Starkware Completes Quantum-Resistant Transaction on Bitcoin Mainnet Without Soft Fork

Blockchain technology company Starkware stated that a transaction using researcher Avihu Levy's quantum-resistant 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 satoshis and was processed through MARA Foundation's Slipstream service, as its non-standard format typically prevents propagation through Bitcoin's public mempool. The test took several hours of GPU computation, costing approximately $150 to $200. QSB employs hash-based quantum-resistant spending conditions and reduces quantum attack risk 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 continues to support introducing a protocol-level solution via a soft fork.