Researchers have reduced the computing cost of quantum-safe Bitcoin transactions by 82%, dropping from 320 dollars to 59 dollars through software improvements in StarkWare’s optimization challenge. Approximately 6.04 million BTC, representing 30.2% of the circulating supply, have exposed public keys on the blockchain, making them potentially vulnerable to future quantum attacks. Google Quantum AI calculated that quantum computers could theoretically break Bitcoin’s elliptic-curve cryptography using approximately 500,000 physical qubits, a figure twenty times lower than previous estimates. AI-assisted coding tools used by StarkWare, Yukon Research, and Eigen Labs enabled verification of over one billion candidates per second on an Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card. The 59-dollar cost remains a simulation-based estimate and requires miners willing to process nonstandard transactions to be validated under real conditions.
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