Quantus pointed out the cryptocurrency market's unpreparedness for the quantum threat - ForkLog: cryptocurrencies, AI, singularity, the future

# In Quantus pointed out the unpreparedness of the crypto market for the quantum threat

The cryptocurrency industry is not ready to transition to post-quantum cryptography, despite progress in such computations. This was stated by the developers of Quantus.

The project team released a study titled The State of Quantum: What Crypto Can’t Afford to Ignore, which ForkLog reviewed. It states that wallets, exchanges, custodians, validators, bridges, and governance systems are under threat.

Source: ForkLog. Most of the market still relies on classical signature schemes — ECDSA and Ed25519. Theoretically, Shor’s algorithm will allow quantum computers to crack such systems once they reach sufficient power.

In August 2024, NIST finalized the first standards for post-quantum cryptography — ML-KEM and ML-DSA. They are positioned as a response to the impending collapse of the classical approach.

Blockchains are more complex than traditional IT

Quantus experts assert that the crypto market has stricter constraints than conventional IT infrastructure.

In centralized services, cryptography can be updated via patches. In blockchains — user-held funds, distributed management, and public keys that can remain in the network for years.

The report mentions the harvest now, decrypt later scenario: data is collected today to be decrypted later when sufficiently powerful quantum machines appear.

CEO and CTO of Quantus, Christopher Smith, stated that the industry will not have a “clear warning signal” before the so-called Q-Day.

“The crypto market needs to build infrastructure in advance, not at the moment of pressure,” he said.

There are no timelines yet for the appearance of quantum computers capable of breaking modern schemes. In May, IBM Quantum’s Global Sales Director, Petra Florisun, said that quantum computing is already moving out of laboratory experiments and beginning to be applied to real-world problems.

Impact on Bitcoin

A separate part of the study is dedicated to Bitcoin. Quantus claims that the standard transaction of the first cryptocurrency with ECDSA uses about 97 bytes of signature and public key. The ML-DSA-87-based variant increases the size to approximately 7,187 bytes.

A direct switch to post-quantum signatures without changes to the network architecture, according to the authors, would sharply reduce the number of transactions per block.

The report also mentions BIP-360 — a proposal for migrating Bitcoin’s blockchain to quantum protection. The document describes the Pay-to-Merkle-Root format as a step to reduce key exposure risks.

Authors of BIP-360 noted that the proposal does not solve all problems. Questions remain regarding wallet compatibility, block space load, and the fate of old addresses.

Quantus’s own solution

The project claims that post-quantum cryptography forms a new version of the “blockchain trilemma”: large signatures impact scalability, while privacy adds additional costs.

Quantus proposes to offload part of the load outside the main chain using ZK mechanisms. The document mentions Wormhole Addresses, Plonky2, STARK-like proof aggregation, and Poseidon2.

Tech giants are already moving

The report provides examples of major tech companies transitioning to post-quantum protection:

• Signal with the PQXDH protocol;
• Google with hybrid X25519Kyber768 in Chrome;
• Apple with the PQ3 system for iMessage.

Quantus concludes: mass consumer services have begun preparing for the post-quantum era earlier than a significant part of the crypto market.

Recall that in April, Lightning Labs’ Technical Director Olaoluva Osuntokun presented a prototype tool to protect Bitcoin wallets from potential quantum attacks.