XRP Ledger Proposes Quantum-Resistant Account Design, With No Extra Cost for Users

November 10 — According to CoinDesk, the XRP Ledger Foundation's 2027 protocol roadmap updated on November 4 proposed a quantum-resistant account design. The design allows account owners to add a quantum-resistant signing key to their account and disable the original key, guarding against future quantum computer attacks. Because every account-signed transaction exposes the public key on-chain, any account that has ever sent a payment — including all exchange wallets — has already exposed that public key.

The new key will use the ML-DSA-44 signature scheme approved by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2024. The key is large: key and signature together total 3,732 bytes, adding about 3.6KB per protected transaction. However, users will not have to pay extra for this; the base fee remains unchanged, and the additional storage cost is borne by network operators. Developers are still working to resolve the issue of inconsistent key generation across different code versions, and plan to conduct migration research in the first half of 2027, with the goal of achieving a full quantum transition in 2028.