BNB Chain Flags Data Overhead After BSC Post-Quantum Upgrade Test

BNB Chain tests BSC post-quantum upgrade with ML-DSA-44, as signature size rises to 2,420 bytes and TPS falls about 40%.

BNB Chain said its BSC post-quantum upgrade test proved technical readiness, but it also exposed clear data limits.

The test used ML-DSA-44 for transaction signatures and pqSTARK for consensus vote aggregation.

It kept BSC addresses, RPCs, SDKs, and wallets compatible. Yet larger signatures raised transaction size and reduced cross-region throughput by about 40%.

BSC Tests Post-Quantum Cryptography on Core Layers

BNB Chain released its BSC Post-Quantum Cryptography Migration Report on May 14, 2026.

The report covered a test migration for two core areas of BSC. The first area was transaction signing.

BSC replaced ECDSA with ML-DSA-44, a post-quantum signature scheme under NIST FIPS 204.

The second area was consensus vote aggregation. The network tested pqSTARK instead of BLS aggregation. This allowed validator votes to be grouped into one proof.

BNB Chain said the work was not linked to an immediate quantum threat. It described the test as long-term preparation for cryptographic safety.

The report stated that quantum computers may later threaten elliptic-curve systems. These include ECDSA and BLS12-381, which are used in many blockchains.

Larger Signatures Raise Block Size

The main cost came from data growth. A standard BSC signature rose from 65 bytes to 2,420 bytes.

Public keys also became larger. They increased from 64 bytes to 1,312 bytes under ML-DSA-44.

As a result, native transfer transaction size increased from about 110 bytes to nearly 2.5 KB. At 2,000 TPS, block size grew from about 130 KB to around 2 MB.

BNB Chain said the new design keeps the current address format. Addresses remain 20 bytes and are derived from the ML-DSA public key.

The report said users would not need changes to common access tools. Wallets, RPCs, and SDKs can remain compatible under the tested design.

Consensus vote data grew less sharply. Six validator signatures would total about 14.5 KB before aggregation.

With pqSTARK, the final proof was about 340 bytes. The report placed the compression rate near 43 to 1.

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Cross-Region TPS Falls as Network Load Rises

Testing showed a clear drop in throughput across regions. Native transfer TPS fell from 4,973 to 2,997 in the cross-region setup.

The report said native transfers were more affected because each transaction carries low gas per byte. Larger signatures made block byte limits tighter.

Finality stayed stable at the median level. The P50 result remained at two slots in all tested cases.

However, P99 finality for native transfers moved from two slots to 11 slots. BNB Chain linked that change to block propagation across regions.

The report said the issue came from larger blocks moving over network links. It did not describe the result as a consensus failure.

BNB Chain said “network and data-layer scaling” remain the main areas to solve before production use.

The test showed that BSC post-quantum cryptography can work, but data overhead remains the key barrier.

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