PANews reported on May 7th that NEAR Protocol announced on the X platform that the team is adding post-quantum cryptography support to the network. NEAR's account model differs from Bitcoin and Ethereum, decoupling accounts from cryptography and controlling access through swivelable access keys. The NEAR One team is adding the NIST-approved FIPS-204 scheme, based on lattice signatures, as its first post-quantum signature option. Once live, any NEAR account holder can swivel keys in a single transaction, achieving quantum security.

NEAR is also collaborating with software and hardware wallets to advance post-quantum support. Through its chain signature functionality, NEAR can provide threshold signatures for over 35 chains. The NEAR Intents team is developing a quantum-safe cross-chain signature scheme, providing a quantum-safe environment should other chains be slow to adopt post-quantum cryptography. Consensus mechanisms, validators, block synchronization, and transaction signing also need to evolve for the post-quantum era, aiming for a one-time, future-compatible migration.