StarkWare cuts estimated quantum-safe Bitcoin cost to $66

StarkWare says a weeklong optimization challenge cut the estimated GPU-compute cost of preparing its experimental quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction from about $320 to roughly $66. The lower figure is based on benchmark tests, not a second transaction mined on Bitcoin, and excludes network fees. The challenge produced 62 accepted improvements to the software used to construct the transaction, according to StarkWare. Participants worked on two computational tasks involved in the process, and benchmark results showed the fastest listed search rate rising from about 146 million candidates per second to more than 880 million on the same graphics processor. The reported cost estimate fell by about 79% from the figure associated with the initial demonstration. StarkWare’s first Quantum-Safe Bitcoin, or QSB, transaction was mined on the Bitcoin mainnet on August 26. The company said preparing it required about 3,100 GPU-hours and cost roughly $320 in computing, before network fees. The company later opened an optimization challenge on September 16 with Yukon Research and Eigen Labs.