StarkWare's QSB Demonstrates Quantum-Resistant Bitcoin Transaction on Mainnet

A team of researchers at StarkWare has successfully completed a quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction on the mainnet, marking a significant milestone in the development of secure cryptocurrency technologies.

The transaction, confirmed in Bitcoin block 964,199, was tested using Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB), an approach developed by StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy. QSB combines two ideas: hash-based one-time signatures and pairs authorization to a specific transaction through computational searches.

Levy's QSB is designed as a 'last-resort' safety net that can be used when quantum risk becomes more urgent, rather than replacing Bitcoin's cryptography across the network. The approach was tested using MARA Pool's Slipstream service, which relies on direct submission via Slipstream rather than normal peer-to-peer propagation.

The test highlights the practical trade-off of compute intensity: generating a QSB transaction requires low hundreds of dollars in GPU computation and takes hours. StarkWare estimates the total cost landed in the 'low hundreds of dollars,' around $150 to $200, for the confirmed mainnet run.