anti-quantum

The blockchain project Quantus announced the launch of its PoW mainnet using post-quantum cryptography, which incorporates the ML-DSA-65 and ML-DSA-87 digital signature mechanisms. The total supply limit of the native token QTC is 21 million, and PoW mining has been open since the launch.

Coinbase announced that it has collaborated with Stanford University cryptography professor Dan Boneh and Localhost Research to hold a closed-door "Post-Quantum Bitcoin Workshop" at Stanford University, gathering Bitcoin developers, cryptography experts, researchers, institutional custodians, and hardware wallet specialists to discuss the technologies and migration plans for Bitcoin to address future quantum computing threats.The workshop focused on assessing the progress of quantum computing, post-quantum cryptography, and various post-quantum signature schemes applicable to Bitcoin, as well as discussing Ethereum's anti-quantum planning, the practical requirements faced by institutional custody businesses, and how to introduce post-quantum security mechanisms for Bitcoin through new output types. Participants believed that rather than predicting when quantum computing will pose a real threat to existing cryptographic systems, it is more important to establish well-tested response plans in advance.Quantum computing does not currently pose an urgent crisis, but the earlier research and coordination begin, the better we can avoid hasty network upgrades and asset migrations under pressure in the future. However, there is currently no consensus on a single post-quantum solution. Different solutions involve trade-offs in terms of security, transaction data size, hardware performance, key management, and the difficulty of user migration. Participants felt that Bitcoin's anti-quantum measures cannot rely solely on protocol layer upgrades, but must also consider how individual users, institutional custodians, wallets, and hardware devices generate, store, back up, and migrate keys and assets.

According to CoinGecko data, the anti-quantum sector has risen 22.4% in the past 24 hours, leading all sectors. Within the sector, ZEC has increased by 26.7%, GEEQ has risen by 7.4%, and STRK has gone up by 6.7%. The zero-knowledge sector has risen 18% in the past 24 hours, and the privacy coin sector has increased by 12.6%, ranking second and third respectively.

According to The Block, cryptocurrency mining company MARA's CEO Peter Thiel announced the establishment of a nonprofit organization, the MARA Foundation, dedicated to the long-term health, resilience, and adoption of the Bitcoin protocol. The foundation will support the development of anti-quantum tools (such as PQ wallets and the BIP 360 proposal), believing that while quantum computing is not an immediate threat to Bitcoin, network upgrades take time, and early preparation is crucial.The foundation will also allocate resources to ensure Bitcoin's security budget, support the development of a robust and healthy Bitcoin transaction fee market, and launch a global multilingual education program, expand access to self-custody tools, and engage in advocacy work aimed at policymakers and activists.

Sonic elaborates on its technological path towards the "post-quantum era," pointing out that most current PoS public chains rely on elliptic curve signatures (such as ECDSA, Ed25519), which are at risk of being cracked once quantum computing (like Shor's algorithm) matures.Sonic states that the industry is exploring post-quantum cryptographic solutions (such as hash-based XMSS, SPHINCS+, and lattice-based Dilithium, Falcon), but mainstream consensus mechanisms generally rely on BLS aggregate signatures and threshold signatures, making the transition to post-quantum systems face challenges in performance, bandwidth, and architectural reconstruction. In contrast, Sonic's SonicCS consensus protocol does not rely on aggregate signatures or global randomness, but instead uses single-node signatures and hash functions to construct a DAG structure. Therefore, when switching to post-quantum cryptography, only the signature algorithm needs to be replaced to complete the upgrade, without the need to adjust the consensus logic or network structure. Sonic emphasizes that this design will significantly reduce the complexity of future migrations to post-quantum security, enabling the network to have stronger adaptability when quantum computing threats arise.

According to official news, Optimism has released the quantum-resistant roadmap for Superchain, with the core content announcing the gradual phasing out of externally owned accounts (EOA) based on ECDSA signatures over the next decade. The specific plan is that by January 2036, EOA transactions using ECDSA signatures on the OP mainnet and superchain will be deprecated, and all such accounts must delegate their key management to smart contract accounts that support post-quantum signatures.The roadmap covers both user and consensus levels. At the user level, account abstraction technology will be utilized, through standards like EIP - 7702, to gradually delegate signature authority from EOA to smart accounts capable of verifying post-quantum signatures. At the consensus level, L2 sequencers and batch submitters will migrate to post-quantum signatures, while also calling for Ethereum itself to establish a timeline to transition validators from BLS signatures and KZG commitments to post-quantum algorithms. The entire upgrade process will be coordinated through a hard fork, providing the ecosystem with a decade to achieve a smooth transition.

