Verona has launched Fermi, an upgrade to its mainnet that brings native post-quantum signatures to every account on the network. The move addresses a rapidly compressing timeline for quantum threats. Google Quantum AI now estimates a quantum machine with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits could break the secp256k1 curve, used by Bitcoin and Ethereum, in minutes.

Unlike other blockchains, Verona’s architecture treats accounts as smart contracts with pluggable authenticators, allowing users to add post-quantum security without migrating funds, a design choice founder and CEO Anthony Anzalone calls solving “a migration problem, not a technical problem.” Anzalone said that every other chain has to figure out how to move billions of dollars to new addresses, while on Verona you add a key and remove a key.

Fermi Mainnet v32 Implements NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography

Verona’s approach differs significantly from other blockchains by integrating ML-DSA-65, a FIPS 204 lattice signature standard, and SLH-DSA-128s, a FIPS 205 hash-based standard, as native account authenticators. The implementation of these standards allows Verona users to attach an ML-DSA authenticator to any existing account and revoke the pre-quantum key if desired, without requiring disruptive changes to the underlying system. This capability is rooted in Verona’s architectural design, where every account functions as a smart contract with pluggable authenticators, enabling post-quantum signing as a native option rather than a complex migration process, the company says.

The company’s design philosophy anticipates ongoing cryptographic advancements, and the Fermi upgrade demonstrates the practical benefits of this foresight at network scale. Verona’s architecture avoids the challenge faced by many other chains, where addresses are derived from single public keys, necessitating fund transfers to new addresses when the underlying cryptography is compromised.

An estimated one-third of Bitcoin supply currently resides in accounts with exposed keys, highlighting the vulnerability of systems reliant on single-key address derivation. Verona’s account structure, however, separates the address from the key, allowing cryptography to evolve without impacting account identity, history, or balances. This approach allows for the smooth addition and removal of cryptographic algorithms, providing a flexible and future-proof solution to the evolving quantum threat.

Future phases of the Fermi project will focus on migrating validator keys to ML-DSA-65 through the Cosmos SDK v0. 55 and CometBFT v0. 40 lines, extending post-quantum security to the network’s consensus mechanism once two-thirds of validator voting power transitions. Verona also plans to integrate FN-DSA (Falcon) as an authenticator upon finalization of the NIST FIPS 206 standard, further diversifying its post-quantum cryptographic options.