Quantus Brings Quantum-Safe Mainnet Online Amid $2.7 Trillion Crypto Risk

Quantus, a new blockchain network, has launched its mainnet with a focus on post-quantum cryptography designed to resist attacks from sufficiently powerful quantum computers. The network uses ML-DSA, a digital-signature standard finalized by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2024, specifically relying on ML-DSA-65 and ML-DSA-87 to authenticate transactions.

Quantus co-founder and CEO Christopher Smith stated that 'we have known for over 30 years that if anyone builds a sufficiently large quantum computer, then elliptic curves will fail.' He emphasized the need for proactive migration to post-quantum cryptography, citing that roughly $2.7 trillion of crypto market value remains exposed to this long-term risk.

The network targets a 12-second block time and has achieved as much as 430 transactions per second in testing. Quantus also runs two additional layers: Wormhole for transaction privacy and an aggregation layer designed to improve throughput. While post-quantum security comes at a cost, with ML-DSA transactions being roughly 7 kilobytes compared to 100 bytes for typical Bitcoin transactions, the design aims to become more efficient as transaction volume increases.

The launch of Quantus coincides with advancements in AI's capability for cryptographic research. In July, Anthropic improved the best-known attack on HAWK, a post-quantum signature candidate, after about 60 hours of work, although the result had no practical impact on production systems.