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Quantum Computing Is Testing Bitcoin’s Most Important Assumption

New quantum-safe transaction schemes may protect individual holders, but Bitcoin still lacks a credible path to coordinating a network-wide post-quantum migration.

Earlier this month, StarkWare’s chief product officer Avihu Levy published a proposal that has been the focus of active debate within the Bitcoin community. His scheme, Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB), allows users to transact in a way that remains secure even against a large-scale quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm, and it does so without requiring any change to the Bitcoin protocol itself. The engineering is genuinely clever and does deserve the attention it has received.

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Levy’s proposal has been perceived in some quarters as a kind of relief valve for Bitcoin: finally, a way to make the network quantum-safe without the slow, contentious process of a protocol upgrade. The urgency around quantum resilience has intensified over the past year as governments and major technology firms accelerate post-quantum migration planning. But the proposal answers a much smaller question than many people seem to think it does.

One kind of solution for one kind of user

Quantum Safe Bitcoin replaces Bitcoin’s elliptic curve signatures with a hash-based signature puzzle that a quantum computer cannot efficiently shortcut, all within Bitcoin’s existing legacy script framework. The trade-off is cost: each transaction requires an estimated $75 to $150 in GPU compute, which is why the researchers themselves frame the scheme as a last-resort mechanism for securing large balances rather than a scalable replacement for everyday transactions. 

What QSB delivers is a way for an individual holder to make........

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