Bitcoin and Ethereum’s quantum threat is getting harder to ignore. In roughly two months, 100+ participants and their AI agents drove down the estimated cost of the arithmetic of a potential quantum attack on elliptic-curve cryptography. Their work is detailed in the new paper, with seven co-authors from StarkWare and the Starknet Foundation. The challenge focused on a calculation that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer would use to recover private keys from exposed public keys. The result: an 86.1% reduction from the challenge’s starting resource score, which combines logical qubits and key computational operations. That score was also over 50% below Google Quantum AI’s reported result for this calculation, although the circuit setups and measurement methods differ. In simple terms, algorithm improvements can reduce the resources needed for an important part of a quantum attack. For StarkWare, this complements our broader work on quantum security in blockchain, from STARK proofs and Starknet’s post-quantum roadmap to our successful quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction on mainnet. We’re helping measure the threat and build the defenses. Congratulations to our seven co-authors across @StarkWareLtd and @StarknetFndn: @odin_free, @8am1am, @franklyteddy, @akashneelesh, @0xLucqs, @robertkp13, and @tarekeleter, alongside the wider community. Read the paper: