StarkWare researchers propose a quantum-safe Bitcoin scheme that enables post-quantum transactions without requiring a soft fork

Gate News message, April 10, StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy proposed a quantum-secure Bitcoin (QSB) scheme. The scheme only uses existing Bitcoin Script constraints to make Bitcoin transactions quantum-resistant, without requiring a soft fork.

Standard Bitcoin transactions rely on ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) signatures, and a powerful quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm can break such signatures. To address this problem, the QSB scheme replaces reliance on elliptic-curve cryptography with a construction based on Binohash. This construction uses a one-time signature scheme embedded in Bitcoin scripts. Binohash achieves transaction integrity by using a proof-of-work difficulty problem based on signature length, but quantum computing can also break that difficulty problem.

QSB eliminates this vulnerability by creating a “hash-to-signature” puzzle, requiring the payer to solve a puzzle based on pure hashing rather than elliptic-curve mathematics, thereby resisting quantum attacks targeting elliptic-curve cryptography. The researchers said, “Because the puzzle only relies on the anti-preimage resistance of RIPEMD-160 (rather than any elliptic-curve assumptions), it is completely unaffected by Shor’s algorithm.” (The Block)