Developers at payments-focused blockchain firm Ripple say they are swiftly preparing the XRP Ledger for a future in which the cryptography that protects wallets and transactions may no longer be sufficient.
“The goal is not to wait until quantum computing becomes an immediate threat,” Ayo Akinyele, senior director of engineering at Ripple, told CoinDesk. “It is to make sure critical financial infrastructure can evolve well before that point without disrupting the systems, assets and users that depend on it.”
It is theorized a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could eventually break some of the mathematical protections used by blockchains and banks today. That would allow an attacker, in some cases, to work backwards from publicly available information and calculate the private keys used to control assets.
Researchers often call the point at which such machines become practical “Q-Day.”
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But Ripple is treating the problem as a long-term infrastructure project rather than a last-minute software patch.
“The financial system was not built with quantum computing in mind,” Akinyele said. “As quantum capabilities advance, institutions will need to rethink how they secure transactions, identities, assets and sensitive data.”
Ripple has laid out a four-stage plan for the XRP Ledger covering the years before and after any serious quantum threat emerges. It starts with assessing which parts of the network would be exposed, then testing alternative forms of cryptography against the workload the blockchain handles today.
Later stages would run today’s security alongside quantum-resistant alternatives before moving the broader network over.
The plan also includes an emergency route if quantum computing advances faster than expected. In that case, Ripple says the network would need a way to respond before attackers could exploit the older cryptography.
The XRP Ledger already allows users to replace the keys controlling an account without changing the account itself, a feature Ripple says could make a future migration easier. The network’s independent validators would still have to coordinate any wider change to the rules governing transactions.
“That upgrade will go well beyond swapping out one cryptographic algorithm for another,” Akinyele said. “It will require more agile infrastructure, stronger key management, clearer upgrade paths and systems that can evolve without disrupting the financial activity they support.”
Read more: XRP may be less exposed to quantum computer threats than bitcoin, experts say
The urgency around quantum security comes as AI systems are increasingly used to search for flaws in cryptography, potentially compressing work that once took specialist researchers much longer to complete.
However, that creates a second problem for financial networks – the systems designed to withstand quantum computers must also withstand faster, cheaper attacks from AI-assisted researchers.
Akinyele said AI and quantum computing are distinct technologies but are pushing financial infrastructure in the same direction.
“AI is driving more automation and increasingly autonomous economic activity, while quantum computing is forcing the industry to think further ahead about how those systems are secured,” he said.
That shift is already showing up in payments, where AI agents are beginning to transact and pay for services without a person approving each action.
“For financial services specifically, we’re already starting to see this shift with agentic payments, where AI agents can transact and pay for services autonomously,” Akinyele said. “That creates new demands for always-on, internet-native payment infrastructure.”
The move comes as Bitcoin and Ethereum developers work on ways to replace the digital signatures their networks use today before quantum computers can break them.
The hard part is not simply finding new cryptography. Any replacement has to work at the scale of a financial network, fit within existing hardware and software, and give millions of users enough time to move safely.
Akinyele said the earlier that work starts, the more options networks will have when the threat becomes real.
“The objective is to make the eventual transition deliberate and orderly, rather than something the ecosystem has to undertake in response to a crisis,” Akinyele noted.