Grayscale Sees XRP Ledger and Solana’s Cryptography Efforts Key to Quantum-Resistant Upgrades

Grayscale Research is calling for the early rollout of quantum-resistant blockchain upgrades after a Google Quantum AI paper warned that quantum computing threats may arrive sooner than expected. The company points to the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and Solana’s post-quantum cryptography experiments as important steps to address security risks.

Grayscale Identifies XRP Ledger and Solana’s Post-Quantum Cryptography as Possible Fixes

In its latest edition of “The Stack,” Grayscale Research urges the crypto industry to accelerate efforts toward quantum readiness. It comes as a Google Quantum AI paper suggests that quantum computing may crack cryptographic encryption code faster than expected.

The crypto firm says waiting on further quantum-resistant innovation could be risky despite no quantum computer capable of running Schor’s Algorithm at scale today.

“There is a lot of work to do across blockchain communities in terms of engineering, consensus building, and addressing second-order effects (e.g., potentially lower transaction throughput),” said Grayscale Research head Zach Pandl.

Grayscale Research claims XRP Ledger and Solana are already experimenting with post-quantum cryptography experiments. The crypto industry needs to use these proposed, scrutinized, implemented, and deployed cryptographic updates as potential solutions.

Addressing Quantum Risks and Bitcoin Challenges

Grayscale highlighted that quantum computing security vulnerabilities will depend on whether the blockchain uses a UTXO model like Bitcoin or an account model such as Ethereum.

The crypto firm claimed Bitcoin has lower quantum computing risks than other cryptocurrencies. It uses a UTXO model and proof-of-work consensus, which does not have native smart contracts. Also, certain address types are not quantum vulnerable.

The key issue is the loss or inaccessibility of private keys. They could decide to burn the coins, do nothing, or deliberately slow their release.

“All are conceptually doable, but the challenge is reaching a decision, and the Bitcoin community has a history of debates over protocol changes, including last year’s dispute around image data stored in blocks.”

The XRP Ledger is not completely “quantum-proof,” but it is testing ML-DSA signatures on its AlphaNet. Meanwhile, Solana is working with Project Eleven to test quantum-resistant signatures as well. However, a quantum-resistant upgrade has been shown to reduce network speed by 90%, raising concerns about scalability.