Blockstream: Bitcoin Can Use New Signature Technology to Prepare for Future Quantum Threats

November 7: According to Bloomingbit, Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream said in its Q3 business update released on November 5 that Bitcoin can prepare for future quantum computer attacks by adopting new digital signature technology. The Blockstream team previously released a report in August comparing three lattice-based signature schemes: Dilithium, Falcon and Hawk.

The researchers assessed that Falcon-1024 offers the best balance between data size, verification speed and the maturity of its security foundation, saying, "if we had to choose a lattice-based signature scheme for Bitcoin today, we would choose Falcon-1024." However, the researchers also noted that finalizing the Falcon standard, obtaining verified implementations and the memory burden on hardware wallets remain key challenges. The team said hash-based signatures are a more conservative choice in the short term, and that once Falcon standardization and implementation technology mature, combining the two approaches could be considered to improve security and processing efficiency.