Cardano Proposal Would Add Post-Quantum Signature Verification to Plutus

Cardano has an open proposal to add post-quantum signature verification to Plutus smart contracts, a change that would require a hard fork if adopted. A separate draft seeks a shared technical baseline for stablecoins built under the network’s programmable-token framework. Both efforts remain under review. Quantova Inc.’s CIP-0206 candidate would add Plutus functions to verify ML-DSA and SLH-DSA signatures. It was labeled a CIP-0206 candidate Oct. 28. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the algorithms as FIPS 204 and FIPS 205 in 2024. ML-DSA is module-lattice-based, while SLH-DSA uses stateless hash-based signatures.