Nine major organizations in the blockchain and security sectors have officially launched the Quantum Alliance, an initiative to develop and validate industry standards in response to the rapid advancement of quantum computing technology. The consortium aims to clearly define and verify the level of quantum-resistant technology across decentralized networks, wallets and infrastructure, while establishing compatibility rules for secure migration to next-generation cryptographic systems.
The consortium plans to work closely with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an internet standards organization, and operate through four core working groups: blockchain network migration; post-quantum zero-knowledge (ZK) proof systems; wallet and key security; and cross-chain interoperability and compatibility. Initial founding members include Quantus, Postquant Labs, Midnight Foundation, Keystone, Abelian and Hacken, bringing together infrastructure spanning base protocols, privacy rollups, hardware wallets and security audits.
The alliance strongly warned of the structural limitations of the elliptic-curve signature algorithms currently used by Bitcoin and other major blockchains. According to on-chain analysis, approximately 6.04 million bitcoin—about 30% of the total Bitcoin supply—are held in addresses whose public keys have already been exposed on the blockchain, leaving them potentially vulnerable to future quantum attacks.
If a quantum computer with sufficient computational power to run Shor’s algorithm emerges, an attack could theoretically solve the discrete-logarithm problem from public keys exposed on the network, derive the corresponding private keys and illicitly seize the assets. Industry experts are therefore emphasizing the need to establish comprehensive guidelines for cryptographic transitions and address-migration standards across the decentralized ecosystem proactively, before the quantum threat intensifies.