NEAR extends rally as protocol installs first signing option for post-quantum era

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) has announced that it is upgrading its security by integrating post-quantum cryptography into its blockchain, making it one of the first Layer-1 networks to prepare itself against future quantum computing threats.

This move gave investors more confidence in the future of NEAR Protocol, as the project’s token NEAR rose by 5.6% in 24 hours to $1.47, according to CoinMarketCap.

According to their X thread, the protocol outlined plans to upgrade consensus, validator operations, epoch synchronization, and transaction signing for what it called “the post-quantum era”. The team stated that the goal is “a single future-proof migration” rather than a decentralized approach.

NEAR also published an accompanying blog titled “Preparing NEAR for the Quantum Computing Era,” explaining that the network was already built with a design that is naturally more secure against quantum computers than most other blockchains.

To stay ahead of future risks, they are now adding advanced new cryptographic layers (called “primitives”) on top of that foundation to protect both NEAR Protocol itself and its Intents cross-chain system.

NEAR Protocol responds to quantum threat to crypto

The announcement came during a period of heightened anxiety across the crypto industry over quantum computing’s potential to break widely used elliptic-curve cryptography.

That concern is mainly responsible for the recent surge in privacy and quantum-resistant tokens. According to Cryptopolitan, Zcash’s shielded transaction pools (which offer a degree of insulation from quantum-era attacks on exposed public keys) surged 136% ove the last month.

Even Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn noted that discussions about quantum risk “dominated both on-stage panels and private conversations” at the Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas held on May 2nd.

AI narrative adds a second booster

NEAR has also been positioning itself at the intersection of blockchain and artificial intelligence. The protocol describes itself as “the blockchain for AI.” Co-founder Illia Polosukhin also co-authored “Attention Is All You Need,” the 2017 paper that introduced the transformer architecture behind most of today’s large language models.

The NEAR Foundation also recently launched an AI Agent Fund to invest in agent tokens built on the network, betting that these AI systems would need blockchain technology to handle their money and prove their identity.

Cryptopolitan has already reported on the broader momentum in AI-adjacent crypto tokens, so focusing on quantum-security and AI tools allows NEAR Protocol to attract even more investors, which is why its value is currently rising faster than other projects in the Layer 1 category.

According to CoinMarketCap data, NEAR’s market capitalization is $1.93 billion currently, with a circulating supply of 1.29 billion tokens and a trading volume of $438.49 million.

What’s next for NEAR?

The NEAR team’s post-quantum migration is still in progress. Consensus mechanisms, validator infrastructure, and epoch sync will need additional work before the protocol can claim full quantum resistance.

While there was no timeline was given for completion, investors and developers building on NEAR’s Intents system are advised to track the protocol’s blog and GitHub for implementation milestones.