Hunter Beast, known professionally by the alias "cryptoquick," is a software developer specializing in the Bitcoin protocol and the Rust programming language. He is a prominent contributor to the Bitcoin ecosystem, recognized primarily as the author of Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 360 (BIP-360), which aims to introduce quantum-resistant addresses to the Bitcoin network. ^{[1] [2]}​

Career

Hunter Beast's professional journey in the digital currency space is marked by a distinct and public transition from a generalist in Web3 to a specialist focused exclusively on Bitcoin. His online alias, "cryptoquick," predates the existence of cryptocurrencies. He adopted the name in 2005 for use in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels on the FreeNode network. In 2009, he registered the domain name cryptoquick.com, still before he had heard of Bitcoin. Beast has noted the irony of the name in retrospect, suggesting that "bitcoinslow" might have been more appropriate given Bitcoin's deliberate development pace, but he continues to use the original alias to maintain a consistent identity and prevent impersonators from targeting his followers. ^{[3] [1]}​

Beast's serious engagement with the cryptocurrency industry began around 2018, when his interests were centered on the broader Web3 space. During this period, he contributed to the development of the Filecoin protocol, a decentralized storage network. ^{[3] [2]}​

A pivotal moment in his career occurred in February 2021 after he read "The Bitcoin Standard" by Saifedean Ammous. Beast described the experience as leading to an "obsession" with Bitcoin, which fundamentally shifted his professional focus. Following this, he adopted the viewpoint often described as Bitcoin maximalism, coming to believe that Bitcoin's layered architecture obviates the need for other Layer 1 blockchains. After this shift, he specialized in developing with Rust for Bitcoin and its associated second-layer technologies. For a two-year period, he worked with the company DIBA on the BitMask wallet, a project focused on implementing RGB, a smart contract system for Bitcoin and the Lightning Network. As of early 2026, he is the founder and developer of a venture named Surmount Systems. ^{[3] [1]}​

Major Works and Contributions

Beast's work is concentrated on enhancing the functionality, scalability, and long-term security of the Bitcoin protocol. His contributions include a significant Bitcoin Improvement Proposal, the creation of development libraries, and various open-source projects. ^[2]​

Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 360 (BIP-360)

Beast is the primary author of BIP-360, a proposal designed to make the Bitcoin network resistant to potential threats from quantum computers. The development of functional quantum computers poses a long-term risk to many forms of modern public-key cryptography, including the ECDSA algorithm currently used by Bitcoin to secure funds. ^[1]​

BIP-360 proposes a quantum-resistant soft fork for Bitcoin. A soft fork is a backward-compatible upgrade to the network's rules, allowing upgraded nodes to interoperate with non-upgraded nodes. The proposal introduces a new address format designated as P2QRH, which stands for "Pay-to-Quantum-Resistant-Hash." This new format would utilize cryptographic schemes believed to be secure against attacks from both classical and quantum computers. Beast, along with collaborators, publicly announced a draft of the proposal on June 8, 2024. After a six-month period of public discussion and refinement, the proposal was officially assigned the number BIP-360 on December 18, 2024, formally entering it into the peer review process for Bitcoin protocol upgrades. ^[1]​

In support of this proposal, Beast developed libbitcoinpqc, a C library that implements post-quantum cryptography for Bitcoin based on the specifications within BIP-360. His ongoing involvement in the BIP process was demonstrated by activities such as his review of a pull request for BIP-110 in the official Bitcoin BIPS GitHub repository on February 4, 2026. ^[2]​

Other Projects and Contributions

Beyond his work on quantum resistance, Beast has created and contributed to numerous projects in the Bitcoin and Rust ecosystems. ^[2]​

• Surmount Systems: Beast's current primary venture, which he founded. ^[3]
• Carbonado: A project described as an "apocalypse-resistant data storage format" written in Rust. It is part of the bitmask-stack organization, related to his previous work on the BitMask wallet. ^{[3] [2]}
• Layered Bitcoin: A project and website created by Beast to focus on exploring and explaining Bitcoin's layered architecture, including technologies like the Lightning Network and RGB. ^[3]
• rust-bitcoin: He is an active contributor to the rust-bitcoin library, a widely used and foundational suite of tools for building Bitcoin-related applications in the Rust programming language. ^[2]
• Seed-Encoder: A tool he created to encode BIP-39 mnemonic seed phrases into a format suitable for creating durable physical backups on steel plates, such as those made by Punchplate. ^[2]
• Orange Metal, Orange Coin: Beast is the author of a newsletter on Substack with this title, where he writes about Bitcoin and the Rust programming language. ^[3]
• Nostr-related Websites: He maintains btcfur.com and nostrfurs.com, websites related to the Nostr protocol and NIP-05 identifiers. ^[3]

His open-source contributions have been recognized by their inclusion in the GitHub Arctic Code Vault, an archival facility designed to preserve important software for future generations. ^[2]​