Shipping season never ends 🥷 1⃣Quantum-safe Bitcoin is getting dramatically cheaper StarkWare, Yukon Research and Eigen Labs launched the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Autoresearch Challenge, with more than $20,000 in prizes for improving StarkWare’s quantum-safe mechanism for Bitcoin. → In just one week, developers and AI agents reduced the estimated GPU compute cost of a QSB transaction by 79%, from roughly $320 to $67!!!! → $18,000 are still up for grabs over the following week. → In parallel, the http://ECDSA.Fail autoresearch effort brought together more than 100 participants and AI agents to optimize a key component of potential quantum attacks on elliptic-curve cryptography. The resulting paper, co-authored by seven researchers from StarkWare and the Starknet Foundation, reported an 86.1% reduction in its benchmark resource score. 2⃣Privacy is moving from infrastructure into real applications The STRK20 privacy ecosystem expanded significantly during September, with privacy becoming a native feature across more Starknet applications. → @DashXHQ launched Private Payroll, enabling global teams to send onchain payouts without exposing salaries or payroll activity publicly. → @EkuboProtocol launched private swaps, allowing users to trade assets privately while accessing the same liquidity as public swaps. → @YieldStark added private interactions directly into its app. → @Chance_ integrated STRK20, allowing AI transfers to be checked against signed mandates while keeping the sender, recipient and amount confidential. → The STRK20 Private Sprint officially wrapped up with more than 220 builders creating 200 privacy projects across payments, DeFi, AI, trading and infrastructure. → StarkWare also announced Privacy Summit in Singapore, bringing together builders and researchers for live demos and discussions around onchain privacy, compliance and private applications. 3⃣Bitcoin on Starknet keeps expanding The strkBTC ecosystem continued to grow across bridging, yield, applications and distribution. → @gardenfi now powers the official strkBTC bridge, allowing users to bridge BTC or swap supported assets from more than 11 networks into Starknet. → The @StarknetFndn launched The Bitcoin Button, where the last user to press the button before the timer reaches zero wins the grand prize. → It also launched a strkBTC creator campaign through Kaito, with two separate epochs rewarding creators for producing original Bitcoin-on-Starknet content. 4⃣The ecosystem keeps shipping → @arcxtrade added NVDAx, MSTRx and SPYx, enabling users to deposit tokenized stock assets and earn up to 20% APY. → ArcX also introduced tradable pre-TGE point markets, allowing users to buy exposure to points before token launch on both Extended & Variational → Variational points went live with a settlement structure capped at $40. → Paradigm RFQ went live onchain through @paradex, bringing institutional-style options liquidity directly onchain → Paradex options open interest crossed $300M following the rollout. → Paradex launched US500 options, its first RWA options market. → ethereum:0xca14007eff0db1f8135f4c25b34de49ab0d42766 merchant payments went live through AEON across India, Colombia, Mexico and Africa, including support for local payment rails such as QR payments, bank transfers and mobile money. → A new Starknet thesis hub now brings the ecosystem’s biggest narratives together in one place, covering privacy, quantum security and Bitcoin from an investor perspective, with STRK sitting at the center of the ecosystem. 5⃣The numbers keep improving → More than $1M worth of assets across 45 different tokens are now shielded on Starknet → More than 220 builders participated in the STRK20 Private Sprint → 200 privacy projects were built during the sprint → Paradex options open interest crossed $300M → SuperVega volume continued growing month over month → Paradex options DAU continued reaching new ATHs → Starknet ecosystem activity metrics continued trending upward month over month Can’t stop, won’t stop.