StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson says Bitcoin needs a soft fork for quantum resistance

StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson wants Bitcoin to prepare for quantum computers. His preferred method is a soft fork.

His company has already pushed a quantum-safe transaction onto Bitcoin's mainnet. He is the first to say that workaround is not the finish line. It is a bridge, and Bitcoin still has to build the road on the other side.

Ben-Sasson's view on the protocol change is direct. A Bitcoin soft fork for quantum resistance "should happen, and I believe it will," he said. He has also signaled that the process may delay security upgrades.

StarkWare recently demonstrated what it calls the first quantum-safe Bitcoin (QSB) transaction. It was a live mainnet spend of 10,000 satoshis, confirmed in block 964,199 around August 26-27, 2026.

The amount was small on purpose. This was a proof of concept, not a treasury migration.

StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy developed the QSB approach. It relies on hash-based protections instead of the signature math that quantum machines are expected to threaten.

The catch is practical. QSB transactions are considered non-standard, so they need direct miner participation to land on the chain.

There is a second, bigger limitation. QSB only protects newly created outputs. Public keys that are already visible on the blockchain remain exposed to potential quantum attacks.