AmericanFortress proposed a scheme to protect crypto wallets from quantum threats
AmericanFortress has published a preprint detailing ZKPoSP, a cryptographic scheme designed to protect hierarchically deterministic (HD) cryptocurrency wallets from potential quantum attacks without requiring users to change their addresses. The proposed scheme replaces classical digital signatures with non-interactive zero-knowledge (NIZK) proofs, aiming to maintain compatibility with existing address formats.
The company also introduced the QBIP32 scheme, intended to generate a signing scalar, a separate quantum-resistant proof, and a chain code in a single function call. According to the authors, QBIP32 can be applied to various elliptic curves of prime order, including secp256k1 and Ed25519.
The post-quantum security of the scheme is described as "conjectured," relying on the quantum resistance of the underlying hash functions and NIZK proofs. However, for the scheme to function in a given blockchain network (like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana), nodes would need to support verification of these new proofs instead of standard signatures—a capability currently not implemented.
An implementation in Rust using RISC Zero reportedly takes 12–13 seconds to generate a proof and 9–10 milliseconds to verify it. The publication follows other industry efforts to address quantum threats, including reports from Galaxy on vulnerable assets, new hardware wallets like the PQ1, and consortiums like the Bitcoin Security Consortium pledging funding for post-quantum cryptography research. This new work specifically focuses on HD wallets and positions ZKPoSP/QBIP32 as a general mechanism for multiple curves and networks.
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