StarkWare has published a comprehensive three-phase roadmap to make its Layer 2 network Starknet resistant to quantum computing attacks, calling it the most advanced plan yet disclosed by any crypto project. CEO Eli Ben-Sasson asserted that the necessary cryptographic tools already exist and that any future vulnerability will stem from inaction rather than technical barriers. “The crypto industry shouldn’t need wake-up calls from the White House or anyone else,” he said, coining the term “elliptic illusion” to describe the misplaced confidence in elliptic curve cryptography’s long-term security.
The roadmap’s first phase will replace the Pedersen hash with BLAKE2 in state commitments, contract addresses, and network configuration, and introduce post-quantum consensus signatures such as Falcon-512. Starknet’s core already relies on STARK zero-knowledge proofs, which are hash-based and considered quantum-resistant by design, giving it a structural advantage. The second phase provides migration tools to upgrade existing smart contracts seamlessly, while the third phase tackles dependencies on Ethereum, including bridge syscalls and blob data availability, whose resolution depends on Ethereum’s own post-quantum transition.
StarkWare indicated the first two phases could be completed within months. While networks like Ethereum, Solana, Tezos, Algorand, and Circle have floated similar ideas, the Bitcoin community remains divided. StarkWare researcher Avihu Mordechai Levy earlier proposed a quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction scheme (QSB) using Lamport signatures, requiring no soft fork or base protocol changes. The announcement underscores a broader industry push to confront quantum threats before they materialize.
