quantum

StarkWare stated in an update on September 23 that the estimated GPU computing cost for preparing a quantum secure Bitcoin (QSB) transaction has dropped to below $67, a decrease of about 79% compared to the approximately $320 computing expenditure for the first similar mainnet transaction in August. According to StarkWare, the first QSB transaction was packaged and confirmed on August 26, with the engineering work completed by Tomer Giladi, and submitted directly through MARA's Slipstream service. The preparation process consumed about 3100 GPU hours, utilized around 100 GPUs, and incurred a computing cost of approximately $320, excluding Bitcoin network transaction fees.This cost reduction resulted from the quantum secure Bitcoin optimization challenge initiated on September 16 by StarkWare, Yukon Research, and Eigen Labs. The challenge invited developers, researchers, and AI agents to optimize transaction construction software, ultimately resulting in 62 adopted improvements across two computational tasks required to prepare a QSB transaction, with benchmark tests showing an estimated computing cost reduction of about 79%. The relevant dashboard currently indicates that the estimated cost has further decreased to $66.The QSB proposal was released by StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy in April, introducing hash-based quantum attack protection for transactions without altering Bitcoin's consensus rules. Due to limited cost, complexity, and applicability, he described it at the time as an emergency measure while continuing to advocate for adjustments at the protocol level.

According to Cointelegraph, the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) stated in a joint risk update that advancements in quantum computing could undermine the cryptographic systems that secure blockchain transactions, communications, and databases.Google Quantum AI researchers estimated in March that the number of physical quantum bits required to break the cryptographic techniques used by many cryptocurrencies is about 20 times less than previously estimated. There currently exists no computer capable of executing such an attack.Bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp and others proposed in February to gradually phase out the current signature scheme and to restrict the usage of untransferred funds five years after the proposal is activated; this proposal has not yet been adopted. The Ethereum Foundation plans to enable Ethereum's execution, consensus, and data layers to be resistant to quantum attacks by December 2029.

Quantum computing hardware and software company IonQ announced that it will introduce the first quantum processor to the NVIDIA Accelerated Quantum Research Center to advance the development of quantum supercomputing.

Bitcoin Magazine posted on X that students from East Texas A&M University announced the construction of the first post-quantum secure solution for the Bitcoin Lightning Network.The Lightning Network is a second-layer payment network for Bitcoin, and post-quantum security generally refers to protective designs against potential vulnerabilities in existing cryptography posed by future quantum computing.

Coinbase Chief Cryptographer Yehuda Lindell stated on the MARA Foundation TV program that the exchange is designing a custody system capable of adapting to any post-quantum signature scheme that Bitcoin may adopt in the future. It is currently unclear which post-quantum signature scheme Bitcoin will use in practical applications. Lindell believes it is unlikely that a single signature scheme will be universally adopted, so preparations must be made for different outcomes across various blockchains.Coinbase is custodian for approximately $250 billion in assets for institutions such as BlackRock. Traditional Multi-Party Computation (MPC) relies on key sharding, but many post-quantum signature schemes may be "not friendly to MPC"; for example, hash-based signatures lack the arithmetic structure required for traditional cryptographic key splitting. Although cryptographers like Dan Boneh are researching relevant solutions, this research is still in a highly experimental phase, and it remains uncertain whether a viable MPC-like solution for hash signatures can be developed.To this end, Coinbase is exploring a backup architecture centered around programmable Hardware Security Modules (HSM), where private keys will be encrypted with post-quantum cryptography and assembled only within physically secure HSMs. Lindell stated that while the completion timeline is uncertain, once finished, "I will be able to say, I can support any scheme," without worrying about a blockchain adopting a signature scheme that it cannot support.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, Matthew Sigel, the head of digital asset research at asset management company VanEck, stated in an interview with CNBC that quantum computing poses a risk to Bitcoin, but the community has recognized the seriousness of the issue. He pointed out that due to the decentralized nature of the crypto network, progress in addressing this issue may be slow, but the community is advancing related work.Sigel said, "This is a risk, but the community has already recognized the scope of the problem, and a large number of talents have gathered and proposed a framework for upgrading the system." He added, "Upgrades will not happen quickly because no CEO can tell developers 'do it now.' The governance process takes more time, and the process is more complex, but there are technical paths to achieve quantum resistance, and you will see more related progress in the coming years."Currently, quantum computers still have error rate issues and cannot crack Bitcoin's encryption algorithms. Some Bitcoin developers have begun testing quantum-resistant signatures on real-time sidechains. Coinbase plans to build a post-quantum signature pipeline using secure enclaves and threshold cryptography, and the Bitcoin Security Alliance, composed of BlackRock, Fidelity Digital Assets, Block, and others, is also supporting proposals like BIP-360 to reduce long-term quantum computing risks.

