StarkWare Pioneers First Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Transaction on Mainnet
A quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction has been successfully executed on mainnet for the first time. The transaction, carried out by StarkWare's Avihu Levy, used a method called Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB) to secure the transfer of 10,000 satoshis.
The QSB method relies on Bitcoin's existing legacy Script rules and hash-based one-time signatures, rather than elliptic-curve cryptography. This approach is designed to protect against quantum attacks by leveraging hash resistance instead of private key secrecy.
The transaction was processed through MARA Pool's Slipstream service, which gave it a direct path to a miner willing to include it in the blockchain. However, this method is manual, costly, and dependent on miner access, making it impractical for widespread use at present.
StarkWare's CEO, Eli Ben-Sasson, has emphasized that while this milestone demonstrates the feasibility of QSB, it does not make Bitcoin quantum-safe. The company remains committed to advocating for a soft fork to introduce a new protocol-level solution.