StarkWare Debuts Mainnet Quantum-Resistant Bitcoin Transaction
StarkWare has successfully carried out an experimental quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction on the mainnet. The transfer, completed by StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy, used Levy's 'Quantum Safe Bitcoin' (QSB) scheme.
The transaction was confirmed in Bitcoin block 964,199 and demonstrated that a quantum-resistant spending construction can be executed within existing Bitcoin infrastructure without requiring a protocol upgrade. QSB is designed to prevent forgery even if a future quantum computer undermines the elliptic-curve cryptography used by Bitcoin today.
StarkWare estimates that the final test cost around $150-$200 and required hours of computation, which is still expensive but feasible for experimentation. The demonstration was carried out without a protocol change, moving QSB from 'paper and code' into a working mainnet transaction.