Ledger CTO Analyzes Post-Quantum Cryptography Migration, Blockchain Favors Hash-Based Signature Schemes

Odaily Planet Daily reported that Ledger Chief Technology Officer Charles Guillemet pointed out that the development of post-quantum cryptography has entered a critical stage. Although the timeline for practical quantum computers is not yet clear, the migration of the entire industry's cryptographic systems is an inevitable trend. Under the leadership of NIST, the traditional sector plans to phase out high-risk algorithms by 2030 and completely ban them by 2035. Government and enterprise institutions are expected to complete their migration layouts by 2029. Encryption and key exchange will adopt ML-KEM to defend against quantum decryption attacks on harvested data, with digital signatures becoming the core of blockchain transformation. The traditional industry favors the ML-DSA hybrid scheme, while blockchain prefers the secure and robust SLH-DSA hash signature. Both schemes have their pros and cons, and the compatibility issues of post-quantum algorithms with MPC and threshold signatures remain critical risks that need to be addressed by the industry.