The estimated computational cost of preparing a quantum-resistant bitcoin transaction fell below $67 a week after optimization, down from the roughly $320 spent on the first such mainnet transaction in August, according to Starkware.
The findings come after participants in the Quantum-Secure Bitcoin Optimization Challenge found ways to reduce the GPU computations required to generate a quantum-secure Bitcoin transaction.
This reduction may make experimental defenses against future quantum attacks (which do not require changes to the network’s consensus rules) more practical for Bitcoin holders. However, the latest optimizations are only demonstrated in benchmark tests.
“A construct that costs several hundred dollars per transaction is a demo. That’s close to the $67 that a holder with a large undisclosed balance can reach in an emergency,” Starkware wrote in his Sept. 23 post. Update. Now the dashboard shows Estimated cost comes down to $66.
Quantum-safe Bitcoin is an “emergency” solution
Starkware researcher Avihu Levy published The Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB) design, in April, outlines a way to add hash-based protection against quantum attacks without changing Bitcoin’s consensus rules. At the time, he described it as a “measure of last resort” due to cost, complexity and limited applicability, while continuing to advocate for protocol-level changes.
Estimated costs have dropped another dollar since publication. Source: Yukon
According to Starkware, the first QSB transactions were mined and confirmed August 26th, with engineering work by Tomar Giladi and direct submission via MARA’s Slipstream service. Preparing it required about 3,100 GPU-hours across about 100 GPUs at a cost of about $320 excluding Bitcoin network fees.
Related: Crypto’s first quantum attack will look like an undisclosed breach: Qantas founders
To find ways to reduce that cost, Starkware, UConn Research and Eisen Labs launched the QSB Challenge on September 16, inviting developers, researchers and AI agents to make transaction-building software faster and more efficient.
In its latest update, Starkware said the challenge produced 62 recognized improvements across the two computational tasks required to prepare a QSB transaction. According to Starkware, this reduced estimated computing costs by around 79% based on benchmark tests.
The development comes amid concerns that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could break the elliptic-curve digital signatures used by bitcoin, allowing attackers to steal coins whose public keys are exposed.
Researchers are developing quantum-resistant protection with QSB. However, Starkwire said it still supports a soft fork — a change to bitcoin’s consensus rules — as a good “long-term answer” to bitcoin’s broader quantum security.
magazine: A Quantum Roadmap Will Push Bitcoin Much Higher: Charles Edwards
