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StarkWare tests quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction on mainnet
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StarkWare has successfully tested a quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction on the mainnet, marking a significant experimental step in securing the cryptocurrency against future threats. Researcher Avihu Levy executed the transaction, which was confirmed in Bitcoin block 964,199 on Wednesday. The company described it as the first onchain demonstration of a quantum-resistant spend that does not require a protocol fork.
The transaction spent a 10,000-satoshi output protected by Levy’s Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB) scheme. It was mined by MARA Pool using its Slipstream service, which allowed for direct submission. This moves Levy’s April 2024 proposal from a theoretical paper to a live, functional test on Bitcoin’s network.
QSB combines hash-based one-time signatures with computational searches to bind authorization to a specific transaction. The method is designed to prevent forgery even if a quantum computer breaks Bitcoin’s current elliptic-curve cryptography. This addresses concerns raised in March when Google researchers warned a quantum computer could derive a private key within minutes.
However, the experimental process is currently costly and nonstandard. StarkWare spokesperson Nathan Jeffay estimated the transaction cost between $150 and $200, requiring hours of computation. Furthermore, QSB transactions are classified as nonstandard, meaning they would not propagate through ordinary Bitcoin nodes before confirmation.
This test provides a temporary safety net rather than a permanent solution. StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson emphasized that QSB is a last-resort measure, stating, “A soft fork should happen, and I believe it will.” The company views this as a bridge to more formal protocol-level protections.
Bitcoin developers are actively considering such upgrades, including the proposed BIP-360 soft fork. This proposal aims to introduce quantum-resistant output types. While the StarkWare experiment demonstrates immediate feasibility, the broader Bitcoin community continues to debate the timeline and implementation for network-wide quantum security.
