The Transition to Stateless PQC

While ML-KEM provides secure key encapsulation, the integrity of node identities over the next decade requires a robust, post-quantum signature scheme. Today, we are announcing the successful integration of Sphincs+ into the Zeqron Core.

Why SPHINCS+?

Unlike Dilithium or other lattice-based signature schemes, Sphincs+ is stateless and relies solely on hash-based security assumptions. This makes it an ideal "final layer" of security for identity DIDs and protocol-level mandates.

• ::Quantum Resilience: Secure against Grover’s and Shor’s algorithms.
• ::Reliability: Smaller assumptions mean fewer cryptographic "backdoors."
• ::Performance Tradeoff: While signatures are larger (~41KB for SHAKE-256), the security trade-off is essential for long-term archive integrity.

Benchmark Data

On our EPYC validator clusters, Sphincs+ verification currently benchmarks at:

• ::Sign Latency: 12.4ms
• ::Verify Latency: 0.8ms
• ::Throughput: 1,250 signatures/sec per core.

We are currently optimizing the parallel verification circuits in the WASM runtime to bring this to sub-0.5ms.

Research Log // Cryptography & Security Guild