yes, algorand According to Coinbase’s new Quantum Advisory Board document released on April 21st, the company is one of the few major blockchains to move post-quantum encryption from its roadmap to live mainnet code. The report cites Algorand and Aptos as the two Layer 1 networks best prepared for this transition. Bitcoin, Ethereumand Solana Still in planning or early migration mode.
This is the headline, but it comes with a warning that most coverage skips over. Currently, Algorand is not completely quantum-proof. Parts of its consensus layer still rely on classic cryptography, and the protocol team is publicly researching ways to upgrade them.
What did Coinbase actually say about Algorand?
The paper, titled “Quantum Computing and Blockchain,” was written by researchers from Stanford University, UT Austin, the Ethereum Foundation, Eigen Institute, Bar-Ilan University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. This is approximately 50 pages and is the board’s first opinion.
Its conclusions regarding Algorand are specific. The network has a gradual plan to become fully quantum-ready, with post-quantum signatures already deployed on mainnet and users able to create quantum-resistant accounts without a protocol fork. The committee points to Falcon, a lattice-based signature scheme standardized by NIST, as a cryptography that performs this task.
Aptos received the same charge for a different reason. Its account model stores public keys as metadata rather than deriving addresses from public key hashes. This means users can rotate to post-quantized keys with a simple authentication key update without any asset migration.
The board flagged all other proof-of-stake chains it reviewed, including Ethereum and Solana, as having higher quantum exposure due to validator signing and account design that would require large-scale, coordinated migration.
When did Algorand actually introduce this?
Schedules are important because many chains have quantum whitepapers. Very few people have live codes.
Algorand launched State Proofs in 2022, a compact certificate that proves the state of the ledger every 256 rounds. They are signed Falcon, which means the history of the chain is quantum secure for about 4 years.
A more operationally significant step occurred on November 3, 2025, when the Algorand Foundation executed the first post-quantum transaction on mainnet using a Falcon-1024 signature. It wasn’t a testnet demo. We moved real assets onto a live public blockchain.
Importantly, the deployment did not require a hard fork. Falcon verification is added as a native primitive in the Algorand virtual machine, allowing users to generate Falcon key pairs and spend funds through logic signatures. The Foundation has released the Falcon Signatures CLI. This allows developers to do the same thing without creating their own cryptography.
What parts of Algorand are still classics?
This is one of the “few” places where you need a guardrail on your frame.
The protection introduced by Algorand covers two layers: ledger history with State Proofs and user-level transactions with Falcon logic signatures. This makes sense, especially for people who are concerned about long-term data integrity or getting the public key, decrypting it now, and attacking the public key later.
What remains classical and therefore vulnerable to sufficiently powerful quantum computers is the core of consensus. Block proposals and committee votes will continue to use the Ed25519 signature. Validator selection still relies on a non-post-quantum verifiable random function. The Coinbase Board of Directors has called for this directly, and Algorand itself has called for this as well on its post-quantum technology page.
The official position of the protocol team is that these components are next on the list and that the chain is designed with cryptographic agility in mind, allowing primitives to be exchanged without rebuilding the network. Chris Peikert, Algorand’s chief scientific officer and the lattice cryptography researcher behind Falcon, led much of this effort.
How is this different from Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana?
The exposure of Bitcoin is at the wallet layer, and Scholl’s algorithm could derive the private key from the exposed public key. Coinbase estimates that $6.9 million of BTC is stored in wallets with on-chain public keys exposed. SHA-256 mining and historical ledgers are not the main concern. Proposals such as BIP 360 are still under discussion. Ethereum has published a structured post-quantum roadmap and plans hash-based signatures, but has not performed live PQ transactions at mainnet scale.
Solana has introduced a new signature scheme that allows users to move their tokens to upgraded addresses. While this is progress, the Coinbase board still groups it with networks that need further work on validator signatures.
The paper’s argument is that the threat is not imminent. Currently, there are no fault-tolerant quantum computers that can crack elliptic curve cryptography. Google’s March 2026 study lowered the qubit requirement to break through ECDSA to less than 500,000 physical qubits, an approximately 20x improvement over previous estimates, but still years to decades away from construction. NIST’s transition goal is around 2035.
The board’s argument is that a coordinated transition on a chain worth hundreds of billions of dollars will take years, and the time to start is before the threat becomes urgent, not after.
what does this mean $argo?
Algorand has now been cited as a post-quantum reference by two important sources within a month. In Google’s Quantum AI paper published on March 31st, Algorand is mentioned 32 times. Coinbase’s advisory board put the company at the forefront alongside Aptos on April 21st.
The market also reacted. $argo It rose about 50% in early April following Google’s March 31 paper, and as of April 22, it was trading at around $0.10, giving it a market capitalization of nearly $914 million.
A more difficult question is whether the narrative is consistent. Coinbase has made it clear that Algorand is ahead in execution layer and ledger, but behind in consensus. If the protocol team delivers a post-quantum block proposal and a quantum-resistant VRF in 2026 or 2027, the “one of the few” label will remain under increased scrutiny. If not, the gap between what shipped and what’s still classic will be the next topic.
@Algorand It is one of the few major layer 1 Use post-quantum tools that actually work in production, not a commitment to a roadmap. That’s a defensible lead. It’s not a done job.
source:
- algorand foundation – Official post-quantum technology page describes State Proofs, Falcon deployments, and consensus components that still rely on classical cryptography.
- coinbase – Official April 21st announcement from Coinbase’s Quantum Advisory Board introduces position paper on quantum computing and blockchain
- Algorand Developer Blog – Technical overview for the first post-quantum mainnet transaction on November 3, 2025 using Falcon-1024
- algorand foundation – 2025 roadmap overview covering Falcon deployment, decentralization milestones, and 2026 priorities
- bankless times – Coverage of Coinbase Advisory Board document naming Algorand and Aptos as the most ready L1s
