Dormant accounts are the hardest part. This is one of the quiet admissions buried in Stellar’s newly released Quantum Readiness Plan, a phased roadmap for migrating the entire network to quantum secure cryptography by the end of 2027.
The Stellar Development Foundation said it will seek community input on how to handle accounts that become inactive — and whether recovery mechanisms are possible for them.
The threat that starts with mathematics
The urgency behind the plan Traces dating back to Shor’s algorithmIt’s a mathematical process that sufficiently advanced quantum computers can use to crack elliptic curve encryption — the same signature method that Stellar and most other blockchains rely on today.
Scientists at INRIA have already reduced the number of logical elements Qubit There is a need to break the 256-bit elliptic curves, while the US National Institute of Standards and Technology has revised its risk window to 2029 or earlier. Google also aims to be ready for the post-quantum phase by the same year.
Quantum computers will eventually crack the cryptography behind almost every blockchain. This threat will extend beyond blockchain to include all major industries.
When, not if.
On most chains, switching to quantum security means moving all assets to a completely new account.
On the Steeler, you…
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Stellar identified two primary risks. The first involves validator signatures, where a hack could destabilize the network consensus. The second – and more difficult – is computation hijacking, where a quantum machine can derive a private key directly from a public key.
With thousands of dormant accounts on the network, addressing this second threat at scale is a problem with no easy answer.
What sets the Steelers apart
Most blockchains link an address directly to a public key, meaning that switching to quantum security typically requires moving assets to an entirely new account.
The star works differently. Their account addresses are separate from the signing keys attached to them. Users can add or switch signatories through an existing process called set_options without touching their address, balance, or transaction history.
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According to the organization, this architectural design gives the network a smoother path than many of its counterparts.
The offering is organized in three stages. Starting in 2026, post-quantum signature verification using the NIST standard ML-DSA-44 and ML-DSA-65 algorithms will be added to Soroban smart contracts, allowing enterprise wallets to begin migration.
In 2027, a Basic progress proposal It will bring secure signature types to Classic accounts natively, allowing all existing users to add them alongside existing keys.
The third phase – deprecation of the legacy Ed25519 standard – has no set date and will depend on how quantum computing develops and how ready the broader ecosystem is.
One gap remains open
Not everything is covered. Reports indicate that zero-knowledge proof systems running on the network use pairing-based curves that are also vulnerable to quantum attack, and the foundation acknowledged that this is an area that still requires further research. Separate cooperation with ZK Protocol teams is planned to address them.
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