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. What StarkWare actually did on mainnet 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, bigge...