NEAR Protocol deployed quantum-safe signing and dynamic resharding on mainnet to enhance long-term security and automate scaling.
Tech & Launches ·
NEAR Protocol deployed quantum-safe signing using NIST-approved post-quantum cryptography alongside dynamic resharding on its mainnet. The protocol is now among the first blockchains to run a NIST-approved post-quantum signature scheme in production, with account keys rotatable to ML-DSA via NEAR CLI. The dynamic resharding feature enables automatic shard splitting when state fills capacity, removing the need for manual governance votes or validator coordination to scale network capacity.
The upgrade addresses two distinct long-term challenges. Quantum computing poses a cryptographic threat to existing blockchain security; NEAR's account architecture allows key rotation without migration, letting users adopt post-quantum signing independently. Dynamic resharding automates capacity expansion so that NEAR's throughput grows with demand rather than requiring protocol governance decisions. The 2.13 release also included compact onchain key storage, epoch sync, and meta-transaction improvements.
Several elements remain in transition. Wallet infrastructure integration is underway, with Ledger having added quantum-safe signing to its SDK, but broader market adoption of post-quantum account rotation by users and applications has not been detailed. The specific performance impact of dynamic resharding on mainnet conditions and the timeline for widespread builder uptake of post-quantum key rotation are not yet quantified.