BlockBeats News, April 21st. Ripple has officially released the quantum resistance roadmap, with the core goal of achieving quantum resistance for the XRP Ledger (XRPL) by 2028. The roadmap is primarily designed to address the "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later" attack vector, where an attacker collects encrypted data now and waits to decrypt it in the future using quantum computers. The entire plan will be carried out in four phases:

Phase 1: Q-Day Contingency Planning (Initiated). Establish a Quantum Day (Q-Day) contingency response mechanism. In the event of a sudden breach of the existing classical encryption, the network will immediately stop accepting traditional public key signatures, forcing a transition to quantum-secure accounts. Simultaneously, explore asset ownership verification schemes based on Post-Quantum ZK-proofs, allowing existing account holders to securely recover funds in emergencies without exposing vulnerable keys.

Phase 2: Risk Assessment and Algorithm Testing (First Half of 2026). Conduct a comprehensive assessment of post-quantum cryptography's impact on the XRP Ledger network performance, storage, and bandwidth. Collaborate with Project Eleven to conduct validator-level tests and Devnet benchmarking, deploy NIST-standardized ML-DSA quantum-secure signature schemes, and develop a post-quantum custodial wallet prototype. Core engineer Denis Angell has already deployed the ML-DSA signature on XRPL's AlphaNet.

Phase 3: Devnet Hybrid Integration (Second Half of 2026). Simultaneously integrate candidate post-quantum signature schemes with existing elliptic curve signatures on the Developer Network (Devnet), allowing developers to test performance and system impacts without affecting the mainnet. Explore post-quantum zero-knowledge proof primitives and homomorphic encryption techniques for Confidential Transfers to advance XRPL's privacy and compliance capabilities in tokenizing real-world assets.

Phase 4: Mainnet Full Upgrade (Target 2028). Submit a formal protocol amendment, and upon validator approval, enable native post-quantum cryptography on the mainnet. Emphasis will be on production readiness optimization: throughput tuning, validator reliability assurance, and ecosystem-coordinated migration to ensure a smooth transition without compromising network speed and settlement finality.