CRYSTALS-Kyber / ML-KEM, Explained

CRYSTALS-Kyber is the specific algorithm behind BMIC's post-quantum key protection, and it's worth naming precisely rather than waving at “quantum-safe math” in the abstract.

NIST standardized it under the name ML-KEM: Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism. Think of an ordinary cryptographic lock as a puzzle only your key's exact shape can solve quickly. Kyber's puzzle is built from lattice math instead -- imagine a vast, oddly-angled grid of points in many dimensions, where finding one specific point without already knowing the private key takes a search space that stays enormous, even for a quantum computer, based on current research.

NIST selected Kyber in 2024, after a multi-year public competition where cryptographers worldwide were specifically invited to attack every candidate algorithm. That public-attack process is what standardization actually means in practice -- not one company's internal claim about its own math, but years of attempted breaks, in public, that didn't succeed.

BMIC uses ML-KEM for key protection specifically because of that public vetting, replacing reliance on elliptic-curve cryptography alone -- the scheme most wallets still depend on, which has a known theoretical weakness against a sufficiently powerful quantum computer (Shor's algorithm).

FAQ