StarkWare said Wednesday that a quantum-safe Bitcoin (BTC) transaction has been mined on the live network, a first for the method.

On-chain data shows the transaction spent a 10,000-satoshi output, worth about $8 at current prices, and paid a fee of 5,179 satoshis.

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How the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Transaction Works

Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB) attaches a hash-based lock beside the elliptic curve signature that normally guards a Bitcoin output. Shor’s algorithm, the quantum technique that derives private keys from published public keys, cannot break hash functions.

StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy published the QSB method in April. It uses signature grinding. This produces a valid Bitcoin signature without a private key. 

The sender grinds offchain until a candidate spending transaction hashes to a value that is itself a validly formatted signature.

Security then rests on reversing a hash rather than keeping a private key secret. The technique builds on Binohash, developed by Robin Linus, the creator of BitVM.

MARA Pool mined the transaction in block 964,199. What worked was a single construction, not an upgrade, and Bitcoin itself remains unchanged.

What the QSB Method Cannot Do

StarkWare said the method does not make Bitcoin quantum-safe. Three constraints narrow what the spend actually protects.

The first limit is prior exposure. An address whose public key already sits on-chain gains nothing, because an adversary with a quantum computer could derive the corresponding private key.

The second is the migration step. Coins reach a hash-secured output through a transaction signed the ordinary way, which exposes the sending address’s public key. The output spent on Wednesday was funded in July by exactly such a transaction.

The third is delivery. QSB transactions use nonstandard formats, so ordinary nodes will not relay them, and MARA’s Slipstream service supplied the route to a miner.

Cost compounds the limits. Levy’s repository puts the offchain compute at $75 to $150, while StarkWare described this transaction as costing several hundred dollars. 

“People have long assumed that protecting Bitcoin holdings from a quantum adversary would require changing the Bitcoin protocol. Today shows otherwise. A soft fork is still the better long-term answer, as StarkWare has argued for consistently, but it is no longer the only option,” the blog read.

Bitcoin has not adopted a protocol-level fix, and Wednesday’s transaction does not change that.

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The post Is Bitcoin Quantum-Safe Now? One Transaction Says Partly appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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U.S. fiscal concerns and digital-asset legislation news have emerged as separate forces in the Bitcoin market. Senator Cynthia Lummis has linked Bitcoin to the country’s $39.2 trillion national debt. Now, the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act remains subject to significant procedural and policy hurdles in the Senate.

Bitcoin posted a 22% weekly gain after Treasury yields fell following a Treasury intervention in the bond market. The move into crypto was later amplified by a short squeeze, with CoinGlass data showing $2.7 billion in crypto short positions liquidated.

CNBC also reported that concern about U.S. debt levels and borrowing costs was part of the market backdrop. The report described the Treasury’s decision to double its buybacks of long-dated government debt as an effort aimed at long-term yield concerns, while noting that Bitcoin remained below its 2026 high and its all-time high despite the rally.

The same report said investor sentiment improved amid a late effort by the White House and crypto industry leaders to advance the CLARITY Act. It characterized the bill as a potential market catalyst, while saying its prospects for passage appeared relatively slim.

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Lummis Links Debt Concerns to the CLARITY Act

On June 15, Senator Cynthia Lummis publicly tied Bitcoin to America’s $39.2 trillion national debt crisis. The report said she presented Bitcoin as a potential hedge against currency debasement for younger Americans who will inherit the effects of decades of deficit spending.

Lummis has argued that Bitcoin’s fixed supply makes it structurally distinct from sovereign debt instruments. According to the report, she described the U.S. fiscal trajectory as unsustainable and said Bitcoin could help address the consequences for younger Americans. She also acknowledged that the legislative timetable remained uncertain.

The Clarity Act would establish a jurisdictional division between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Under the framework described in the primary report, the SEC would oversee digital-asset securities and new token offerings, while the CFTC would have jurisdiction over spot digital commodities, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The legislation would also create registration frameworks for exchanges, brokers, and custodians. Its provisions include capital-segregation requirements, protections for software developers publishing code, and a rule giving exchange customers first claim on custodial assets in bankruptcy.

For tokens that operate in regulatory ambiguity, the proposed activity-based test would determine whether sufficiently decentralized assets fall under CFTC oversight as digital commodities. The bill would also ban passive stablecoin yield products while protecting activity-based platform usage rewards.

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News on Senate Obstacles Remain as Bitcoin Stabilizes

Galaxy Research put the probability of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 at 60–75%, according to the primary report. But the White House’s July 4 signing target faced pressure from unresolved ethics provisions, competing House and Senate versions that require reconciliation, and the Senate’s 60-vote cloture threshold.

The House and Senate versions also differ over the SEC–CFTC balance. The Senate Banking discussion draft gives the SEC primary authority over ancillary assets and calls for joint SEC–CFTC rulemaking on margining and disclosures, while the House version is described as more CFTC-forward.

Despite the news, Bitcoin is still trading at around $80,000, with BTC holding near the key psychological level after briefly climbing above $80,000. The move keeps Bitcoin firmly in its recent uptrend, although the $80,000 to $82,000 area remains an important resistance zone after its three-month high.

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The post Bitcoin News: Debt Hedge Case Meets Senate Roadblocks for CLARITY Act appeared first on Cryptonews.

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Kansas City Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Schmid said Thursday that inflation is still too high, though he stopped short of calling for an interest rate hike.

Speaking from the central bank’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo. that the Kansas City Fed hosts, Schmid said in a CNBC interview that inflation has proven resilient.

“It’s still stubborn and it’s still sticky, and we’re we’ve got to continue to find ways to break through,” he said on “Squawk Box.” “We’re going to have our work cut out for us as we move into the [Federal Open Market Committee] cycle.”

The comments came the day after the Commerce Department reported that the Fed’s primary inflation gauge showed core prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 3.3% from a year ago, well above the central bank’s 2% target.

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Coupled with an economy that grew at 1.5% in the second quarter and an unemployment rate sitting at 4.1%, Schmid said it’s not clear that the Fed’s current policy rate target of 3.5%-3.75% is restrictive.

“I don’t know what we’re restricting currently with the rate policy that we’re at today,” he said. “I do know moving the rate does change behaviors in the market in a macro level market.”

Schmid does not vote this year on the FOMC, though he still gets to express his views at meetings. When he was a voter last year, he twice dissented against rate cuts.

However, he said he is not sure whether he would support a rate increase now.

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“I think we need a little bit more information. What I’m trying to figure out is the demand side of what’s driving both growth and inflation,” Schmid said.

Separately, Schmid said he sees “some room” to consider an idea that Chairman Kevin Warsh raised in July to reduce the number of FOMC meetings per year to six from the current eight.

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BTC held its ground Thursday as spot bitcoin ETFs logged an eighth straight day of net inflows, while altcoins drifted lower across the board.

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Bitfinex Securities completed a record $50 million raise for Alkemya, whose token represents interests in a partnership that holds nickel assets.

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The abandoned bids would have cost over $2 million in base fees alone, leading the firm to prioritize financial viability over broader internet adoption.

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Developers are holding details for two weeks while fixes reach operators, in the second Lightning security emergency this month traced to AI work on Bitcoin code.

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