{"id":97595,"date":"2026-05-28T10:48:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T07:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=97595"},"modified":"2026-05-28T10:50:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T07:50:15","slug":"quantus-highlights-crypto-markets-unpreparedness-for-quantum-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/quantus-highlights-crypto-markets-unpreparedness-for-quantum-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Quantus Highlights Crypto Market’s Unpreparedness for Quantum Threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cryptocurrency industry is unprepared for the transition to post-quantum cryptography, despite advancements in such computations, according to developers at Quantus.<\/p>\n

The project team released a study titled “The State of Quantum: What Crypto Can\u2019t Afford to Ignore,” reviewed by ForkLog. It states that wallets, exchanges, custodians, validators, bridges, and governance<\/a> systems are at risk.<\/p>\n

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Source: ForkLog.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A significant portion of the market still relies on classical signature schemes\u2014ECDSA and Ed25519. Theoretically, Shor’s algorithm would enable quantum computers to breach such systems once they achieve sufficient power.<\/p>\n

In August 2024, NIST finalized<\/a> the first post-quantum cryptography standards\u2014ML-KEM and ML-DSA. These are positioned as a response to the impending collapse of the classical approach.<\/p>\n

Blockchains More Complex Than Traditional IT<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Experts at Quantus assert that the crypto market faces stricter constraints than conventional IT infrastructure.<\/p>\n

In centralized services, cryptography can be updated via a patch. In blockchains, user fund storage, distributed governance, and public keys can remain on the network for years.<\/p>\n

The report mentions a “harvest now, decrypt later” scenario: data is collected today to decrypt later when sufficiently powerful quantum machines become available.<\/p>\n

Quantus CEO and CTO Christopher Smith stated that the industry will not have a “clear alarm signal” before the hypothetical Q-Day.<\/p>\n

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“The crypto market needs to build infrastructure in advance, not under pressure,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There is currently no timeline for the emergence of quantum computers capable of breaking modern schemes. In May, IBM Quantum’s global sales director Petra Florisun stated<\/a> that quantum computing is moving beyond laboratory experiments and beginning to be applied to real-world tasks.<\/p>\n

Impact on Bitcoin<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A separate section of the study is devoted to Bitcoin. Quantus claims that a standard transaction of the first cryptocurrency with ECDSA uses about 97 bytes for the signature and public key. The ML-DSA-87-based variant increases the size to approximately 7187 bytes.<\/p>\n

A direct transition to post-quantum signatures without changes to the network architecture, according to the authors, would drastically reduce the number of transactions per block.<\/p>\n

The report also mentions BIP-360<\/a>\u2014a proposal for migrating the Bitcoin blockchain to quantum protection. The document describes the Pay-to-Merkle-Root format as a step to mitigate key exposure risks.<\/p>\n

The authors of BIP-360 noted that the proposal does not address all issues. Questions remain about wallet compatibility, block space load, and the fate of old addresses.<\/p>\n

Quantus’ Own Solution<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The project claims that post-quantum cryptography forms a new version of the “blockchain trilemma”: large signatures impact scalability, and privacy adds additional costs.<\/p>\n

Quantus suggests offloading part of the burden outside the main chain through ZK<\/a> mechanisms. The document mentions Wormhole Addresses, Plonky2, STARK-like proof aggregation, and Poseidon2.<\/p>\n

IT Giants Already Moving<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The report provides examples of major tech companies transitioning to post-quantum protection:<\/p>\n