Post Quantum Verifiable Credentials Signing

NIST finalized three post-quantum signature standards — ML-DSA (FIPS 204), SLH-DSA (FIPS 205), and the key-encapsulation ML-KEM (FIPS 203) — and AuthiChain’s protocol spec states plainly, in SPEC.md §8, that its current Ed25519 suite is not one of them.

Why AuthiChain

• Ed25519 (RFC 8032) is what protocol/SPEC.md specifies today — fast, small signatures, and explicitly not post-quantum secure, the same kind of direct disclosure Section 8 makes about revocation
• Records signed now and read years from now carry Store-Now-Decrypt-Later exposure if an adversary archives them for a future quantum break — a risk shared by any long-lived credential, not unique to this protocol
• The record’s proof.type field names the signature suite per record, so a future ML-DSA or SLH-DSA suite is a new proof type, not a rewrite of every record already issued

How it works

Issue a unique identifier per unit, anchor its record on-chain for tamper-evidence, and let anyone verify it with a single scan. Plans start at $49/mo.

FAQ

Is Ed25519 quantum-resistant?

No. Ed25519 is elliptic-curve cryptography under FIPS 186-5 / RFC 8032 and falls to Shor’s algorithm on a sufficiently large quantum computer — the same limit stated in protocol/SPEC.md §8.

Does AuthiChain support ML-DSA or SLH-DSA today?

No — the reference verifier implements Ed25519 only. NIST published FIPS 204 and FIPS 205 as post-quantum signature standards; adopting one is a spec extension the protocol has not shipped.