The XRP Ledger Foundation has outlined a plan to protect accounts from future quantum attacks without raising transaction fees. Its 2027 protocol roadmap, updated November 4, includes a design that lets owners replace existing signing keys and disable the originals.
The change would address a risk tied to public keys already visible on the network. Meanwhile, spot XRP ETFs recorded USD 10.42 million in net outflows on November 9.
Each time an XRP Ledger account signs a transaction, the network sees its public key. Validators use that key to check whether the account owner authorized the payment. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could use the public key to work backward toward the account's secret key.
That exposure already affects accounts that have sent payments, including exchange wallets. Under the proposed design, account owners would add a quantum-resistant signing key. They could then disable the original key so it could no longer authorize new transactions.
The new signing method uses ML-DSA-44, which the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology approved in 2024. The standard aims to resist attacks from future quantum computers. The Foundation's study applies that protection to account authorization rather than waiting for the threat to reach the network.
The study proposes keeping the existing base transaction fee. This approach separates the cost paid by users from the extra space that new signatures would consume.
An ML-DSA-44 public key and signature together require 3,732 bytes. The study compares that figure with 105 bytes for a regular payment. The difference adds nearly 3.6 KB to each protected transaction, increasing the data the network must handle.
Storage requirements rise as well. After accounting for transaction history and database overhead, the Foundation estimates 5,331 bytes for a protected payment. Its baseline estimate for a standard payment is 1,704 bytes. Network operators would carry that extra storage burden under the proposal.
The XRP Ledger destroys transaction fees rather than paying them to network operators. As a result, keeping the base fee unchanged would not compensate operators for the added data. The design instead leaves the direct fee paid by users at its current level.
Developers still need to resolve a key-generation mismatch. The Python prototype can produce a different key from the server and JavaScript versions, even when they start with the same seed. The Foundation also has not published network tests involving validators that all use the new signatures.
Also Read: Ripple's XRP Ledger Plans Major Quantum Security Upgrade
The Foundation has set aside USD 215,000 to USD 255,000 for review and auditing of the proposed amendment. It also estimates 640 development hours. Across 24 roadmap amendments, the planned budget ranges from about USD 5 million to nearly USD 6 million.
The roadmap places the migration study in the first half of 2027. Development and auditing would follow in late 2027 or 2028. Ripple, meanwhile, is targeting a full quantum transition by 2028, a separate timeline from the Foundation's study and amendment work.
Investor flows have weakened in the near term. SoSoValue data show spot XRP ETFs lost USD 10.42 million on November 9, their largest single-day outflow since March. The withdrawals still accounted for less than 1% of the funds' combined assets.
Bitwise's XRP ETF led the withdrawals with about USD 9.4 million, close to 90% of the daily total. Canary Capital's XRPC lost USD 811,440, while 21Shares' TOXR fund recorded about USD 212,900 in outflows.
In contrast, spot XRP ETFs attracted USD 110.49 million during the final week of August. That helped cumulative inflows exceed USD 1.66 billion. XRP gained 37% during August, its strongest month of 2026, but has since traded well below its late-summer levels.