Sui Adopts Post-Quantum Signature Schemes In Move Toward Quantum Readiness

Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, August 6th, 2026, Chainwire

Sui is adding two NIST-approved post-quantum signature schemes, so accounts can move to quantum-safe keys derived from the recovery phrase users already hold.

Sui, where money moves as freely as messages, announced today that it is adopting two post-quantum signature schemes in its move toward quantum readiness.

The quantum timeline is different for blockchains, because a public key onchain is different from a public key anywhere else. In most systems, an attacker needs a breach before they can start working on a key. Onchain, the key is already published, exposed permanently the moment an account transacts.

Shor's algorithm breaks the elliptic-curve cryptography behind most onchain accounts today, the same math securing banking systems and most of the internet. Harvest-now-forge-later collection doesn't require quantum hardware; it requires a visible key and patience. The exposure is already accruing. In March 2026, Google Quantum AI estimated that exactly this attack, recovering a private key from an exposed public key, would run in minutes on a fault-tolerant machine of under half a million physical qubits.

That’s why Sui is adopting two signature schemes matched to different kinds of risk, rather than betting on one algorithm.

ML-DSA-65 (FIPS 204) for native accounts. For everyday transactions, ML-DSA-65 becomes a native protocol signature scheme. Sui is integrating Level 3 rather than the cheaper Level 1, following a July 2026 incident where an AI model halved the effective key strength of HAWK, a post-quantum signature candidate, in about 60 hours, after two years of expert human review had cleared it. The rest of the internet stack is converging on the same choice too: AWS KMS now offers ML-DSA signing in its hardware-backed key service, and Android 17's Keystore generates quantum-safe signatures inside the device's secure hardware starting at ML-DSA-65, skipping the 44 parameter set entirely.
SLH-DSA-SHA2-128s (FIPS 205) for smart contract vaults. For high-value assets, hash-based signatures are handled inside Move contracts rather than the protocol core. Hash-based security is the better-understood of the two families, and keeping it in-contract means Sui can stay compatible with whichever post-quantum standards the wider industry settles on, without a core protocol upgrade. Given Sui's bridges to other networks, that adaptability matters.

The two rest on different mathematics, so a weakness found in one does not undermine the other. Both follow NIST's standardized post-quantum algorithms and the joint CISA/NSA/NIST quantum-readiness roadmap.

Users Keep Their Recovery Phrase and Their Address

Sui was built for cryptographic agility, which means signature schemes can be added without disturbing the fundamentals of the network. That property is the difference between a migration and a rebuild, and it is why the work described here is a routine protocol-feature update rather than a change to consensus or existing state.

The hardest part of any cryptographic migration is not the new algorithm. The problem is that everyone is already using the old one.

On Sui, an ML-DSA-65 private key is a 32-byte seed, the same size wallets store today, derived from the same recovery phrase through a new standard derivation path. Wallets back up and restore exactly as they do now.

Existing accounts have a path that does not involve moving funds. Address aliases, already deployed on Sui, let an account update its authorization key to a post-quantum key while keeping its address and its assets in place. No forced migration, no expensive transfer of everything an account holds.

The honest cost is size. A post-quantum signature and public key are substantially larger than an Ed25519 pair, which increases transaction size. That is the price the whole industry is paying for quantum resistance. Verification is the part that could have hurt and does not: ML-DSA-65 verification on Sui is close enough to Ed25519 that per-signature network cost does not rise. Sui's transaction size limit and support for programmable transaction blocks absorb the rest, and further optimization work is underway.

Post Quantum Rollout Timeline

The core implementation is built and benchmarked. Quantum-safe vaults are targeted for Mainnet this year, with native ML-DSA-65 accounts reaching Testnet by end of year and native account authentication on Mainnet targeted for Q1 2027. Wallet, SDK, and CLI support will arrive alongside. Independent audits are underway, and timelines stay open while that review and Testnet feedback continue. This reflects current direction, not a finished, fully audited release.

Post-quantum accounts arrive as an additive, opt-in capability, through the same rollout path zkLogin and passkeys used. Nothing existing changes, and no application needs to do anything today.

For background on how each Sui primitive transitions to post-quantum cryptography, users can see Securing Sui in the Quantum Computing Era.

About Sui

Sui, where money moves as freely as messages, is a next-generation Layer 1 blockchain built for scalable finance and global payments. Founded by the core team behind Meta's stablecoin initiative and powered by an object-centric model, Sui makes assets, permissions, and user data programmable and ownable. Sui's primitives offer builders everything they need to create high-performance payments and financial applications, including instant agentic payments. Users can learn more at sui.io.

Contact: [email protected]

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