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BlockBeats reported on April 21 that Ripple has officially announced its quantum-resistance roadmap, with the core goal of achieving quantum resistance for the XRP Ledger (XRPL) by 2028. The roadmap primarily addresses the potential "Harvest now, decrypt later" attack model, where attackers collect encrypted data now, waiting for mature quantum computers in the future to break it. The entire plan will be carried out in four phases: Phase One: Q-Day Emergency Preparation (already started). Establish a Quantum Day (Q-Day) emergency response mechanism. If the current classical cryptography systems are suddenly compromised, the network will immediately stop accepting traditional public key signatures and forcibly migrate to quantum-safe accounts. Meanwhile, asset ownership verification schemes based on post-quantum zero-knowledge proofs (Post-Quantum ZK-proofs) will be explored, allowing existing account holders to safely recover funds in emergencies without exposing vulnerable keys. Phase Two: Risk Assessment and Algorithm Testing (first half of 2026). Comprehensive assessment of the impact of post-quantum cryptography on the XRP Ledger network’s performance, storage, and bandwidth. In collaboration with Project Eleven, validator-level testing and Devnet benchmarking will be conducted, deploying the NIST-standardized ML-DSA quantum-safe signature scheme and developing a prototype for post-quantum custody wallets. Lead engineer Denis Angell has deployed ML-DSA signatures on XRPL’s AlphaNet. Phase Three: Devnet Hybrid Integration (second half of 2026). Candidate post-quantum signature schemes and existing elliptic curve signatures will be integrated in parallel on the developer network (Devnet), allowing developers to test performance and system impacts without affecting the mainnet. At the same time, post-quantum zero-knowledge proof primitives and homomorphic encryption technologies for Confidential Transfers will be explored, advancing privacy and compliance capabilities for tokenized real-world assets on XRPL. Phase Four: Full Mainnet Upgrade (targeted for 2028). Submit a formal protocol amendment, and upon validator approval, fully enable native post-quantum cryptography on the mainnet. Focus will be on production-ready optimization: throughput tuning, validator reliability assurance, and coordinated migration of the ecosystem to ensure full transition without impacting network speed and settlement finality.

According to Odaily, cryptography engineer Filippo Valsorda wrote that the impact of quantum computing on current encryption systems is mainly concentrated on asymmetric algorithms (such as ECDSA, RSA, etc.), while its effect on symmetric encryption (such as AES, SHA series) is limited. The Grover algorithm does not substantially weaken the security of 128-bit keys in practical scenarios. Although the Grover algorithm can theoretically accelerate brute-force attacks, it is difficult to parallelize, and the actual cost of an attack is extremely high. Even under ideal quantum computing conditions, the resources required to break AES-128 are far greater than the cost of attacking elliptic curve encryption using the Shor algorithm. In addition, standard institutions, including the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology, unanimously believe that AES-128 still meets post-quantum security requirements and does not need to be upgraded to a 256-bit key. Industry opinion holds that focusing resources on replacing asymmetric encryption schemes vulnerable to quantum attacks is currently a more pressing task.

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