Sui switches on quantum-resistant signatures
Sui is adding two NIST-approved signature schemes: ML-DSA-65 for everyday transactions and SLH-DSA for vaults holding large sums. Your recovery phrase and your address stay the same. The rollout runs into the first quarter of 2027.
On 6 August 2026, Sui announced that it is adding two signature schemes approved by NIST, the American standards institute, to its network. It is one of the first major blockchains to present this not as research but as something users will soon be able to switch on themselves.
The problem behind it all is known as harvest now, forge later. The moment you make a transaction, your public key sits on the blockchain forever. Anyone collecting those keys today who has a quantum computer ten years from now could still derive the matching private key. Research by Google Quantum AI from March 2026 estimated that this would take minutes on an error-correcting machine with fewer than half a million physical qubits.
Two schemes for two kinds of use
For everyday transactions Sui uses ML-DSA-65, the standard set out in FIPS 204, at security level 3 rather than the cheaper level 1. Verification speed, according to Sui, matches that of Ed25519, the scheme in use today, so the network does not become more expensive to run.
For vaults holding large sums there is SLH-DSA-SHA2-128s from FIPS 205, handled inside Move contracts. That scheme is slower and bulkier, but the mathematics behind it is better understood — a reasonable trade-off for amounts you intend to leave untouched for years.
Your address does not change
This is the practical part. The private keys are derived from your existing recovery phrase, and an account can be converted to quantum-safe keys while keeping the same address and the same holdings. No forced move, then, and no new addresses to pass around.
It is also opt-in. Do nothing and everything keeps running as it does now.
The schedule spans eighteen months. Quantum-safe vaults arrive on mainnet during 2026. By the end of this year, ML-DSA-65 accounts will be live on testnet, and built-in account authentication follows on mainnet in the first quarter of 2027. Sui is following the joint roadmap from CISA, NSA and NIST here.
Where this fits in the bigger picture
None of this stands alone. In late July, nine Wall Street firms put 15 million dollars (roughly 13.1 million euros) on the table for research into quantum-resistant bitcoin, and on 31 July the European supervisory authorities explicitly named migration to quantum-resistant encryption in their statement on ICT risk.
The difference is that Sui is a smaller and younger network and can therefore move faster. Changing bitcoin requires consensus among thousands of node operators; there, a shift like this takes years longer.
What this means for you
There is nothing you need to do right now, and that is the honest summary. No quantum computer capable of this exists, and Sui first step is opt-in and only reaches testnet late this year.
What does count is the question worth asking of any network where you hold something for the long term: does it have a migration path, and can you take it without losing your addresses? That second condition is usually where things fall apart. A network that forces you onto new addresses forces everyone who knows your address to act as well.
And the sober caveat: address reuse is already the bigger risk today. An address whose public key has never been exposed is better protected even without quantum-resistant signatures. That is something you can sort out today, with a wallet that uses a fresh address for every transaction.
Sources: Sui (announcement 6 August 2026), Google Quantum AI (research March 2026), Crypto Briefing, NIST (FIPS 204 and FIPS 205). Last checked: 9 August 2026.