CRYSTALS-Kyber is the encryption algorithm at the heart of BMIC's quantum security. In August 2024, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) officially published CRYSTALS-Kyber as FIPS 203 (ML-KEM) — making it the global standard for quantum-safe key encapsulation.
Unlike RSA or ECDSA, Kyber's security is based on the Learning With Errors (LWE) problem in structured lattice mathematics. This problem is believed to be computationally infeasible for both classical supercomputers and quantum computers, including those running Shor's algorithm.
How it works: Kyber uses polynomial rings over finite fields to create public/private key pairs. The public key contains intentional mathematical "noise" that makes it impossible to reverse-engineer the private key — even with quantum computational power. Key sizes are compact (1,568 bytes for Kyber-1024) and operations are fast.
BMIC's implementation: Every key exchange in the BMIC protocol uses CRYSTALS-Kyber. This means wallet keys, transaction signatures, and staking contracts are all protected by NIST-standard post-quantum cryptography. BMIC is the first cryptocurrency project to implement Kyber at the protocol level.