StarkWare Cuts Estimated Cost of Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Transactions

A recent AI-assisted coding contest run by StarkWare has successfully reduced the estimated cost of quantum-safe Bitcoin transactions. The company's optimization efforts lowered the projected GPU preparation cost from $320 to as low as $66, a reduction of about 80%. This achievement is significant because it makes the process more practical for potential emergency use.

The contest saw top submissions increase computation speed by approximately five times, with some participants checking around 881 million candidates per second. While this improvement has brought down the estimated cost sharply, it's essential to note that the $66 figure remains based on a test of the computation rather than an actual Bitcoin transaction.

StarkWare's solution is positioned as an emergency option for moving eligible coins in case of a quantum threat before Bitcoin adopts broader security measures. However, this method still faces practical constraints, including requiring transactions to be sent directly to miners and not protecting coins with previously exposed public keys.