Overview
- Ripple, which announced the plan Monday, set a four‑phase path to make the XRP Ledger resistant to quantum attacks by 2028.
- Phase 1 defines a "Quantum‑Day" response that would stop accepting classical signatures and use post‑quantum zero‑knowledge proofs for safe fund recovery, and XRPL’s key rotation lets users change keys without moving assets.
- Formal trials in the first half of 2026 will benchmark NIST‑standardized algorithms for signature size, verification cost, and throughput under real XRPL workloads.
- A hybrid rollout on Devnet in the second half of 2026 will run post‑quantum and elliptic‑curve signatures side by side, with Project Eleven assisting on validator tests, Devnet benchmarks, and a custody wallet prototype.
- Ripple cites Google Quantum AI findings that a machine with about 500,000 physical qubits could derive a private key from an exposed public key in minutes, which sharpens the "harvest now, decrypt later" risk for long‑held accounts.