ZKPoSP Aims to Shield Bitcoin from Quantum Attacks

AmericanFortress researchers have proposed a new system called ZKPoSP to protect Bitcoin and other blockchain wallets from future quantum attacks.

ZKPoSP replaces traditional elliptic curve signatures with zero-knowledge proofs, preserving existing wallet addresses while maintaining compatibility with hierarchical deterministic wallets.

The researchers focused on 'Q-Day', the point at which a fault-tolerant quantum computer could use Shor's algorithm to derive private keys from public keys, rendering elliptic curve cryptography insecure. Rather than requiring users to migrate funds to new quantum-safe addresses, ZKPoSP verifies ownership of a wallet's seed phrase using zero-knowledge proofs.

The system builds on earlier post-quantum ownership research and was implemented in Rust using the RISC Zero zero-knowledge virtual machine. Prototype benchmarks showed proof generation times of roughly 12 to 13 seconds and verification times of about 9 to 10 milliseconds.