Starknet challenge drives quantum-safe signature checks down to about $0.023

An open optimization contest backed by StarkWare and the Starknet Foundation roughly halved the gas cost of verifying Falcon-512 signatures That’s the result of an open challenge where people and AI agents compete to make post-quantum signatures cheaper. Within weeks, they cut the gas bill for verifying a Falcon-512 signature roughly in half. The challenge targets Falcon-512, a post-quantum signature scheme. The contest asks a narrow question: how cheaply can a Falcon-512 signature be verified inside Starknet’s Cairo-based environment? The starting line came from OpenZeppelin, which supplied the initial verifier. That baseline implementation consumed 48.4 million gas per verification.