US President Donald Trump on 22 Jun signed two executive orders accelerating the federal transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and formally recognizing the "harvest now, decrypt later" threat that has long worried digital asset security researchers.
Trump Quantum Orders Set 2031 Deadline, Cite 'Harvest Now' Threat
23 June 2026 - 05:52 CEST
By Oihyun Kim
The cybersecurity order, EO 14409, requires federal high-value assets to migrate to PQC for key establishment by 31 Dec 2030 and for digital signatures by 31 Dec 2031, pulling forward a target previously set at 2035 under the Biden administration. A companion Federal Acquisition Regulation amendment will extend the 2030 requirement to federal contractors. The second order, EO 14411, sets a 2028 goal for a science-grade quantum computer at a Department of Energy facility.
Two deadlines, two threats
The split maps onto the two cryptographic functions securing most blockchains. Key establishment, first in line, covers protocols for setting up secure channels. Digital signatures, due 2031, cover elliptic-curve signature schemes such as ECDSA and EdDSA that authenticate transactions on Bitcoin, Ethereum and most public networks.
Codifying harvest now
Section 1 of the cybersecurity order explicitly names the threat driving much of the PQC debate in crypto circles: "adversaries collecting United States information now, and decrypting it later once large-scale quantum computers are operational."
That framing has direct implications for public blockchains, where transaction histories and public keys are permanently visible. Onchain data exposed today remains exposed indefinitely to whoever first builds a cryptographically relevant quantum computer.
Roughly one-third of all BTC, about 6.9mn coins, sits in addresses where public keys are already visible, according to Google Quantum AI estimates. Ethereum's account model exposes every address's public key once a transaction is sent.
Algorand leads quantum hedges
Google's Quantum AI team, working with Stanford University and the Ethereum Foundation, found that breaking elliptic-curve cryptography may require far fewer quantum resources than previously estimated. Subsequent market reaction showed dispersion rather than direction, rewarding projects such as Algorand (ALGO) with live quantum-resistant signatures and discounting those without.
No PQC signature scheme standardized by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is currently deployed on a major public blockchain.
Trump's order sets a federal clock. Coordinating the same migration across decentralized core developers, validators and users sits outside any executive order's reach.
