Bitcoin’s ‘last resort’ quantum-safe solution just got 79% cheaper: StarkWare
StarkWare says the estimated GPU cost to prepare an experimental quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction has dropped to about $66 after a weeklong optimization challenge, down from roughly $320 for the first such mainnet transaction in August. The improvement came from 62 accepted software optimizations tested in benchmarks during the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB) Optimization Challenge.
Why It Matters
If the benchmarked reductions hold in practice, the lower compute cost could make QSB—an emergency, non-consensus change to add hash-based quantum protection—more accessible for holders with large unexposed balances. Still, StarkWare continues to view protocol-level changes (a soft fork) as the preferable long-term defense against quantum threats.
Key Facts
- New estimated cost: ~$66 per transaction (dashboard figure)
- Previous mainnet transaction cost: ~$320 compute cost (Aug. 26 mainnet transaction)
- First QSB mainnet transaction date: Aug. 26 (mined and confirmed)
- GPU usage for first transaction: ~3,100 GPU-hours across ~100 GPUs
- Optimization challenge launch date: Sept. 16 (Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Optimization Challenge)
StarkWare reported that the estimated GPU cost to build an experimental quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction has fallen to roughly $66 after a week of targeted optimizations. The figure is down from an estimated compute cost of about $320 for the first Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB) mainnet transaction, which was mined and confirmed on Aug. 26.
QSB, a design published in April by StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy, adds hash-based protections intended to defend Bitcoin outputs from future quantum-enabled signature forgeries without changing Bitcoin’s consensus rules. Levy and StarkWare have described QSB as an emergency or “last resort” measure because of its cost, complexity and limited applicability compared with protocol-level remedies.
To drive costs lower, StarkWare, Yukon Research and Eigen Labs opened the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Optimization Challenge on Sept. 16, inviting researchers, developers and AI agents to improve the transaction-building software. In its Sept. 23 update, StarkWare said the challenge produced 62 accepted improvements across the two main computational tasks required to prepare a QSB transaction, and that benchmarking those changes reduced the estimated compute cost by about 79%.
StarkWare notes the latest numbers come from benchmark tests rather than additional mainnet submissions. The company also reiterated that while a lower-cost construction could be practical for holders with large unexposed balances in an emergency, it still views a soft fork—changes to Bitcoin’s consensus rules—as a better long-term solution for broad quantum resistance.
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Original source: Cointelegraph