Blockchain NEAR Protocol will implement post-quantum cryptography in the testing site as early as June 2026, confirmed co-founder of the project Ilya Polosukhine. The decision was made amid accelerating quantum computing: a Google report showed that 20 times fewer kubits were needed to crack standard elliptical cryptography than expected, and EigenCloud’s AI experiments lowered this threshold further.

The network will switch to FIPS-204 (ML-DSA) based on mathematical grids. Thanks to the NEAR account architecture, which is not rigidly tied to a single key pair, implementing quantum-stable signatures will require no hardforks or mass migration of users - just adding a second key. The main challenge will be to increase the size of signatures (from 64 to 2,420 bytes), which will increase the load on the network and the cost of gas.

Against this news, the native NEAR token showed a positive dynamic, rising by more than 10% over the week.