#Gate广场五月交易分享

Fun Fact — The Difficulty of Quantum-Resistant Migration for Bitcoin Due to Data Expansion

Quantum-resistant cryptography is becoming a long-term preparation direction in the blockchain industry. A recent study by BNB Chain Research shows that, in the future, when public chains switch to quantum-resistant signatures, the most challenging issue may not be the consensus system, but the significant increase in transaction and block sizes, which could slow down network propagation and processing efficiency.

Significant Increase in Transaction Size

The study takes BSC as an example, testing the operation after using ML-DSA-44 transaction signatures and pqSTARK aggregation technology. The goal is to gradually replace existing schemes like ECDSA and BLS, as these cryptographic systems may face cracking risks from quantum computing in the longer term.

The report states that technically, on-chain systems are already beginning to prepare for quantum resistance, but at a considerable cost. Currently, a normal BSC transaction is about 110 bytes; switching to ML-DSA-44 would increase the average transaction size to approximately 2.5 KB.

Under similar transaction loads, block sizes will also increase correspondingly, from about 130 KB to nearly 2 MB. For high-throughput public chains, this means nodes need to transmit more data, and network pressure will significantly increase.

Normal Transaction: about 110 bytes to 2.5 KB

Block Size: about 130 KB to nearly 2 MB

Throughput Reduction: approximately 40% to 50% in tests

Bottleneck Is Not in the Consensus Layer

The study shows that performance degradation mainly results from slower block propagation due to larger block sizes, rather than failure of the consensus mechanism itself. In tests, network throughput decreased by about 40% to 50%, and final confirmation delays across regions became more apparent under high load.

Researchers pointed out that, with pqSTARK compression, the aggregation efficiency of validator signature data remains high, with related data volume compressed by about 43 times. This means that the consensus aggregation itself can still maintain good efficiency, and the real pressure is more on the network transmission layer.

Why Choose ML-DSA-44

BNB Chain Research explains that the reason for choosing ML-DSA-44 instead of larger similar schemes is mainly to balance security, signature size, and verification speed. For high-throughput blockchains, this version is closer to practical deployment.

The report also mentions that current quantum computers cannot directly crack the cryptographic systems used by Bitcoin or BSC under real-world conditions. Therefore, this research is more of a forward-looking preparation rather than an urgent response to immediate risks.

Overall, the signal from this research is that blockchain moving toward quantum resistance is not impossible, but if the current speed and scalability are to be maintained, the underlying network and infrastructure may need a round of upgrades first.