Blockchain security company AmericanFortress has unveiled a cryptographic scheme it says can protect existing cryptocurrency wallets against future quantum attacks without requiring users to transfer funds, rotate keys or change wallet addresses.
Unlike most proposed post-quantum approaches, AmericanFortress claims that its scheme allows existing wallet addresses to remain unchanged while adding post-quantum protection.
The company published the proposal in a white paper on Cryptography ePrint Archivesdescribing the scheme as consistent with the hierarchical deterministic seed-based wallets used in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), and other blockchain networks that rely on elliptic curve cryptography. This article has not been reviewed yet.
According to the article, the scheme uses zero-knowledge proofs derived from the wallet’s original seed phrase, rather than replacing the elliptic curve cryptography underlying existing wallets. AmericanFortress says participating nodes will verify this evidence while users continue to sign transactions using their existing keys.
AmericanFortress also cited a recent Bloomberg analysis that estimated that up to $470 billion in Bitcoin could be vulnerable to quantum attacks if sufficiently powerful quantum computers become available.
Related: Hong Kong is preparing banks for quantum threats amid push for tokenization
Companies are taking different paths to ensure post-quantum wallet security
AmericanFortress isn’t the only company developing post-quantum security for cryptocurrency wallets. On Tuesday, Freedom Factory unveiled PQ1, which it describes as a post-quantum hardware wallet designed for Ethereum and other Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible networks.
Unlike the AmericanFortress software-based approach, PQ1 uses post-quantum cryptographic signatures generated on dedicated hardware. According to Freedom Factory, the wallet uses SPHINCS+C10 signatures and ERC-4337 shrewd accounts to secure transactions against future quantum attacks.
Developers are increasingly focusing on post-quantum cryptography because sufficiently powerful quantum computers could eventually crack the elliptic curve cryptography used to secure Bitcoin, Ethereum and many other blockchain networks. While such computers are not yet available, several blockchain projects have already begun exploring migration strategies.
In recent months, a consortium led by the strategy donated $15 million to fund research into Bitcoin’s quantum security, the Ethereum Foundation published a report application for migrating accounts to quantum-resistant cryptography, and Algorand has outlined plans to introduce quantum-resistant accounts by 2027.
Post-quantum Ethereum roadmap. Source: Ethereum Foundation
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