Bitcoin can be made quantum-safe without a protocol upgrade: Researcher

However, it could cost users between $75 and $150 per transaction in GPU computing power, limiting its practical use.

A Bitcoin researcher has come up with a way that could immediately make Bitcoin transactions quantum-safe without the need for a soft fork. 

In a proposal published Thursday, StarkWare chief product officer Avihu Levy proposed a Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB) transaction scheme that he said would remain secure “even against an adversary with a large-scale quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm.” 

He added that the scheme requires no changes to the Bitcoin protocol and operates entirely within the existing legacy script constraints. The downside is that it is costly and likely is not useful for everyday transactions, he said. 

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