What Makes a Wallet 'Post-Quantum'?
“Post-quantum” describes a change in the mathematics underneath a wallet, not a new category of product with a different set of features.
Most crypto wallets today protect the private key using elliptic-curve cryptography -- secure against every computer in practical use today. A post-quantum wallet adds a second kind of protection, built on problems that, based on current cryptographic research, remain hard even for a large enough quantum computer to solve.
BMIC uses this approach for key protection specifically: NIST-standardized CRYSTALS-Kyber, standardized as ML-KEM. It does not change what the wallet does day to day -- you still generate keys, sign transactions, and check balances exactly as before. It changes what kind of computer would be needed to ever break that protection.
The reasoning for making this change now, rather than waiting, is a separate and specific argument -- covered in the harvest-now-decrypt-later episode of this series.
FAQ
Does 'post-quantum' mean the wallet uses quantum computing?
No. It runs on ordinary computers today -- the term describes which math problem protects the key, chosen to resist a future class of computer, not the hardware the wallet itself runs on.
Do I need new hardware for a post-quantum wallet?
No. BMIC runs as ordinary software; the post-quantum protection is in the cryptographic algorithm, not in specialized hardware.
Is a post-quantum wallet slower to use?
No. Key generation and signing remain fast on ordinary consumer devices.
Why not just wait until quantum computers are closer to ready?
See the harvest-now-decrypt-later episode -- the exposure that matters can happen years before any decryption, which is the specific reason for acting ahead of a firm date.