TL;DR:
- StarkWare published a three-phase plan to make Starknet resistant to quantum attacks. The firm called it the most solid plan in the industry.
- The roadmap will replace elliptic curve cryptography dependencies and introduce post-quantum signatures such as Falcon-512 to secure the network.
- A StarkWare researcher had already proposed quantum-resistant Bitcoin transactions without requiring a soft fork or modifications to the base protocol.
StarkWare presented a three-phase post-quantum roadmap for Starknet, which it described as the most advanced published to date by any project in the crypto industry. The company argued that the cryptographic tools needed to address the quantum threat already exist and that any persistent vulnerability will be the result of inaction, not technical limitations.
StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson summed up the company’s position with a pointed critique of the rest of the ecosystem: “The crypto industry shouldn’t need wake-up calls from the White House or anyone else.” He added that there is an “elliptic illusion” —a term he coined to describe the misplaced confidence that elliptic curve cryptography will remain secure in the face of advancing quantum computing— and warned that this stance leaves the industry “dangerously complacent.”
1/ Starknet is a bet on post-quantum security.
Today, we’re publishing the roadmap to make that bet real.
The goal? An end-to-end post-quantum secure Starknet before Q-day 🧵 pic.twitter.com/92JGLuCk4K
— StarkWare 🥷 (@StarkWareLtd) June 30, 2026
Starknet’s base architecture operates on STARK zero-knowledge proofs, which use cryptography based on hash functions and are considered secure against quantum attacks by design. Ben-Sasson pointed to this feature as the structural advantage that allows Starknet to move faster than other networks.
Phases of the StarkWare Roadmap
The first phase of the StarkWare roadmap involves replacing the Pedersen hash with BLAKE2 in state commitments, contract addresses and network configuration, along with the incorporation of post-quantum consensus signatures such as Falcon-512.
The second phase introduces migration tools that upgrade existing smart contracts to the new standard without requiring developers to manually rebuild their applications. The third phase addresses external dependencies linked to Ethereum, including bridge syscalls and blob data availability, whose resolution depends on that network’s own post-quantum transition process.
The Bitcoin Community Does Not React
StarkWare indicated that the first two phases could be completed within a matter of months. Networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Tezos, Algorand and Circle have already put forward similar proposals, while the Bitcoin community remains divided on how to address the threat.
A few months ago, StarkWare researcher Avihu Mordechai Levy published a proposal for quantum-resistant Bitcoin transactions —dubbed QSB— that requires neither a soft fork nor modifications to the base protocol, replacing elliptic curve assumptions with hash-based constructions such as Lamport signatures.
