TRON quantum upgrade runs on testnet after missing third-quarter target

Post-TRON quantum signatures are already running on the Nile testnet, not the mainnet

The third-quarter mainnet target set by Justin Sun in April has passed, but the upgrade has not yet been activated. TRON's own technical model shows that a larger signature size may significantly reduce the network's transaction throughput cap. In addition, TRON's technical proposals still require independent audits and governance voting.

On Saturday, October 10, Justin Sun said that TRON's post-quantum cryptography is already running in a network test environment, and the chain can bring anti-quantum protection to the main network when selecting. The statement was aimed at a network that processed $2.21 trillion in stablecoin settlements in the third quarter and hosted approximately $94 billion in USDT and USDD. Sun did not give a specific activation date. Existing TRX and USDT wallets have not yet been migrated, the proposal behind the upgrade is still a draft, and the list of security requirements has not yet been closed.

Sun had promised to launch the main network before September 30, but TRON is still on the Nile test network

This work started months before the weekend announcement. In April, Sun described a plan to test anti-quantum signatures in the second quarter and move to the main network in the third quarter. The quarter ended on September 30. As of October 11, upgrades remain limited to Nile, TRON's public test network, and Sun's latest wording replaces specific calendar goals with the word "anytime."

TRON Post-Quantum Timeline (2026)

• April: announced deployment plan. Sun outlined plans to conduct testing in Q2 and deploy Q3 on the main network.
• July 2:Falcon-512 comes online in Nile. Committee Proposal No. 20628 activated the signature, and it was reported that all 27 testnet super representatives voted in favor.
• August 27: Target postponed to the end of the year. According to reports, at the Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong, Sun pointed out that broader protection will be implemented by the end of 2026.
• October 8: New testnet build version GreatVoyage-Nile-v4.8.2.3-PQ1-build1 was launched in Nile.
• October 10:Sun announced the readiness of the testnet. He said the main network could follow up "at any time" but did not give a specific date.

How exposed public keys led to the theft of wallets, and what TIP-899 replaced

Like Bitcoin and Ethereum, TRON uses ECDSA to authorize transactions, a signature scheme based on mathematical problems that cannot be solved by regular computers within the effective time. If a large enough fault-tolerant quantum computer runs the Shor algorithm, it can derive the private key from the public key exposed on the chain. "Q-Day" is the industry's popular term for this moment becoming a reality. There are currently no publicly demonstrated machines that can do this, and researchers are widely divided on when it will be possible.

TIP-899 is a TRON improvement proposal to standardize this change, adding two lattice-based signature schemes as alternatives to ECDSA: FN-DSA-512 (Falcon-512) and ML-DSA-44. The latter is a solution standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as FIPS 204 in August 2024. The proposal covers transaction signing, block production of superdelegates, authentication between nodes, and signature checking within the TRON virtual machine. During the migration, old and new signatures can coexist and the address format remains unchanged, which avoids exchanges and wallet providers from fully reissuing addresses.

Falcon under 400 TPS, ML-DSA under 173 TPS: Why quantum security costs speed

The quantum signature is much larger than the ECDSA signature. Each transaction carries more data, each node stores and forwards more data, and the cost ultimately falls on network capacity. TIP-899 modeling shows that under current ECDSA signatures, the upper limit for simple transfers is approximately 3,809 per second. If Falcon-512 is used for every transaction, the cap will drop to approximately 400; if ML-DSA-44 is used, it will drop to approximately 173. This is a worst-case forecast at full adoption, and even with a 10% Falcon share, the model still showed around 2,055, but this explains why engineering work did not end after activation in July.

One fix currently under discussion is to store the public key separately rather than attaching it to each transaction. TIP-899 also lists outstanding issues regarding transaction fees, hardware wallet compatibility, smart contract migration, and public key storage. For a network whose main commercial use is cheap dollar transfers, these issues determine whether upgrades are available.

US$93.88 billion of stablecoins still rely on signature schemes TRON hopes to eliminate

TRON Q3 Status Report released by TRON DAO on October 6 shows how much current value relies on existing signature schemes:

• USDT and USDD supply: US$93.88 billion +(5.5% increase compared with Q2)
• Stabilized coin settlement volume: US$2.21 trillion +(5.1% increase compared with Q2)
• Average daily settlement volume: US$24.05 billion +(3.9% increase from Q2)
• Total lock-in value (including pledges): US$28.21 billion (as of the end of Q3 2026)

TRON DAO also reported that it has more than 405 million cumulative accounts and lifetime trading volume exceeds US$30 trillion. These numbers calculate addresses and duplicate transfers rather than unique users or different economic values. An effective quantum attack will not expose all USDTs on TRON at once. The degree of exposure depends on which keys have been compromised on the chain and how the account is structured.

No audit, no vulnerability bounty, no voting: three checkpoints on the main online line

There are three steps from the test net to the production environment. TIP-899 requires independent cryptography and implementation audits and releases summaries before superdelegates vote. It requires vulnerability bounty coverage for new components. Activation requires governance approval on the main network. None of these steps was declared complete.

For holders, there is no change today and no wallet operation is required. The practical consequences will emerge later, when wallet software, custodians and exchanges must add support for new signature types and users transfer funds to quantum-resistant keys. The draft also describes a possible emergency mechanism, including a six-hour voting window and a 22/27 approval threshold, as well as the option to completely disable ECDSA. Both are proposals and neither is activated.

Algorand has run Falcon, which challenges Sun's "first" claim

In April, Sun said TRON would become the first major public blockchain to deploy NIST standardized quantum signatures on the main network. However, this statement faces competition. Algorand has been running Falcon Signature on its main website since 2022 and plans to launch a native quantum-resistant account. Elsewhere, Solana is exploring the Falcon signature, Ethereum researchers are planning a multi-layered transition plan, and the Bitcoin Security Alliance, composed of nine founding members including Strategy, BlackRock and Coinbase, has also committed to investing US$15 million in Bitcoin security research over the next three years. Over the past month, TRON's own security work has been on another track, with OpenZeppelin announcing integration on September 24, and TRON DAO also discussing quantum readiness in an INTERPOL-related incident.