Ripple Unveils Four-Phase Roadmap to Make the XRP Ledger Quantum-Resistant by 2028

Ripple’s four-phase plan targets full post-quantum cryptography on the XRP Ledger by 2028, with a Quantum-Day contingency already in place and NIST-standard testing underway in 2026.

Ripple published a detailed four-phase roadmap on April 20 to prepare the XRP Ledger for a post-quantum future, targeting full readiness by 2028. The plan responds to recent research from Google Quantum AI suggesting that quantum computers could crack current blockchain cryptography with fewer resources and on a faster timeline than previously estimated, with some scenarios placing a credible threat window as early as 2032. Ripple said the threat to user assets is not immediate, but argued that long-lived financial infrastructure must begin planning now.

The roadmap is structured around two parallel goals: preserving the network’s operational integrity throughout the transition and building contingency measures in case a quantum threat arrives ahead of schedule.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

Phase 1 establishes a Quantum-Day response plan under which classical public-key signatures would no longer be accepted by the network. Post-quantum zero-knowledge proofs would allow existing account holders to prove ownership and migrate funds to quantum-safe accounts without exposing their keys, even in a compromised environment.

Phase 2, already underway in the first half of 2026, focuses on testing National Institute of Standards and Technology-recommended post-quantum cryptographic schemes under real XRP Ledger workloads, studying performance costs including effects on storage, bandwidth, and throughput.

Phase 3, planned for the second half of 2026, will integrate candidate post-quantum signature schemes alongside existing elliptic-curve signatures on Devnet for developer testing, while also exploring post-quantum-compatible primitives for zero-knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption. Phase 4 targets a full production-ready transition via a new XRPL network amendment by 2028. Ripple is working with Project Eleven on validator testing and early custody prototypes.

Ripple argued the XRP Ledger has structural advantages over competing blockchains in this transition. XRPL’s protocol-native key rotation allows users to migrate away from potentially vulnerable keys over time without abandoning their accounts, a building block Ethereum currently lacks at the protocol layer, the company said.