Zcash developers target January for quantum-resistant payments upgrade

Zcash developers have set January as the goal for adding post-quantum signature support to the network. The aim is to protect payments from a future in which today’s cryptography stops holding up. The timing is not subtle. The plan follows a warning from Ethereum researcher Justin Drake that rattled the market and sent ZEC down approximately 11%. What the Zakura team is building The work comes from the Zakura node software team. Its target is a set of post-quantum signature opcodes that support hash-based signatures. Hash-based signatures matter because they rely on a different mathematical foundation than the elliptic-curve cryptography most blockchains use today. The idea is to give users a signing method that does not depend on the math quantum machines are expected to threaten. The first phase covers transparent transactions. These are Zcash’s public payments, which work much like Bitcoin transactions, with sender, receiver and amount visible on chain. That focus is a numbers decision. Transparent transactions account for approximately 70% of the total issued ZEC, which makes them the largest exposed surface on the network. There is an important caveat. No official activation d...