Nine Blockchain Organizations Launch Quantum Alliance to Define Post-Quantum Readiness Standards

A new open standards initiative wants to set the criteria for judging quantum-resistance claims in blockchain.

The Quantum Alliance was launched by CEOs, CTOs and founders from nine blockchain organizations. It 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.

The risk it targets

Nearly every major blockchain secures accounts with elliptic-curve signatures, and once an account signs a transaction, its public key sits permanently on a public ledger. The alliance says 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.