Solana is now a quantum defender, says Solana Dev
Solana's developers have created a quantum-proof vault on the Solana blockchain to protect users' funds from threats posed by quantum computers.
The “Solana Winternitz Vault” solution achieves this by implementing a complex hash-based signature system that generates new keys each time a transaction is made, cryptography researcher and Zeus Networks Principal Scientist Dean Little explained in a Jan. 3 GitHub post .
Generating new private keys for each transaction makes it more difficult for quantum computers to plan a concerted attack on any set of public keys.
Source: Dean Little
Solana's Quantum-Defense feature is currently an optional add-on, not a network-wide security update. This means that Solana users should choose to store their funds in Winternitz storage instead of regular Solana wallets to protect their funds from quantum risks.
How it works
Winternitz Vault first generates a new Winternitz key pair and calculates the Keccak256 Merkle public key root.
A “distributed” store with paid and refunded accounts is created, the user generates a Winternitz signature on a message containing the amount of “lamport” they want – the smallest native cryptocurrency Solana (SOL) transfer.
After the transfer is completed, the remaining funds will be transferred to the return account and the deposit will be closed.
Related: Don't Fear Quantum Computers
The development may provide some reassurance to many crypto investors who fear that their cryptographically secured funds could one day be wiped out by a quantum computer.
In what seemed to be a bit of fun at Bitcoin investor and analyst Fred Kruger, Kruger shared screenshots from a December 19 X post saying that Solana would be Quantum's “first risk.”
Source: Fred Kruger
Part of Ethereum's technical roadmap includes the implementation of quantum-resistant solutions – yet Vitalik Buterin, one of Ethereum's founders, is confident that quantum won't pose any real threat for at least a decade.
Even if “real” quantum computers come sooner, the day ordinary people carry quantum computers on their laptops or phones may be decades after powerful institutions discover a method that can crack elliptic curve cryptography, Buterin said in October.
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