StarkWare, in partnership with Yukon Research and Eigen Labs, launched the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Optimization Challenge on September 16, 2026. The contest aimed to reduce the GPU compute costs associated with preparing quantum-safe Bitcoin (QSB) transactions.
Within one week, 62 accepted improvements reduced the preparation cost from approximately $320 to between $66 and $67. This represents a 79% to 80% reduction in costs, achieved through contributions from human developers and AI-assisted tools competing for a prize pool exceeding $20,000.
The performance gains were significant, with transaction pinning throughput on an RTX 4090 GPU increasing from roughly 146 million to over 820 million candidates per second. This fivefold speed increase directly reduced the required GPU-hours for QSB transactions.
QSB is an experimental, emergency-only solution designed by StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy in April 2026. It utilizes hash-based cryptographic locks with 118-bit preimage resistance and operates within existing Bitcoin rules without requiring soft forks or protocol upgrades.
The first QSB transaction occurred on August 26, 2026, in block 964,199. While StarkWare views QSB as a potential tool for high-balance holders, the company maintains that a protocol-level soft fork remains the preferred long-term strategy for quantum resilience.
