Quantum Alliance Launches to Set Post-Quantum Standards for Blockchains

Insider Brief

• Leaders from nine blockchain organizations have launched the Quantum Alliance, an open standards initiative to define and verify post-quantum readiness across blockchain networks, wallets and infrastructure.
• The Alliance plans to publish open testing criteria, benchmarks and migration guidance covering transaction signatures, key management, consensus, zero-knowledge proofs and peer-to-peer connections.
• Its initial work will focus on four areas: blockchain migration, post-quantum zero-knowledge systems, wallet security and cross-chain compatibility.

PRESS RELEASE — CEOs, CTOs, and founders from nine blockchain organizations today launched the Quantum Alliance, an open standards body that will set the criteria for judging quantum-resistance claims in blockchain and create standards for compatibility between the networks as they migrate. The Alliance will define what post-quantum readiness means for blockchain networks, wallets, and infrastructure, and how to test and verify any claim of quantum resistance. 

Nearly every major blockchain secures its accounts with elliptic-curve signatures, and once an account signs a transaction (for some address types, from the moment it is created), its public key sits permanently on a public ledger. A sufficiently capable quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm could work backward from that public key to the private key and take control of the funds.