StarkWare Processes ‘Quantum-Resistant’ Bitcoin Transaction on Mainnet

StarkWare said Aug. 29 that it had successfully processed a transaction on the Bitcoin mainnet using its Quantum Safe Bitcoin, or QSB, technology.

QSB adds transaction conditions designed to protect against attacks from quantum computers. The technology was developed on Aug. 26 by StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy.

The transaction did not require a Bitcoin network soft fork, hard fork or core protocol upgrade. Instead, StarkWare said it used Bitcoin’s existing consensus rules to process the quantum-resistant transaction.

The transaction amount was 10,000 satoshis.

Practical use remains limited for now. Processing the transaction required several hours of graphics processing unit, or GPU, computation and cost about $150 to $200.

StarkWare Chief Executive Officer Eli Ben-Sasson said he still wants Bitcoin to adopt a soft fork and expects that to happen.