StarkWare, in collaboration with Yukon Research and Eigen Labs, launched the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Autoresearch Challenge on September 16. The initiative offers a prize pool exceeding $20,000 to developers who optimize code for quantum-resistant Bitcoin transactions.
The competition targets computational bottlenecks in transaction pinning and subset selection. Participants can earn $2,000 in rewards during the opening week. The goal is to reduce the costs associated with implementing quantum-safe security measures.
The methodology, developed by Avihu Levy, utilizes signature grinding and hash-based puzzles. It operates within existing Bitcoin Script constraints of 201 opcodes and 10,000 bytes, avoiding the need to modify consensus rules.
The approach provides approximately 118-bit preimage resistance. On August 26, a live transaction was mined on the Bitcoin mainnet at block 964,199. This test required about 3,100 GPU-hours of computation, costing approximately $320 in resources.
The project builds on research regarding the vulnerability of the ECDSA signature scheme. A September 2026 paper, supported by StarkWare and Eigen Labs, revised estimates on the quantum computing power required to compromise current Bitcoin security.
