Featured

New research sharpens quantum attack estimates.

Read the ecdsa.fail publicationRead the ecdsa.fail publication
StarkWareQuantum Hub

Learn

Starknet and quantum security

Explore articles, podcast conversations, videos, definitions and primary sources on quantum threats, post-quantum cryptography and Starknet.

Articles, podcasts & videos

Quantum library

Showing 6 of 30 items.

  1. AI research competition cut Quantum-Safe Bitcoin costs by 79% in a week

    One week of the QSB Optimization Challenge cut the estimated GPU compute cost of building a Quantum-Safe Bitcoin transaction by 79%, from about $320 to $67.

  2. Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Reached Mainnet. Now Help Make It Cheaper.

    StarkWare, Yukon Research and Eigen Labs are offering $20,000 in prizes to cut the GPU cost of building Quantum-Safe Bitcoin transactions, after the first mainnet transaction took roughly 3,100 GPU-hours.

  3. Seven of our researchers helped halve Google’s quantum attack estimate

    Seven StarkWare and Starknet Foundation researchers co-authored the ECDSA.fail paper on reducing the estimated cost of elliptic-curve point addition for quantum attacks.

  4. EP 6 | Scott Aaronson on quantum computers: countdown to Q-Day, challenges, quantum FUD & more

    In Blocksmart episode 6, Eli Ben-Sasson and Scott Aaronson discuss quantum computing progress, risks to cryptography, engineering hurdles and Aaronson’s response to quantum skepticism.

  5. EP 5 | Gil Kalai on quantum computers and why he thinks ‘noise’ will make it difficult to build them

    In Blocksmart episode 5, Eli Ben-Sasson hears Gil Kalai’s skeptical view of quantum computing, the role of noise and error correction, and whether Bitcoin and crypto should prepare.

  6. The first quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction has been mined

    Avihu Levy’s QSB method has been executed on Bitcoin mainnet, moving coins into quantum-resistant storage with no soft fork or change to consensus rules.

Selected answer

Selected answer: Is Starknet quantum-resistant?

The system claim

Is Starknet quantum-resistant?

No. Not as a single system-wide claim.

A. PQ-friendly architecture. STARK proving does not depend on elliptic-curve hardness.

B. Cryptographic agility. Native account abstraction allows account-level signature verification to change.

C. Migration status. Some parts of Starknet still need migration, particularly existing deployments and Ethereum-facing dependencies.

Open Migration

Public-key systems

What does Shor’s algorithm change?

ECDSA and KZG.

Shor’s algorithm threatens discrete-log public-key systems. In this Hub, that maps to account signatures and Ethereum-facing dependencies. Shor’s algorithm does not target the assumption behind StarkWare’s hash-based STARK proofs.

Hash functions

What does Grover’s algorithm change?

Security margins.

Grover’s algorithm gives a quadratic speedup for unstructured search, which affects parameter choices and hash-preimage margins. Grover’s algorithm does not break hash functions.

Post-quantum standards

Which standards matter?

Three NIST standards anchor this vocabulary: ML-KEM (FIPS 203), ML-DSA (FIPS 204) and SLH-DSA (FIPS 205).

NIST’s standards define particular key-establishment and signature schemes. They do not certify StarkWare’s STARK proofs or BLAKE2.

The stack

Where does each risk sit?

Migration

What does migration mean here?

Component by component.

Each Migration status identifies what is live, what remains, who controls the next change and which public evidence supports the status.

Compare all five surfaces

Reference term

Post-quantum cryptography (PQC)

Cryptography designed to resist known attacks from classical and quantum computers. The claim must name the primitive or system boundary it covers.

Reference term

STARK proof

A transparent proof of computation whose cryptographic commitments use hash functions rather than elliptic-curve hardness assumptions.

Reference term

Proof system

A proof system verifies computation. It is separate from the signature scheme that authorizes an account transaction.

Reference term

Account signature

The cryptographic signature an account uses to authorize a transaction. A post-quantum proving layer does not migrate account signatures by implication.

Reference term

Elliptic-curve cryptography and ECDSA

ECDSA is an elliptic-curve signature scheme. Shor’s algorithm threatens the discrete-log assumption that supports its security.

Reference term

KZG

A pairing-based polynomial-commitment scheme used by Ethereum’s blob path. It is an Ethereum-facing dependency, separate from StarkWare’s hash-based STARK proof layer.

Reference term

BLAKE2

A hash function already used for compiled class hashes and Starknet OS program hashes. That deployed scope does not migrate account authorization.

Reference term

Native account abstraction

Starknet accounts are contracts that define transaction validation. A new account implementation can choose different signature verification logic.

Reference term

Cryptographic agility

The ability to replace a cryptographic primitive without redesigning the system around it.

Reference term

Harvest now, decrypt later

A confidentiality risk in which encrypted data collected today is decrypted after quantum hardware improves. Public blockchain state is not secret, so the primary risk is signature forgery rather than decrypting public data.

Selected answer

The system claim

Is Starknet quantum-resistant?

No. Not as a single system-wide claim.

A. PQ-friendly architecture. STARK proving does not depend on elliptic-curve hardness.

B. Cryptographic agility. Native account abstraction allows account-level signature verification to change.

C. Migration status. Some parts of Starknet still need migration, particularly existing deployments and Ethereum-facing dependencies.

Open Migration

Primary sources

Foundational references

Papers, standards and protocol documentation. These sources are separate from the editorial content above.

Last updated: 23 September 2026.