Bitcoin Mainnet Upgraded with Quantum-Ready Security Amid Solana Disinflation Hike

Bitcoin's mainnet has been upgraded with an experimental quantum-resistant transaction scheme designed to reduce risk during a specific vulnerability period. StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy tested the 'Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB)' system, which combines hash-based one-time signatures with computational search techniques that bind an authorization to a specific transaction.

The test used a 10,000-satoshi output protected by QSB and resulted in each transaction taking hours to complete and costing an estimated $150 to $200. Levy's experiment highlights the layered approach to quantum resistance in Bitcoin, which aims to tackle specific threat windows before longer-term changes to core cryptography can be rolled out through protocol governance.

Blockstream researchers have also published a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) introducing the SHRINCS post-quantum signature scheme. The proposal reduces the size of large hash-based post-quantum signatures by about 13.23 times but still introduces trade-offs, with the signature size being at least nine times larger than Bitcoin's existing signatures.

Solana validators have approved a proposal to double its annual disinflation rate from 15% to 30%, which is expected to reduce issuance by 18.9 million SOL over the next six years and reach a 1.5% terminal inflation rate in about 2.8 years.