Falcon-512 verification drops to ~$0.023 in Starknet challenge

Starknet's open Falcon challenge — a joint effort by the Starknet Foundation and StarkWare in collaboration with OpenZeppelin — has cut the cost of verifying a Falcon-512 post-quantum signature to about $0.023 per transaction. Participants and their AI agents set 434 records in the competition, bringing the verifier from its 48.4M gas baseline down to roughly 26M gas, a ~2× reduction.

• OpenZeppelin has publicly backed the effort, framing post-quantum security as a real design concern for onchain systems and highlighting that the challenge is open to people and AI agents alike.
• At ~$0.023, a Falcon-512 check fits comfortably within Starknet's 100M gas per-transaction budget.
• Competitors optimize the verifier and Keccak performance; every record is audited and credited to its contributor.
• The challenge continues Starknet's push for practical, low-cost post-quantum verification ahead of its wider quantum-resilience roadmap.