AmericanFortress has announced a quantum-resistant security solution for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana wallet addresses. Named ZK-PoSP, the core idea is to add a new transaction authorization method to existing addresses without migrating funds, changing addresses, or rotating keys.
Replace signatures with zero-knowledge proofs
The company's technical paper has been uploaded to the ePrint archive of the International Association for Cryptologic Research. According to its design, the wallet can prove it possesses the seed information needed to generate the address, but does not need to disclose the seed itself.
This means that existing address formats can be preserved, and transaction authorization can gradually shift from traditional signatures to zero-knowledge proofs. The paper states that the scheme is compatible with the secp256k1 curve commonly used in Bitcoin and Ethereum, and also covers the Ed25519 curve commonly used in Solana, as well as layered deterministic wallet standards such as BIP32 and SLIP-10.
This will only take effect after the node is upgraded.
The company stated that ZK-PoSP is currently still a proposal and cannot directly provide protection for existing on-chain addresses. For the solution to take effect, the blockchain network needs to complete a software upgrade at the node level to add the ability to verify relevant proofs, and wallet service providers also need to generate the required proofs simultaneously.
Before the network officially adopts and enforces it, the public key address has already been publicly disclosed on the chain, theoretically still facing the risk of future quantum attacks. The paper also states that its "quantum resistance" is currently still a presumption, not a conclusion that has been verified by real quantum attacks.
The company disclosed testing cost data.
AmericanFortress states that on a 16-core server, the cost of generating a one-time protection certificate for a single address is approximately $0.002; the cost of generating a certificate per transaction is approximately $0.00125. Currently, a single transaction signature takes approximately 12 seconds, and verification takes approximately 9 to 10 milliseconds.
However, this data comes from the company's own computational tests and does not equate to the on-chain performance after actual blockchain integration. Further network upgrades may still incur additional costs for storage, bandwidth, software adaptation, and coordination.
Bitcoin and Ethereum research are progressing simultaneously
This proposal comes as market attention is growing on the quantum resistance capabilities of cryptographic systems. Previously, Strategy, BlackRock, Coinbase, and other institutions jointly formed the Bitcoin Security Consortium, pledging a total of $15 million over three years, with post-quantum cryptography as its primary research focus.
Ethereum established a dedicated team in January of this year to advance testing of hash signatures, a simplified zero-knowledge virtual machine, and migration tools. Whether AmericanFortress's solution can be implemented depends on independent cryptographic review, implementation audit, and whether developers, node operators, miners, wallet companies, and users are willing to accept the relevant changes.
Additional information:AmericanFortress plans to license its software development kit to blockchain projects and other organizations. Subsequent adoption will be influenced by both technical evaluations and commercial licensing terms.
