StarkWare completes first quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction, no fork needed
StarkWare says it has pulled off the first quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction ever confirmed on the network’s main chain, a milestone the company frames as proof that Bitcoin can defend itself against future quantum attacks without rewriting its rulebook. The transaction landed in block 964,199 on Wednesday, August 26, moving a 10,000-satoshi output through a method StarkWare calls Quantum Safe Bitcoin, or QSB. No soft fork, no hard fork, no protocol change — just a clever workaround built on top of Bitcoin as it exists today.
Key takeaways
- StarkWare confirmed the first quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction on mainnet in block 964,199, moving a 10,000-satoshi output.
- The Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB) method uses signature grinding and RIPEMD-160 hashing instead of elliptic-curve cryptography, offering roughly 118-bit resistance against Shor’s algorithm.
- QSB only protects one transaction at a time, works solely with older pre-SegWit addresses, and does not support Taproot or the Lightning Network.
- No quantum computer today can break Bitcoin’s cryptography; StarkWare calls QSB a stopgap while it pushes BIP-360 as the real long-term fix.
- QSB is not available on mainstream wallets or exchanges yet and costs significantly more than a standard Bitcoin transaction fee.
Landmark Quantum-Resistant Bitcoin Transaction on Mainnet
The headline fact is simple: a working, mined transaction now exists that was built specifically to resist a quantum attack, and it happened without any changes to Bitcoin’s consensus rules. That distinction matters more than it sounds. Much of the debate around quantum threats to Bitcoin has assumed the network would eventually need a contentious fork to defend itself. StarkWare’s demonstration pushes back on that assumption, at least for individual transactions.
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