Fermi brings NIST standard FIPS 204 ML-DSA signatures to Verona’s smart contract accounts, letting every user add a post-quantum key and drop the classical one without changing their address
New York, NY, Oct. 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Verona, the verified intelligence layer, today launched Fermi, the v32 upgrade to Verona mainnet. Fermi brings live post-quantum signatures to every account on the network. Fermi allows users to attach an ML-DSA authenticator to any existing account and revoke the pre-quantum key if they choose without any changes. Every Verona account is a smart contract with pluggable authenticators, so post-quantum signing becomes a native option rather than a migration.
Why now
The quantum timeline keeps compressing. NIST plans to deprecate the elliptic curve signatures that secure nearly every blockchain after 2030 and disallow them after 2035. Google moved its own post-quantum migration deadline to 2029. In March, Google Quantum AI published estimates showing a machine with fewer than half a million physical qubits could break secp256k1, the curve behind Bitcoin and Ethereum, in minutes, a nearly twentyfold drop from prior estimates. No such machine exists today. Verona chose to migrate while lead time still exists, and Fermi hands that lead time to every user.
What Fermi ships
- ML-DSA-65, the FIPS 204 lattice signature standard, as a native account authenticator
- SLH-DSA-128s, the FIPS 205 hash based standard, for treasuries and cold vault accounts
- A PQ-required account policy that disables classical keys or forces them to co-sign with a post-quantum key
- One-click migration in the Verona SDK and dashboard
Why the architecture matters
Most chains derive an address from a single public key. When that key's algorithm breaks, users must move funds to a new address. That design leaves an estimated one third of Bitcoin supply in accounts with exposed keys and forces Ethereum's quantum roadmap through new account standards. Verona built accounts differently from genesis. Every account runs as a governance-deployed smart contract that holds a set of pluggable authenticators, today spanning secp256k1, passkeys, Ethereum wallets, JWT and ZKEmail. Adding ML-DSA uses the same operation as adding a passkey. The contract owns the address, not the key, so cryptography can change underneath an account while identity, history and balances stay put.
The bet
Quantum computing and cryptography play a cat and mouse game, and Fermi will not end it. Verona does not bet that any one algorithm wins forever. Instead, Verona believes that a network must swap algorithms in a single upgrade without stranding a single account. Fermi runs lattice and hash-based cryptographic keys side-by-side, so if either assumption fails, users can freely move to an alternative.
"Quantum resistance is a migration problem, not a technical problem," said Anthony Anzalone, founder and CEO of Verona. "Every other chain has to figure out how to move billions of dollars to new addresses. On Verona you add a key and remove a key. We built accounts this way years ago because we knew cryptography would keep changing, and Fermi is the first time that design pays off at network scale."
What comes next
Fermi phase two migrates validator keys to ML-DSA-65 through the Cosmos SDK v0.55 and CometBFT v0.40 line, moving consensus itself to post-quantum signatures once two-thirds of validator voting power rotates. Verona will add FN-DSA (Falcon) as an authenticator once NIST finalizes FIPS 206. Convenience authenticators that depend on third party infrastructure, including JWT and ZKEmail, stay classical until identity providers and proof systems finish their own migrations, and they cannot satisfy a PQ-required policy.
About Verona
Verona is the verified intelligence layer for AI, enterprises and consumers, built by Burnt Labs. Formerly XION, Verona turns verified real world facts into a programmable primitive. Learn more at verona.dev
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