The cost of generating a quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction has dropped significantly to $66, following a week of focused optimization, StarkWare announced. This sharp reduction, from the $320 needed for the first such mainnet transaction in August, highlights progress in defending Bitcoin against potential future threats from quantum computing technology.
Optimization Challenge Lowers Costs
The recent decrease came as participants in the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Optimization Challenge succeeded in reducing the amount of GPU computation required to construct quantum-safe Bitcoin transactions. These advances have so far been demonstrated in benchmark tests.
The experimental approach does not require any changes to Bitcoin’s consensus rules and could provide a practical defense strategy for large holders seeking to secure their balances from prospective quantum attacks. While the newly reached $66 estimated cost marks a substantial improvement, it is still currently based on simulated results.
“A construction that costs a few hundred dollars per transaction is a demo. One that costs $67 is closer to something a holder with a large unexposed balance might reach for in an emergency,” StarkWare explained.
The Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB) protocol, initially presented by StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy in April, offers a hash-based method to protect Bitcoin from possible quantum breaching. Levy emphasized the approach as a “last resort measure,” given the concerns of cost, complexity, and narrow applicability, and continued to recommend protocol-level upgrades for broader protection.
Technical Breakthroughs and Developer Involvement
The first QSB transaction went live on August 26 after combined efforts between Tomer Giladi and StarkWare’s engineering team, utilizing MARA’s Slipstream service. This pioneering event required about 3,100 GPU-hours using roughly 100 GPUs, at a cost of $320 for compute resources, excluding standard Bitcoin network fees.
To further decrease these costs, StarkWare, Yukon Research, and Eigen Labs initiated the QSB challenge on September 16. They invited developers, researchers, and AI agents to contribute improvements to the transaction-generation workflow for quantum-safe Bitcoin.
The latest update from StarkWare confirmed 62 accepted improvements targeting two core computational tasks in QSB transaction preparation. These enhancements delivered a marked 79% reduction in the projected computation cost, based on ongoing benchmark testing.
Broader Security Context and Community Response
Rising concerns about the potential for quantum computers to break elliptic-curve digital signatures, which underpin Bitcoin’s security, have prompted researchers to accelerate quantum-resistant solutions. A sufficiently advanced quantum computer could theoretically enable attackers to steal coins by uncovering public keys.
While the QSB method offers an experimental defense, StarkWare maintains that a soft fork, altering Bitcoin’s consensus rules, remains the preferable long-term plan for broad quantum-resistant security.
Researchers continue to develop robust measures, with StarkWare highlighting the need for network-wide changes to fully guard Bitcoin funds against future quantum threats.
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