StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy has proposed a method to make Bitcoin (BTC) transactions resistant to quantum computing attacks without requiring any changes to the existing protocol.
Levy's Quantum-Safe Proposal
In a proposal published Thursday, Levy, who serves as StarkWare's chief product officer, outlined what he calls Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB). The scheme works entirely within Bitcoin's current legacy script constraints.
Rather than relying on elliptic curve math — which quantum computers running Shor's algorithm could break — QSB replaces the standard signature process with a hash-to-sig puzzle. The spender must find an input whose hash output resembles a valid ECDSA signature, a brute-force task that even quantum machines cannot shortcut.
The trade-off is steep. Each transaction costs between $75 and $150 in GPU computing power, making it impractical for everyday use and viable only for securing large holdings.
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Ben-Sasson and Batten Reactions
Eli Ben-Sasson, StarkWare's CEO, called the development "huge," arguing it effectively makes Bitcoin quantum-safe today. Daniel Batten, a Bitcoin ESG specialist, pushed back, calling that "an overstatement." He noted the proposal does not address exposed public keys or dormant wallets.
Batten pointed to an estimated 1.7 million BTC sitting in early pay-to-public-key addresses vulnerable to quantum attack. That issue has divided the community between preserving Bitcoin's core ethos, freezing the coins or upgrading the protocol entirely.
Quantum Threat Escalation
The researchers themselves acknowledged QSB is a last-resort measure. Non-standard transactions, high costs and lack of coverage for use cases like Lightning Network mean protocol-level changes remain the preferred path forward.
The urgency around quantum threats has grown in recent months. Google published a paper in March suggesting quantum computers could crack Bitcoin's cryptography with far fewer resources than previously estimated. On Wednesday, Lightning Labs CTO Olaoluwa Osuntokun released a quantum "escape hatch" prototype allowing users to prove wallet ownership from their original seed phrase without exposing it.
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