Monad Proposes Wallet Upgrade to Counter Quantum Threats

Monad Proposes Wallet Upgrade to Protect Against Quantum Attacks and Lost Keys

Monad, the high-performance EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain, has published a proposal aimed at giving users greater flexibility and changing how blockchain wallets manage authentication.

The proposal, titled “Flexible and Upgradeable Account Authentication,” was published by Kushal Babel and Jan Camenisch, two senior researchers at Category Labs, the engineering team behind Monad.

At its core, the proposal has one goal: to separate a wallet’s permanent address from the credentials that control it, thereby giving users the flexibility to add, replace, or retire keys without having to change the wallet’s address or move assets.

By publishing the proposal, Monad aims to address a key problem with current blockchain wallets. Since most wallet addresses are permanently derived from a single secp256k1 public key, losing the corresponding private key can make the wallet account unrecoverable.

As a solution to this problem, Monad is proposing an AuthConfig model, where every wallet account holds a mutable AuthConfig. This allows an account to hold multiple authenticators and a separate reconfiguration policy, enabling users to access their wallet accounts even if a private key is lost. At launch, the supported schemes will include secp256k1, P-256, Ed25519, WebAuthn/passkeys, ML-DSA (post-quantum), and a ZK-OAuth verifier.

Although there is currently no quantum computer capable of breaking the cryptographic schemes used by crypto wallets, several reports have projected that this could become possible in the future.

In addition to Monad, other companies, including Ledger and Coinbase, have also taken steps to develop quantum-resistant wallets. Coinbase has established an independent Quantum Advisory Council while also developing a post-quantum security roadmap.

Ledger has also added ML-KEM and ML-DSA, two NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, to its Ledger SDK as part of its efforts to develop quantum-resistant wallet technology.

Monad Proposes Wallet Upgrade to Protect Against Quantum Attacks and Lost Keys

Monad, the high-performance EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain, has published a proposal aimed at giving users greater flexibility and changing how blockchain wallets manage authentication.

Although there is currently no quantum computer capable of breaking the cryptographic schemes used by crypto wallets, several reports have projected that this could become possible in the future.

Ledger has also added ML-KEM and ML-DSA, two NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, to its Ledger SDK as part of its efforts to develop quantum-resistant wallet technology.