Near One warns quantum theft could trigger wallet freezes without ownership proofs
NEAR is targeting a FIPS-204 testnet by end of Q2 as it builds post-quantum-safe signing.
Near One is warning that quantum-compromised wallet keys create a second-order crisis for blockchains: protocols may not be able to tell a rightful owner from an attacker. The team says that gap could force chains into emergency choices like freezing compromised wallets or letting a “wild west” play out on-chain.
Key Takeaways
- Quantum-compromised keys could leave protocols unable to distinguish legitimate owners from attackers, pushing chains toward new on-chain ownership verification systems.
- Near One CTO Anton Astafiev said protocols may face a binary response after a break: freeze compromised wallets and assets or allow a “wild west” environment.
- Zero-knowledge proofs were floated as a path for users to prove knowledge of an original seed phrase without revealing it.
- NEAR developers are building post-quantum-safe signing, with a FIPS-204 testnet target by the end of Q2. The network is described as securing more than $137.6 million in user funds.
NEAR’s Quantum Warning Shifts From “Protect Keys” to “Prove Ownership”
Near One’s message on quantum risk is less about upgrading signatures in the abstract and more about what happens after the first real compromise. The team’s core warning is that once a quantum-capable attacker can derive or forge keys, signature validity stops mapping cleanly to ownership. In that world, a chain can still verify that a transaction is “properly signed,” but it may no longer be able to verify that the signer is the rightful owner.
Near One CTO Anton Astafiev put the ownership problem bluntly: “We won’t be able to tell if someone running a transaction is the rightful owner of the asset or not,” he said. That framing matters for traders because it shifts quantum preparedness from a pure cryptography upgrade into an operational question about dispute resolution and emergency response.
The urgency case in the packet leans on March comments attributed to researchers at Google and the California Institute of Technology that functional quantum computers could arrive sooner than expected and require less computing power to break cryptography than previously thought. The same set of claims includes Google’s assertion that quantum computers could potentially break Bitcoin’s cryptography within 10 minutes, enabling an “on-spend” attack.
Freeze the Chain or Let It Run: The Post-Compromise Governance Dilemma
Astafiev framed the post-compromise decision tree as a governance problem that could become market structure overnight. “Protocols will face the challenge of deciding to either block all assets at this moment, or enter a wild west,” he said.
That is the second-order effect traders tend to underprice. Even if a chain has a credible post-quantum signature roadmap, the first incident is likely to be handled with imperfect information and political pressure. A broad freeze protects the system at the cost of composability and confidence in settlement finality. Letting transactions continue preserves liveness, but risks legitimizing theft flows and creating a two-tier market where “tainted” coins trade at a discount.
Near One’s proposed direction implies that post-quantum signatures alone do not close the loop. The missing piece is an ownership re-attestation mechanism that can operate after keys are assumed compromised.
What NEAR Is Building: Post-Quantum Signing and a FIPS-204 Testnet Target
Near One said NEAR developers are building a post-quantum-safe signing system for the layer-1, described as securing more than $137.6 million in user funds. The packet does not provide a timestamp or methodology for that figure, but it anchors the work to a live capital base rather than a research-only effort.
One of the first implementations cited is “FIPS-204,” described as approved by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), with a target to launch on NEAR testnet by the end of Q2.
On the ownership side, Astafiev suggested zero-knowledge proofs as a way for a rightful owner to prove knowledge of an original seed phrase without revealing sensitive information. In practice, that points to recovery and attestation tooling becoming as important as signature upgrades, because it is aimed at adjudicating ownership after the break, not preventing the break.
Milestones and Signals Traders Can Track Across NEAR, Ethereum, and Solana
The cleanest dated catalyst in this packet is NEAR’s end-of-Q2 target for a FIPS-204 testnet launch, plus any follow-on timeline that narrows when a mainnet rollout could occur.
The bigger tell will be governance. Any published specification or proposal that explains how “proof of ownership” would be adjudicated after suspected key compromise would move this from narrative risk to an actionable protocol policy.
Other layer-1s are also positioning. The Ethereum Foundation is cited as creating a Post-Quantum Ethereum team aiming to build quantum solutions into Ethereum at the protocol level by 2029, making intermediate milestones and design choices the key signal. On Solana, validator clients Anza and Firedancer are cited as implementing a test version of Falcon, a post-quantum signature solution. Further client releases that expand or formalize Falcon testing beyond a test version would keep the theme live.
Quantum Tail Risk Is Becoming a Roadmap Trade, Not Just a Thought Experiment
I don’t treat quantum as an imminent market event based on this packet alone, especially with the timeline dispute still wide. Blockstream CEO Adam Back called current quantum computers “basically lab experiments,” even as he recommended Bitcoin developers start building solutions.
The threshold that matters is whether chains start publishing credible, enforceable post-compromise playbooks, not just post-quantum signature plans. If NEAR hits the end-of-Q2 FIPS-204 testnet target and follows it with a concrete ownership re-attestation spec, the setup starts to look structural rather than narrative-driven because it defines how liquidity and settlement behave under a quantum shock.
