Executives from nine blockchain organizations announced the launch of the Quantum Alliance on Friday, October 16 — a standardization body created to define what “quantum readiness” actually means for the industry and to set common criteria for moving to post-quantum cryptography.

The launch addresses a definitional gap in a sector where most major blockchains rely on elliptic-curve cryptography for digital signatures. A sufficiently capable quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm — the 1994 method demonstrating that a quantum machine could solve the mathematical problem underpinning those signatures — could, in principle, derive private keys from exposed public keys. Security researchers have long described the related “harvest now, decrypt later” risk, in which data protected by today’s cryptography is collected for decryption once quantum hardware matures — a scenario that gives the migration question relevance well before large-scale quantum machines exist.

Standardization efforts have been advancing outside the blockchain sector as well. In August 2024, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finalized its first post-quantum cryptography standards — the product of a public selection process that began in 2016 — including the lattice-based ML-KEM (FIPS 203) for key encapsulation and ML-DSA (FIPS 204) for digital signatures, alongside the hash-based SLH-DSA (FIPS 205). The Quantum Alliance’s stated aim is to set common criteria for moving blockchain systems to post-quantum cryptography, where public keys can be exposed on-chain and protocol changes depend on broad consensus.

With NIST’s reference standards now finalized, the open question for blockchain networks is how those algorithm choices translate into upgrades requiring coordination across developers, node operators, and other participants — the kind of broad-consensus change the alliance’s criteria are intended to guide.

By establishing a shared definition of quantum readiness and common migration criteria, the alliance seeks to provide the industry with a consistent benchmark for preparing its transition to post-quantum cryptography.

This content was first published on COINOTAG.