Bitcoin's Quantum Problem: Three Ways Researchers Are Trying to Fix It — SkimNews
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- StarkWare cut the estimated cost of building quantum-safe Bitcoin transactions from ~$320 to ~$67 in one week through an open competition where AI models topped the leaderboards, after mining the first such transaction on mainnet last month.
- Bitcoin relies on elliptic-curve cryptography, which a sufficiently powerful quantum computer running Shor's algorithm could theoretically break to derive private keys from exposed public keys—an event the industry calls "Q-Day."
- Coinbase's head of cryptography outlined the exchange's post-quantum custody roadmap for its ~$250 billion in safeguarded assets, including a hardware fallback if the eventual signature scheme proves incompatible with current key-splitting techniques.
- Protocol-level soft forks represent the durable quantum-resistance fix but require years of design, testing, and deployment under Bitcoin's decentralized governance; the community has only recently begun engaging with the idea in earnest.
- Researchers also published a Zcash-style shielded-transfer design for Bitcoin, illustrating how quantum-defense and privacy research share underlying cryptographic tools.
Why it matters: StarkWare's cost drop from $320 to $67 shows the field moving from theory to logistics, but StarkWare itself calls the workaround incomplete—it only protects coins whose public keys aren't already exposed. For Coinbase safeguarding $250 billion, the custody-layer bet hedges against an uncertain timeline for which signature scheme Bitcoin's community will ultimately adopt.
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