NVIDIA (NVDA.O) expands the open-source CUDA-Q platform for fault-tolerant quantum computing.

The Shanghai Financial Regulatory Bureau issued opinions on promoting the quality and efficiency of technology finance in Shanghai's banking and insurance industries. This includes leveraging new technologies such as artificial intelligence to innovate and empower technology finance, encouraging qualified financial institutions to build enterprise-level artificial intelligence platforms, and comprehensively utilizing digital technologies such as big data, blockchain, the Internet of Things, and quantum computing to empower product research and development, business decision-making, risk management, and other aspects, thereby enhancing the intelligent operation level of technology finance.Support financial institutions in strengthening the innovation of technology enterprise evaluation mechanisms, shifting from a traditional focus on financial indicators to an emphasis on innovation capabilities, relying on databases in the field of technology finance, making good use of "Shanghai Science Points," and constructing a dedicated evaluation system for technology finance to accurately portray technology talents and technology-based enterprises, accelerating the development of suitable technology finance products.

According to the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, at the Pujiang Innovation Forum results release conference focused on the integration of science and industry, Jin Xianmin, the founder of Turing Quantum, officially launched the TuringQ Gen3 large-scale chip-level scalable optical quantum computer, which is the world's first cabinet-level chip-scale scalable optical quantum computer.The TuringQ Gen3 is equipped with a high-speed programmable thin-film lithium niobate optical quantum chip, integrating core modules such as quantum light sources, programmable optical quantum processing chips, single-photon detection, and quantum-classical heterogeneous computing. It supports single-chip calculations with tens of thousands of photons and millions of modes, achieving chip-level quantum superiority verification, and will explore directions in AI such as world models. Recently, Turing Quantum has obtained registration for listing guidance and plans to IPO on the A-share market, with Guotai Junan as the guiding institution.

The blockchain project Quantus announced the launch of its PoW mainnet using post-quantum cryptography, which incorporates the ML-DSA-65 and ML-DSA-87 digital signature mechanisms. The total supply limit of the native token QTC is 21 million, and PoW mining has been open since the launch.

According to Cryptopolitan, over 100 researchers, using AI coding agents, have reduced the quantum attack resource score for the Bitcoin secp256k1 elliptic curve point addition subroutine by 86.1% (from 10.75 billion to 1.496 billion). This optimization only targets a single step in Shor's algorithm and does not break any private keys or transfer funds; a complete attack still requires fault-tolerant quantum hardware that does not yet exist. However, each efficiency improvement compresses the time window for quantum migration after blockchain completion.According to Glassnode data, approximately 6.04 million BTC (30.2% of the circulating supply) face potential quantum risks due to exposed public keys on-chain. Ethereum plans to achieve full quantum resistance by December 2029, while the Bitcoin community faces greater challenges at the governance level, including how to handle approximately 1.7 million suspected dormant P2PK address coins held by Satoshi, which remains unresolved.

According to CoinDesk, the latest paper released by researchers from institutions such as Theta Labs, the Ethereum Foundation, and StarkWare shows that the resources required for potential quantum attacks on Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) have decreased by more than 50% compared to the estimates previously published by Google's quantum artificial intelligence team.The quantum circuit design proposed in the study requires only about 1,151 logical qubits and uses approximately 1.3 million Toffoli gate operations to complete the relevant calculations, with a comprehensive score of about 1.5 billion, lower than the approximately 3 billion level previously published by Google.The research primarily optimized the point addition calculation in Shor's algorithm, which theoretically can use sufficiently powerful quantum computers to derive private keys from public keys. Jieyi Long, one of the main authors of the paper and CTO of Theta Labs, stated that quantum attacks are not imminent at the moment, but transitioning to quantum resistance will take years, and remediation cannot be done after an attack occurs.

According to CoinDesk, the U.S. Department of Commerce has allocated up to $100 million each to three quantum computing companies: Rigetti, D-Wave, and Quantinuum, totaling up to $300 million, to expand hardware, manufacturing, and error correction systems, while simultaneously acquiring minority stakes in the three companies.Meanwhile, Bitcoin and Ethereum developers are accelerating the advancement of post-quantum cryptography upgrade plans. The Ethereum Foundation has set December 2029 as the deadline for the base layer quantum resistance upgrade, covering the execution layer, consensus layer, and data layer; although there is no unified timeline for Bitcoin, proposals BIP-360 (post-quantum output types) and BIP-361 (phasing out ECDSA and Schnorr signatures) have been accelerated, with researchers also viewing 2029 as a critical window for completing a trustworthy migration path.

