AmericanFortress proposes quantum-safe crypto wallet scheme

AmericanFortress has proposed a post-quantum security scheme designed to protect existing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana wallet addresses without requiring holders to move funds or rotate their keys.

Summary

• ZK-PoSP keeps existing wallet addresses while replacing conventional transaction authorization with zero-knowledge proofs.
• AmericanFortress says the scheme requires no fund migration, key rotation, or new address format.
• The approach remains a proposal and would require node-level upgrades before any blockchain could enforce it.
• Its post-quantum security remains conjectural, according to the technical paper, rather than proven against a working attack.

ZK-PoSP uses wallet seeds to authorize transactions

AmericanFortress released the technical paper for Zero-Knowledge Proof of Seed Provenance, or ZK-PoSP, through the International Association for Cryptologic Research's ePrint archive.

The scheme allows a wallet to prove that it knows the seed used to derive an address without revealing that seed. It would operate alongside existing signature systems before replacing the classical signing step if quantum computers become capable of attacking elliptic curve cryptography.

Bitcoin and Ethereum use the secp256k1 curve, while Solana commonly uses Ed25519. ZK-PoSP is designed to cover both curves and hierarchical deterministic wallet standards, including BIP32 and SLIP-10.

In a statement shared with crypto.news, AmericanFortress described the proposal as the first post-quantum approach that can preserve existing wallet addresses without forcing users to transfer assets.

Quantum protection depends on network upgrades

ZK-PoSP relies on hash functions and the soundness of its zero-knowledge proof system. Its paper says post-quantum security is "conjectured" because the underlying assumptions have not been tested against a cryptographically relevant quantum computer.

No such machine currently exists. However, sufficiently powerful quantum computers could theoretically use Shor's algorithm to derive private keys from exposed public keys.

Google's Quantum AI team recently estimated that breaking 256-bit elliptic curve cryptography could require fewer than 1,500 logical qubits and tens of millions of quantum gates. Those are error-corrected logical qubits, not the noisier physical qubits available in present systems. Google's analysis therefore does not indicate that Bitcoin or other networks face an immediate attack.

AmericanFortress said blockchains could implement ZK-PoSP by adding proof verification through a node-level software upgrade. Wallet providers would also need to generate the required proofs.

Until a network adopts and enforces that verification, addresses with public keys already visible onchain would remain exposed to a future quantum attack.

AmericanFortress reports low verification costs

According to the company, generating a one-time proof to secure an address costs about $0.002 on a 16-core server, while each transaction proof costs roughly $0.00125. Its current implementation reportedly takes about 12 seconds to sign a transaction, with verification requiring between nine and 10 milliseconds.

Those figures reflect computational tests cited by AmericanFortress, not the cost or performance of a live blockchain integration. A network upgrade could introduce additional storage, bandwidth, software, and coordination requirements.

The proofs use RISC Zero and do not require a trusted setup. AmericanFortress plans to license its software development kit to blockchains and other projects, meaning adoption would depend partly on commercial terms as well as independent technical review.

Bitcoin and Ethereum expand quantum research

The proposal arrives as institutional interest in post-quantum security grows. As crypto.news reported, Strategy, BlackRock, Coinbase, and six other companies recently formed the Bitcoin Security Consortium and pledged a combined $15 million over three years.

Post-quantum cryptography is the consortium's first research focus. Its members will decide independently which developers and organizations receive funding, and the group does not control Bitcoin development or endorse individual protocol changes.

For US-based Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, custodians, and corporate treasuries, avoiding mass wallet migration could reduce operational and legal complications. However, ZK-PoSP would provide no protection unless Bitcoin developers, miners, node operators, wallet companies, and users accepted the necessary changes.

Ethereum has pursued a separate path. The Ethereum Foundation formed a dedicated post-quantum team in January and is testing hash-based signatures, a minimal zero-knowledge virtual machine, and migration tools, according to its quantum-security roadmap.

AmericanFortress's proposal now faces the same central test as other security designs: independent cryptographic review, implementation audits, and sufficient network agreement to deploy it.