficient signature aggregation.
Dryja is also working on Utreexo, a data structure that could significantly reduce the storage requirements for running a Bitcoin full node.