Anchorage Digital Outlines Industry-Leading Post-Quantum Compute Preparedness Strategy

America’s First Federally Chartered Digital Asset Bank Is Already Building the Infrastructure for a Post-Quantum World, So Its Clients Don't Have To

The cryptographic systems that underpin today's digital asset infrastructure were not built to withstand quantum computing, and while that capability does not yet exist at a consequential scale, its arrival is a matter of engineering, not imagination. Expert timelines such as Google’s recent Qubits Research suggest 2029 as an industry timestamp to watch, but the ecosystem cannot afford to treat preparation as a future agenda item. Today, Anchorage Digital, America’s first federally chartered digital asset bank, outlines a comprehensive post-quantum compute (PQC) preparedness strategy, one that reflects the natural evolution of a company that was built with the assumption that threats change and infrastructure must change with them and underscoring our foundational commitment to security-first infrastructure and our proactive stance in the face of evolving, long-horizon threats.

The Threat Is Real, and the Window to Prepare Is Now

Quantum computing is no longer a theoretical construct confined to academic research. It is an emerging institutional risk factor now appearing in capital allocation decisions, regulatory timelines, and protocol roadmaps across the digital asset ecosystem. As quantum computing advances, it is becoming increasingly clear that parts of today's cryptographic infrastructure will need to evolve. While the timeline for a cryptographically relevant quantum computer is still measured in years, not months, the direction is clear, and preparation must begin now.

The specific threat quantum computing poses to digital assets is frequently misunderstood. The primary quantum vulnerability in digital assets is not mining or hashing, it's digital signatures. Specifically, quantum algorithms such as Shor's Algorithm can theoretically derive private keys from exposed public keys, placing a meaningful portion of assets already in a quantum-exposed state today. Compounding this risk is the so-called "harvest now, decrypt later" threat model, where adversaries collect data now to exploit later, meaning the risk is not future-dated. It is present and ongoing.

The broader ecosystem is responding. U.S. policy is moving toward phasing out current cryptographic standards, Bitcoin and Ethereum are actively developing post-quantum upgrades, and NIST has already selected new post-quantum cryptographic standards.

And Anchorage Digital has been building ahead of the curve.

Built for This Moment: Security by Design

Anchorage Digital was built with the assumption that threat models evolve, and that infrastructure must evolve with them. This is not a reactive posture, it’s the foundational philosophy embedded in every layer of the firm's architecture since its inception.

Anchorage Digital was founded by security engineers, and its custody was built from the ground up with nation-state attackers in mind. That heritage directly informs the firm's ability to confront the quantum threat with depth, precision, and urgency that is difficult to match. 

"Security isn't static. The systems that survive are the ones designed to evolve. Quantum isn't a moment, it's a migration. And at Anchorage Digital, we've been building for that migration since day one. Our clients should never have to think about this, because we already are." — Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO, Anchorage Digital

Client Assets Are Already Protected

Anchorage Digital has implemented a suite of measures to ensure that client holdings are in a protected posture today:

• Hash-Based Bitcoin Address Conventions: For Bitcoin, Anchorage Digital uses hash-based addresses which do not expose public keys, and Bitcoin conventions are followed to minimize address re-use. This means client Bitcoin holdings remain in the hash-protected category, quantum-safe at rest, and can be further rebalanced to a new address at the push of a button.
• Quantum-Resistant Transport Layer Security (TLS) Deployed Today: Anchorage Digital has already deployed quantum-resistant TLS across internal systems, ensuring sensitive internet traffic cannot be exposed. The firm's enterprise workforce operates on managed ChromeOS devices with hybrid post-quantum key encapsulation already active as the default, protecting all internal web traffic against harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks at the transport layer.
• Cryptographic Agility via Hardware Security Module (HSM) Architecture: Anchorage Digital's HSM-based architecture allows the firm to upgrade cryptographic algorithms without rebuilding systems. Unlike fragmented or MPC-based approaches, new standards can be adopted quickly as they emerge. This agility means that once a post-quantum upgrade is introduced to Bitcoin or any other cryptoasset, Anchorage Digital is be positioned to migrate all client holdings rapidly, without disruption.