Pantera Capital General Partner Franklin Bi posted on platform X, stating that the competition against quantum threats has already begun, but the market has a clear misjudgment regarding the adaptability of traditional finance and blockchain.The market has overestimated the speed at which the Wall Street system can adapt to the upgrade of anti-quantum technology, as the migration process of traditional financial infrastructure will be slow and chaotic, making it difficult to eliminate risks such as single points of failure. The overall security of the traditional financial system depends on its weakest links. Meanwhile, the market has underestimated the unique capabilities of blockchain technology in terms of upgrades. If certain blockchains can successfully complete upgrades within a critical window, they may evolve into "safe havens" for data and assets in the anti-quantum era. Ethereum has already proven to be one of the few successful examples capable of completing complex system upgrades globally (such as the previous The Merge upgrade), and the security crisis brought by quantum computing may actually strengthen the "gravitational effect" of a few core blockchain networks.

According to Axios, the quantum-resistant solution Project Eleven has completed a $20 million funding round, with a valuation of $120 million.Quantum computing technology has the potential to break the underlying cryptographic mechanisms that secure cryptocurrencies, which has been a concern for the cryptocurrency industry. Project Eleven focuses on addressing this issue by developing solutions to withstand quantum computing attacks, ensuring the security of blockchain networks and digital assets.According to the Web3 asset data platform RootData, last June, [Project Eleven](https://www.rootdata.com/zh/Projects/detail/Project Eleven?k=MTg4MDA= "quantum-resistant solution") completed a $6 million funding round, led by Variant Fund and quantum technology venture capital firm Quantonation.

According to CoinDesk, the quantum-resistant cryptography specialist BTQ Technologies (BTQ) recently announced a solution to protect the Bitcoin blockchain, called "Bitcoin Quantum," an open-source fork testnet that is said to be capable of addressing quantum challenges.Chris Tam, head of partnerships at BTQ, stated that Bitcoin Quantum is a publicly operable network where miners, developers, researchers, and users can stress-test against quantum transactions and reveal the trade-offs in actual operation before discussions about mainnet upgrades become urgent.The system includes a block explorer and mining pool, providing instant accessibility. Tam explained that in August 2024, the quantum-resistant algorithm known as "Dilithium" (officially named the Module-Lattice-based Digital Signature Algorithm ML-DSA) will be standardized in the United States, and this algorithm is the technology adopted by the Bitcoin Quantum network. This algorithm has not yet been widely applied in rapidly innovating fields like cryptocurrency, primarily due to its high operational costs.Compared to the digital signatures used every time information is sent to the blockchain or even when sending a WhatsApp message, the data size of quantum-resistant algorithms increases by at least 200 times. Therefore, while there are methods to address quantum risks, they also pose problems, mainly reflected in performance and cost overhead during large-scale deployment.

ChainCatcher news, the Abelian Foundation will officially launch the testnet for Abelian's quantum-resistant Layer2 QDAY on July 31. The released testnet includes the following:QDAY testnet main node (single node solution, hosted by the foundation)QDAY testnet explorer (https://testnet-explorer.qday.info/)QDAY testnet RPC services (https://testnet-rpc-00.qday.info/, https://testnet-rpc-01.qday.info/)In the next two weeks, the Abelian Foundation will continue to release the QDAY testnet faucet (for free QDAY test tokens), testnet ABEL staking services, decentralized exchange on the testnet, and other DeFi and Web3 applications on the testnet. Community members can add the QDAY network in their wallets and claim test tokens from the testnet faucet, browse block information, exchange for other ERC20 tokens on the testnet using DEX, interact with the QDAY testnet via RPC, deploy EVM smart contracts, claim ABEL test tokens, and experience the test ABEL staking participation.It is reported that QDAY is an EVM-compatible quantum-resistant second-layer network built on the groundbreaking quantum-safe ABEL blockchain. QDAY innovatively adopts a PoS-over-PoW consensus mechanism that combines the robust security of Proof of Work (PoW) with the energy efficiency and scalability of Proof of Stake (PoS), achieving a balance between security and energy efficiency.