Circle’s Arc to launch post-quantum wallets this year

Circle, issuer of the USDC stablecoin, plans to launch its Arc Layer 1 blockchain later this year with optional post-quantum wallets. The company is urging financial institutions and technology firms to assess post-quantum encryption standards now, citing the risk that quantum computers could break public-key cryptography by 2030 or earlier.

Arc is an EVM-compatible network whose public testnet went live in October 2025. A company blog post outlines a post-quantum signature scheme that will let users create quantum-resistant wallets at mainnet.

Use of the new scheme will be optional at launch. After mainnet, the roadmap aims to shield confidential financial data, such as balances, recipients, and transaction details, by limiting plaintext exposure and adding another encryption layer to public keys.

Over the medium to long term, Arc’s plan extends quantum resilience to surrounding infrastructure and upgrades validator authentication to counter quantum-enabled attacks. Circle describes a path that lets developers and institutions adopt these protections without major disruption.

The company highlights risks that begin before any projected “Q-Day,” noting that encrypted data can be captured now and decrypted later once quantum machines improve. It frames long-term cryptographic durability as a baseline requirement in infrastructure choices being made today.

Time constraints could complicate industry-wide migrations. The blog notes that moving all of Bitcoin’s unspent transaction outputs to post-quantum wallets could take months even under nonstop processing, which means delays in preparation could compress timelines.

External signals point to similar concerns. According to Google whitepaper, that advances in quantum computing could undermine the cryptography that secures bitcoin and other systems sooner than expected.

“Circle is actively planning for these risks,” the company wrote. “Quantum resilience cannot live only in research papers, exploratory pilots, or distant roadmap slides. It has to show up in the infrastructure. That is the standard Arc aims to set: practical, resilient, and adaptable blockchain infrastructure for a post-quantum world.”