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Bitcoin Developer Avihu Levy Proposes Quantum-Safe Transactions Without Soft Forks

According to StarkWare, it has released technical documents and open-source code for a quantum-safe Bitcoin scheme designed as an emergency option for large transfers without requiring a soft fork.

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Fact Check
The fetched CoinDesk article explicitly states that Avihu Levy introduced 'Quantum Safe Bitcoin' and that it 'works entirely within Bitcoin's existing consensus rules' and 'requires no soft fork.' That directly matches the claim that Levy proposed a method for quantum-safe Bitcoin transactions without a soft fork. Corroboration searches surfaced aligned reports from Bitcoin Magazine and The Defiant describing the same proposal. Confidence is medium rather than high because the underlying paper or Levy's own post was not directly fetched in this run, and the provided X links were not resolved.
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Summary

StarkWare published technical documents and an open-source GitHub implementation for a quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction scheme that it says can work under Bitcoin’s existing script rules without a soft fork. The proposal is described as an emergency option for large Bitcoin transfers in the event of quantum-computer threats, with estimated transaction costs of $75 to $150. The new material expands on the earlier proposal by adding documentation and code, while keeping the focus on quantum-resistant protection without a protocol upgrade.

Terms & Concepts
  • Quantum-safe Bitcoin: A Bitcoin security approach intended to protect funds against potential attacks from quantum computers that could break current cryptographic assumptions.
  • Soft fork: A backward-compatible blockchain upgrade that changes validation rules without requiring every participant to immediately adopt new software.
  • GitHub: A software development platform used to publish and maintain source code, allowing others to review, use, and contribute to open-source implementations.