High-level plan: gdoc

Goal: starting with Protocol U, introduce support for a post-quantum (PQ) signature scheme for manager operations, including transfers, smart contract calls, delegation, and staking.

The initial design aims to introduce a new tz5 address for the ML-DSA-44 NIST-approved PQ signature scheme.

Stateful addresses planned for Protocol V will facilitate the adoption of PQ signatures by enabling users to maintain the same address while switching between signature schemes.

Work breakdown

Implementation

Integrate the new signature scheme into the Tezos codebase:

• Cryptographic library
  • OCaml bindings !20257 (portable implementation)
  • Add support for optimized implementations (AVX2 and Neon)
• Octez libs
  • Signature V3 !20181
  • Handling new scheme !20236
• Protocol
  • Alpha and Environment with signature V3 !20251
  • Gas cost
  • Forbid tz5 keys for baking
• Replace placeholders with actual implementation

Testing

• Known Answer Test vectors (NIST tests)
• Tezt tests (e.g., the new PQ signature scheme is forbidden for baking)
• Stress-testing using tezt-cloud
  • Compare manager operation costs
  • Ensure that gas model is not broken

Documentation

• Changelog: breaking changes if any (e.g., signature encoding or new tag)
• Include tz5 to the list of supported signatures