Anza and Firedancer chose Falcon and have early implementations. Solana describes a phased path: research first; then post-quantum keys for new wallets if the threat becomes credible; then migration of existing wallets. Its 27 April 2026 post says no change is required today.
Quantum readiness
Prepared, not panicked.
Quantum computers that can break today’s signatures do not exist yet, but migration takes years. This page explains plainly what is at risk, what Solana has published, and what you can do now.
Education · read-onlyThe QAISS token is not quantum-safe
The threat model
What breaks, and what only bends
Shor’s algorithm breaks public-key cryptography based on factoring and elliptic curves. Grover’s algorithm only speeds up brute-force search. Both need large, error-corrected machines that no one has built yet.
| Algorithm | Used for | Quantum attack | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ed25519 / ECDSA signatures | Solana, Bitcoin and Ethereum accounts | Shor’s algorithm | Broken: a large enough fault-tolerant quantum computer could derive the private key from the public key. |
| RSA, Diffie–Hellman | TLS, older PKI | Shor’s algorithm | Broken in the same way. |
| SHA-256 and other hashes | Addresses, Merkle trees, Passport hashes | Grover’s algorithm | Weakened, not broken: about a square-root speed-up, so 256-bit hashes keep roughly 128-bit security. |
| AES-256 | Encryption at rest | Grover’s algorithm | Weakened, not broken: still considered secure. |
Solana
Every address is a public key
A Solana address is an Ed25519 public key. On Bitcoin, an unused address is a hash, which hides its key; Solana has no such layer. So every account that has ever held funds has its public key on-chain.
PUBLISHED PLAN
RISK ESTIMATE
Anza puts the chance of a quantum computer able to break this at about 3–5% within five years. It has prototyped a migration that keeps an account’s address. It also notes that vaults cannot protect the wider account model.
EXPERIMENTS
The Winternitz Vault uses one-time hash-based signatures. It holds native SOL only, is spent once, and is unaudited. It is a research tool, not a place for SPL tokens such as QAISS.
Check an address
What does my address reveal?
Paste any Solana address. This runs only in your browser: nothing is sent anywhere, and no wallet is connected.
Standards
NIST post-quantum cryptography
FIPS 203
ML-KEM
Key encapsulation (from CRYSTALS-Kyber)
Final standard, August 2024
FIPS 204
ML-DSA
Lattice signatures (from CRYSTALS-Dilithium)
Final standard, August 2024
FIPS 205
SLH-DSA
Hash-based signatures (from SPHINCS+)
Final standard, August 2024
FN-DSA
Falcon
Compact lattice signatures; the scheme Solana’s client teams chose
Being standardised by NIST
What to do
Practical steps today
- Nothing urgent. No quantum computer can break Ed25519 today. Watch for official migration tooling from Solana and your wallet provider.
- Distrust “quantum-proof” offers. Regulators have warned about “Quantum AI” trading scams. No token, including QAISS, is quantum-safe today.
- Learn the vocabulary. Shor, Grover, ML-KEM and Falcon are in the Learning Hub. You can try Grover’s search and the QFT behind Shor’s algorithm in the Lab.
- Keep evidence verifiable. QAISS Passport hashes use SHA-256, which keeps about 128-bit security even against Grover.