StarkWare Mines First Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Transaction

StarkWare has made history by enabling the first quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction on mainnet. On August 26, 2026, StarkWare successfully mined a transaction using the Quantum Safe Bitcoin construction developed by Avihu Levy, the company's General Manager of Applications. The transaction ID is now publicly recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain.

The current security model for Bitcoin relies on elliptic-curve cryptography, which could be vulnerable to quantum computers running Shor's algorithm. This would allow a hacker to reverse-engineer a private key from a public key, posing a catastrophic threat to exposed Bitcoin addresses.

The Quantum Safe Bitcoin method sidesteps this issue by replacing elliptic-curve signatures with hash-based cryptography, specifically Lamport-style hash-based signatures that rely on RIPEMD-160 for pre-image resistance. This makes them more durable against quantum threats.

However, the construction requires significant off-chain computation and is currently estimated to cost between $75 and $150 per transaction, making it impractical for small transactions.