The XRP Ledger (XRPL) has effectively protected the majority of the XRP supply from potential quantum computing attacks as of April 10.
As of press time, around 0.0342% of XRP’s circulating supply, amounting to approximately 21 million tokens, is at risk of a potential quantum attack, according to Vet, a distinguished Unique Node List (dUNL) XRPL validator. Vet noted that this small supply originates from two accounts that have been inactive for 5 years and whose public keys are exposed.
Meanwhile, 300,000 XRP accounts currently holding approximately 2.4 billion tokens have never transacted and have therefore never exposed their public keys, a string of numbers and letters that allows others to send funds to an account. As Finbold previously explained, Google estimates that a powerful quantum computer can retrieve private keys, which are used to access and control an account, from exposed public keys as early as 2029.
“Dormant, vulnerable XRP whales are almost nonexistent. The rest are active and have their public key exposed, but it is also reasonable to expect to rotate keys if needed,” Vet noted.
Inside quantum defenses for XRP
The XRP Ledger has several features that can protect XRP from potential quantum attacks. For instance, the XRPL allows XRP account holders to rotate their public keys to prevent their private keys from being compromised. Furthermore, the XRPL is account-based and allows signing key rotation without switching accounts.
However, Vet stated that this is not a perfect solution for future quantum attacks, thus advocating the implementation of robust algorithms on the XRP Ledger. As for the tokens stored in the escrow account, Mayukha Vadari, a staff software engineer at RippleX, highlighted that it is protected against quantum threats by a time lock.
For the long-term solution, Denis Angell, a software engineer at XRPL Labs, announced late last year that AlphaNet – the XRPL’s developer network for building and testing applications – had achieved full security against quantum attacks.
Nonetheless, Vet sees no immediate quantum threats to XRP and expects the industry will adapt to protect blockchains.
