The entire security system built by Walrus—unforgeability of storage proofs, encrypted protection of data in transit, privacy barriers of zero-knowledge proofs—all stand on the shoulders of mainstream cryptography (the set of elliptic curve encryption). But these shoulders may not be reliable. Advances in quantum computing, like a sword that could fall at any moment, threaten these fundamental assumptions.

For protocols like Walrus that promise long-term or even permanent storage of high-value data, quantum risks are not just academic issues to postpone—they are practical concerns about whether they can continue to survive.

**How severe is the quantum threat? You’ll understand after looking at three specific scenarios.**

First, storage proofs could be directly broken. Imagine an attacker with a quantum computer capable of forging storage proofs that appear completely valid. The result? Nodes wouldn’t need to actually store data; they could still cheat and earn rewards and staking. The trust foundation of the entire network could collapse overnight.

Second, historical data could be stolen in seconds. Medical records or business secrets stored with traditional encryption today, no matter how secure, would be useless once quantum computers arrive. These data could be leaked on a large scale in minutes. For protocols claiming permanent storage, this would be a disaster.

Third, the ultimate killer: wallet and account control could vanish. The security of public-private key pairs would be completely invalidated, assets and data could be locked and lost forever.

**So what should Walrus do?**

It can’t wait; it must respond systematically and proactively. First, there should be a clear post-quantum cryptography development roadmap, made public to the community. Specifically: evaluate and select candidate solutions (lattice-based encryption is currently a popular direction), run experiments on testnets to replace algorithms, and provide a concrete timeline for mainnet hard fork upgrades. This is not optional; it’s essential.

Beyond the technical aspects, community governance and ecosystem project upgrades must also keep pace. All applications built on Walrus need to migrate accordingly; otherwise, the entire ecosystem risks being unbalanced. Additionally, continuous attention to academic and cryptography community developments is necessary, as better solutions may emerge at any time.

In plain terms, resisting quantum threats is not a matter for the future—it’s something that must start now.