The a16z crypto research team today released a new version of the open-source zkVM Jolt, called Lattice Jolt. This version has the same architecture as the previous version but changes the underlying cryptography from elliptic curves to lattices, while achieving post-quantum security, a 2-3 times speed increase for provers and verifiers, and proof sizes below 100 KB.Lattice Jolt replaces the previous elliptic curve-based Dory with a new polynomial commitment scheme Akita based on the Module-SIS assumption, targeting full 128-bit security. Akita was developed by researchers and engineers from LayerZero in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Southern California, and the a16z crypto team. On the same machine, Lattice Jolt proofs exceed 2 million RISC-V cycles per second using only the CPU, and over 10 million cycles per second with Apple Metal GPU acceleration, with prover space reduced to about 200 bytes per cycle.

Vitalik posted on the X platform, expressing the hope to include the recursive STARK memory pool proposal EIP-8288 in the Ethereum I-star upgrade, stating that it can be seen as the next step after Frames.This proposal allows quantum-safe signature data to be placed off-chain, reducing the cost of signatures; the fuel cost for quantum-safe privacy transactions is also expected to drop from about 10 million to tens of thousands. The proposal relies on frames and recursive STARK aggregated transaction dependencies, with nodes sending a STARK of about 100 to 300KB each time period; the on-chain overhead is one STARK and 96 bytes for each statement to be proven.

LayerZero announced the launch of Akita, calling it the first production-ready, lattice-based polynomial commitment scheme for post-quantum security.LayerZero stated that this is the first major step to achieve quantum security for Zero and will be implemented on the first day of Jolt's launch, thanks to collaboration with a16z crypto.

Coinbase announced that it has collaborated with Stanford University cryptography professor Dan Boneh and Localhost Research to hold a closed-door "Post-Quantum Bitcoin Workshop" at Stanford University, gathering Bitcoin developers, cryptography experts, researchers, institutional custodians, and hardware wallet specialists to discuss the technologies and migration plans for Bitcoin to address future quantum computing threats.The workshop focused on assessing the progress of quantum computing, post-quantum cryptography, and various post-quantum signature schemes applicable to Bitcoin, as well as discussing Ethereum's anti-quantum planning, the practical requirements faced by institutional custody businesses, and how to introduce post-quantum security mechanisms for Bitcoin through new output types. Participants believed that rather than predicting when quantum computing will pose a real threat to existing cryptographic systems, it is more important to establish well-tested response plans in advance.Quantum computing does not currently pose an urgent crisis, but the earlier research and coordination begin, the better we can avoid hasty network upgrades and asset migrations under pressure in the future. However, there is currently no consensus on a single post-quantum solution. Different solutions involve trade-offs in terms of security, transaction data size, hardware performance, key management, and the difficulty of user migration. Participants felt that Bitcoin's anti-quantum measures cannot rely solely on protocol layer upgrades, but must also consider how individual users, institutional custodians, wallets, and hardware devices generate, store, back up, and migrate keys and assets.

According to The Block, the Ethereum Foundation's protocol team has released the priority list for the Hegotá upgrade EIP, setting the target date for achieving "quantum safety" on Ethereum's layer one in terms of execution, consensus, and data to December 2029.In terms of the consensus layer, FOCIL (EIP-7805) is listed as S-level "must launch," enhancing censorship resistance by mandating the inclusion of public mempool transactions; in terms of the execution layer, Frame Transactions (EIP-8141) is also a "must launch," laying the groundwork for native account abstraction and custom signatures, gas payment, etc., by splitting transactions into programmable "frames" for validation, gas payment, and execution, thereby improving post-quantum safety readiness. The protocol team stated that starting from the "Glamsterdam" fork in Q4 2026, subsequent forks need to be completed in an average of about 7.2 months to ensure the achievement of the minimum viable post-quantum safety milestone before "Q-day" around 2030.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) stated that the Protocol Cluster has released two new articles that systematically assess the upcoming network upgrade Hegotá. Among them, the "Hegotá EIP Opinion Post and Tier List" evaluates and ranks the currently proposed 62 EIPs, marking the first time the team has published a unified EIP rating list for a major network upgrade.It was reported that approximately 60 researchers, engineers, and domain experts from 9 teams under the Protocol Cluster participated in the review, submitting a total of 397 rating opinions and engaging in live discussions on controversial proposals. The accompanying article outlines the current and future key directions of the Ethereum protocol layer, with one core goal being to promote Ethereum L1's quantum resistance by December 2029.The Ethereum Foundation indicated that the aforementioned upgrade plans, long-term commitments, and shared priorities at the cluster level provide the contextual basis for finalizing the scope of the Hegotá upgrade and the EIP ratings. Additionally, the Protocol Cluster will hold an AMA on September 16 at 14:00 UTC in the r/ethereum community on Reddit to discuss topics such as the Hegotá EIP ratings and key protocol developments.