What Anchorage Digital Is Doing Right Now

Anchorage Digital's preparedness is not aspirational, it’s active and operational. The firm is currently:

• Deploying post-quantum cryptography within its HSM infrastructure and running post-quantum algorithms in production environments today
• Benchmarking performance, including high-throughput post-quantum signatures, across all four NIST-finalized post-quantum signature algorithms as well as additional candidates under evaluation
• Securing internal communications and enterprise systems with post-quantum standards
• Building migration capabilities to move assets efficiently when needed
• Developing new HSM hardware to stay on the forefront of what is possible in secure environments

Original Research: Contributing to the Conversation

Beyond infrastructure readiness, Anchorage Digital is actively contributing original research to the broader ecosystem on two fronts: novel cryptographic mechanisms and open-source implementations of leading post-quantum primitives.

First, Anchorage Digital's security engineering team has authored original academic research proposing the Post-Quantum Turnstile, a zero-knowledge proof-based mechanism that allows owners of legacy credentials to transition signing authority to post-quantum schemes without ever revealing their private key. This research addresses one of the most consequential unsolved problems in Bitcoin's post-quantum roadmap: how to protect funds that are quantum-safe at rest but would otherwise be permanently frozen once classical signing paths are disabled. The mechanism uses STARKs, zero-knowledge proofs that require no trusted setup and are themselves believed to be quantum-safe, to allow users to prove ownership and migrate to quantum-safe keys, with no exposure of private or public key material. This work has immediate application to Bitcoin, covering an estimated two-thirds of its circulating supply.

Second, Anchorage Digital has a unique interest in operationalizing isogeny-based signature schemes, which are leading candidates in NIST's ongoing additional-signatures process and feature the most compact signatures among all candidates. Their signature-size advantage, roughly 7x smaller than Falcon, makes them especially relevant to blockchain applications, where on-chain footprint is a first-order constraint. As part of this work, Anchorage Digital has open-sourced sqisign-rs, Rust code for the SQIsign post-quantum signature scheme, a scheme based on isogenies between supersingular elliptic curves, and a first of its kind. The library exposes separate crates for each NIST security level, with a shared core crate providing common types and traits for writing generic code, giving the wider community a practical, production-oriented path to evaluating SQIsign. Anchorage Digital has additionally developed and published an internal, first-principles education series on post-quantum signature algorithms with a focus on SQIsign, and has benchmarked the scheme on its own hardware alongside all four NIST-finalized signature algorithms.

Together, the Turnstile research and the SQIsign implementation reflect a single commitment: not just adopting post-quantum standards, but actively shaping and stress-testing them in the open.

Looking Ahead: Building for the Post-Quantum Ecosystem

Anchorage Digital's commitment extends beyond protecting today's assets. The firm is actively contributing to the next generation of the digital asset ecosystem:

• Researching post-quantum blockchain architectures with reduced overhead
• Exploring post-quantum smart contracts and stablecoins
• Developing migration frameworks for legacy assets, including Bitcoin protocol upgrades
• Collaborating with core protocol teams, academic institutions, and standards bodies

What This Means for Anchorage Digital Clients

For institutions custodying digital assets with Anchorage Digital, the message is clear and simple: no immediate action is required.

Assets custodied with Anchorage Digital are already in a protected posture. The key differentiator is not whether quantum risk exists, but how prepared your infrastructure provider is to adapt. Anchorage Digital clients benefit from a custodian that was built by security engineers, operates under federal oversight as the first OCC-chartered digital asset bank in the United States, and has already deployed the infrastructure, research, and migration capabilities required for the quantum era.

Quantum computing will not break digital assets overnight, but it will reshape the security model over time. Anchorage Digital is positioned as a bridge through that transition: prepared today, architected for rapid adaptation, and actively shaping the future of post-quantum digital asset infrastructure.

Clients who wish to learn more about Anchorage Digital's post-quantum preparedness, or who have questions about the protection posture of their specific holdings, are encouraged to contact their Anchorage Digital representative, or get in touch.