StarkWare launches quantum-safe bitcoin transaction contest with $20K prize
- —The contest prize pool exceeds $20,000, with the first $2,000 available in the opening week
- —The QSB method does not require changing bitcoin's consensus rules and fits within Script limits
- —A test QSB transaction was mined on August 26 in block 964,199, costing about $320 and 3,100 GPU-hours
- —The method's cryptographic strength is estimated at about 118 bits of preimage resistance
Why it matters: The work lowers the cost of protecting bitcoin from quantum threats without a hard fork, which is important for the network's long-term security.
Source: Crypto Briefing