MARA Pulls Off First Quantum-Resistant Bitcoin Transaction on Mainnet Without Protocol Change

For the first time, a quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction has been confirmed on the mainnet without requiring any changes to the network's protocol.

The breakthrough was achieved through MARA's private Slipstream mempool using a method called Quantum Safe Bitcoin, developed by StarkWare's Avihu Levy.

This solution modifies Binohash, a technique from BitVM creator Robin Linus, which wraps each transaction in a proof-of-work puzzle that relies on hash functions resistant to quantum attacks rather than the signature itself.

Levy estimated that this approach provides around 118 bits of security under Shor's algorithm and an extra cost of a few hundred dollars in GPU time.

The mining of this transaction has been framed as a stopgap measure by MARA Foundation head Isabel Foxen Duke, who emphasized that private mempools are not a long-term solution for Bitcoin quantum resistance.