StarkWare researchers recently completed an antiquator trade test on the Bitcoin main network. The transaction was written to block 964,199 on August 26th, with an output of 10,000. Tests show that BTC can get antiquator protection through a new signature without modifying the existing Bitcoin consensus rule.

The transaction is confirmed on the main network.

This test was completed by StarkWare Fellow Avihu Levy. His first Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB) study was published in April 2026, and this time the programme was validated in a real network environment.

The StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson stated that the test indicated that, before Bitcoin faced a quantum computing threat in the future, the currency holder already had an available protection option without waiting for a permanent network upgrade to land.

Under current rule, replace signature

Bitcoin currently relies mainly on elliptical curve cipher. There is a long-standing concern that the existing signature system may be at risk of being decrypted if there is a significant increase in quantum computing capacity in the future.

The QSB approach is to replace the usual ECDSA signature with a one-time Lamport signature and a Hashi-based security structure. According to StarkWare, such methods are more resistant to future quantum counting attacks.

The article mentions that the risk window appears mainly after a trade broadcast before being packed by miners. During this time, the sending public key is exposed to the network and may theoretically be used in high-energy computing devices. The QSB programme aims to reduce this risk.

Still facing cost and volume problems

The transaction did not enter the network through the normal path of the common bitcoin software. Due to special data formats, the transaction is rejected by the regular software. Eventually, StarkWare sent the transaction directly to the mining company MARA and finished packing through its private service, MARA Slipstream.

  • Single antiquant transaction costs approximately $150 to $200
  • Proof generation takes hours and relies on multiple high-end GPUs
  • The volume of the transaction is larger and not suitable for HF daily payments

If similar programmes are used more widely, they may further crowd out block space and push up the processing fees on the chain. StarkWare continues to believe that bitcoin is more likely in the long term to introduce a more formal antiquator upgrade route through soft fork.