AmericanFortress researchers have introduced a patent-pending post-quantum signature system that could secure the global crypto ecosystem against future quantum attacks without requiring mass migrations of funds.
According to the company, this breakthrough means that even Satoshi Nakamoto’s massive stash of 1.1 million bitcoins, as well as nearly 5 million BTC in dormant accounts, can be saved, for a combined value of around $400 billion.
In an interview with CoinDesk, Michal Pospieszalski, CEO of AmericanFortress, explained that inactive and dormant wallets do not necessarily have to remain vulnerable to unscrupulous hackers, who could sweep up the loot and dump it on the market with untold consequences.
However, Pospieszalski said a major point of confusion was legacy bitcoin. Because Satoshi era wallets are “pre-BIP32” addresses without seed phrase derivation and therefore cannot be automatically upgraded like newer created wallets. Instead, AmericanFortress’ protocol would execute a defensive freeze via a backwards-compatible soft fork.
“Our quantum-resistant protocol would automatically freeze and protect these funds until governance decides what to do with them after Q-Day,” Pospieszalski said, noting that the community would eventually have to vote to move, burn, or redistribute the frozen assets.
“But this means that even Satoshi wallets can be protected with a minor BIP, which we are working on,” Pospieszalski said. “This means the integrity of Bitcoin in the future, and that’s just BTC. This also applies to all other major chains, like Ethereum, Solana, and Tron.”
The announcement follows an $8 million seed round co-led by SAVA Digital Asset Fund, Moon Pursuit Capital and 0G Labs. Alongside the funding round, the company released a crypto paper that identifies specific network performance bottlenecks that have affected other post-quantum trials.
This week, a standard quantum security test on BNB Chain worked but significantly slowed transaction throughput by 40%.
Unlike traditional approaches that require entirely new blockchains or exhaustive address rotations, AmericanFortress’ approach uses zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs to prove ownership of the master seed at the time of spending. The strategy deploys three distinct solutions: pre-BIP32 raw key protection, standard BIP32 quantum protection, and a high-speed “QBIP32” bypass scheme. Because it integrates natively with existing curves, it does not cause any performance degradation.
“This is simply an update to the node and wallet software in that order,” Pospieszalski noted.
The threat to cryptography is very concentrated, the AmericanFortress CEO said, adding that while quantum computers cannot decipher master seed phrases, they can reverse engineer individual private keys from wallet addresses whose public keys have been exposed on-chain.
Research indicates that more than $600 billion in crypto assets are in this precise vulnerable state, including 100% of Solana addresses, Pospieszalski said, calling it “common knowledge.”
For active users, migrating to a quantum-proof tier takes just 50 milliseconds via a simple wallet prompt, he explained, adding that for seed-derived dormant wallets, protection can be executed programmatically at the base layer.
Pospieszalski said the cost of this quantum verification is extremely low, equivalent to the price of a single cumulative transaction, rather than paying for each historical transaction individually.
Pospieszalski revealed that AmericanFortress actively licenses the SDK to Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchains in exchange for marketing positioning, although he said the company is open to exclusive acquisitions.
Cryptographic methods for Bitcoin should be ready for discussion in the coming weeks, ahead of an official presentation on June 2 in Paris, AmericanFortress said.
Ultimately, Pospieszalski sees this as a turning point for the longevity of digital assets. “Sudden quantum proof of BTC is now possible,” he said.
