Starkware completes quantum-resistant transaction on Bitcoin mainnet without soft fork

Odaily Planet Daily News: Blockchain technology company Starkware stated that on August 26, a transaction using researcher Avihu Levy's Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB) scheme was mined on the Bitcoin mainnet, without requiring a soft fork, hard fork, or modification of consensus rules.

The transaction consumed 10,000 sats and was processed through MARA Foundation's Slipstream service, as the non-standard format typically cannot propagate through Bitcoin's public mempool. The test consumed several hours of GPU computation, costing approximately $150 to $200.

QSB employs hash-based quantum-resistant spending conditions and reduces quantum attack risks through signature trial mining, but still requires users to proactively migrate funds and cannot protect assets whose public keys have already been exposed. Starkware CEO Eli Ben-Sasson still supports introducing a protocol-level solution via a soft fork. (Bitcoin.com News)