Bitcoin’s Quantum-Safe Transaction Cost Drops 79% as Researchers Race Q-Day
What happened: A collaboration between StarkWare, Yukon Research, and Eigen Labs reduced the cost of quantum-safe Bitcoin transactions from ~$320 to ~$67, a 79% drop, during the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin O
What happened: A collaboration between StarkWare, Yukon Research, and Eigen Labs reduced the cost of quantum-safe Bitcoin transactions from ~$320 to ~$67, a 79% drop, during the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Optimization Challenge. The breakthrough, achieved with 820M+ verified candidates/sec on an RTX 4090, follows the first quantum-safe BTC mainnet transaction a month prior. Meanwhile, researchers proposed a Zcash-style shielded-transfer design for Bitcoin, and Coinbase unveiled a post-quantum custody architecture for $250B in assets, including BlackRock’s spot BTC ETF holdings.
Why it matters: While Q-Day—the arrival of quantum computers capable of breaking current cryptography—remains hypothetical (with some estimates as early as 2029), these developments mark a shift from theory to practical mitigation. However, StarkWare cautions that its approach is a stopgap, not a permanent solution. The race to quantum resistance is now a tangible engineering challenge for both protocol designers and custodians.
Source: Decrypt