Blockstream Research published a peer-reviewed paper on August 6, 2026, evaluating three lattice-based post-quantum signature schemes: Dilithium, Falcon and Hawk. Falcon-1024 led on compactness, with a combined public key and signature of 3,073 bytes versus 5,261 bytes for Category 3 Dilithium, and also offered efficient verification times. Its deployment still faces several hurdles, including about 90 KB of signing memory, complex implementation based on floating-point arithmetic, no native hierarchical deterministic key derivation and incomplete standardization. In parallel, Blockstream is advancing SHRINCS, a hash-based signature scheme that reached draft Bitcoin Improvement Proposal status and has already been tested on the Liquid sidechain. Bitcoin’s transition to post-quantum security is therefore expected to be gradual, with implications for block space, fees and wallet compatibility.
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