Post-Quantum Cryptography for Blockchains Workshop

Overview

NIST’s post-quantum cryptography (PQC) programme has moved from algorithm selection to deployment, migration, measurement, and ecosystem-level evaluation. Public blockchains and other distributed ledgers accumulate signatures and state whose validity may be questioned over long horizons. The open questions are no longer only which primitive to choose, but what to place on-chain, how migration is staged, how hybrid and crypto-agile designs are specified, and how evaluation criteria are agreed among stakeholders.

This one-day workshop, co-located with SSR 2026 and held in parallel with the Protocol Analysis Workshop, is a chain-neutral, vendor-neutral, paper-grounded venue for those questions. It is not for new PQC primitives, and it does not endorse a particular chain, product, or algorithm beyond what standards bodies have already selected.

The workshop is also part of the open process that will set the competition specification and evaluation methods for Japan’s NEDO/METI international prize programme on blockchain PQC migration (see below). Peer-reviewed papers presented here, together with invited talks and discussion, are intended to be reflected in that specification.

The technical programme includes original papers peer-reviewed by the workshop Program Committee, Work-in-Progress presentations, a small number of invited talks, and a panel. Authors who want an archival full paper are encouraged to submit an extended version through the SSR 2027 process, which is in scope for PQC.

Organizing responsibility: Blockchain Governance Initiative Network (BGIN), in coordination with the SSR 2026 Organizing Committee.

The NEDO/METI prize programme

Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) launched in 2026 an international prize programme (technology competition) on next-generation security for blockchain and distributed ledger technology. The programme runs FY 2026–2028, is funded by the Government of Japan, and is open to international participation. NEDO/METI host the prize.

The programme has two sub-themes:

1. PQC migration for public blockchains. Technical, governance, and operational frameworks for migrating safely and practically, using post-quantum signatures and key-establishment already selected or standardized (for example through NIST). Bitcoin and Ethereum are primary anchors; results are intended to generalize.
2. Advanced key management. Generation, storage, rotation, revocation, and recovery of signing keys in settings that include multi-party computation (MPC), multi-signature, and related techniques — compared on both theoretical security and implementation performance.

Evaluation is expected to follow a NIST-competition-like structure: (a) assessment of theoretical security and (b) performance evaluation of implementations, including a neutral, geographically distributed testbed. The programme does not seek new PQC algorithms.

Competition guidelines and evaluation criteria will not be written by a single institution. They are meant to converge through open discussion, including the academic community. An earlier open academic discussion will be taking place in Tokyo. Formal call-for-proposal text is planned from February 2027. This SSR workshop sits in that sequence: it is an academic step in specifying how the competition is scoped and how submissions will be evaluated.

Contributions at this workshop — peer-reviewed papers on scope, metrics, testbed design, migration models, and governance, together with discussion of ongoing work — are intended to inform the NEDO/METI competition specification and evaluation methods. The workshop remains an SSR research venue (chain-neutral, vendor-neutral, paper-grounded). Serving on the workshop Program Committee is not the same as serving on the prize Evaluation Committee.

Topics of interest

Submissions are welcome on (including but not limited to):

• Migration of blockchain / DLT systems to NIST-selected or otherwise standardized post-quantum signatures and key-establishment
• Hybrid signatures, phased cut-over, backward compatibility, and crypto-agility in ledger protocols
• Impact of PQC sizes and verification cost on throughput, node cost, light clients, and decentralization
• Evaluation methodologies: benchmarks, testbeds, reproducibility, formal methods, and implementation security
• Design of open, multi-stakeholder competitions and evaluation frameworks (lessons from AES, SHA-3, NIST PQC, and migration-oriented programmes)
• Standardization handoffs: competition or research results → IETF / ISO / industry profiles / chain-specific BIPs or specs
• Governance of migration: disclosure, licensing, coordination among users, developers, miners/validators, and operators
• Threat models for long-lived ledgers (e.g. harvest-now / forge-later, dormant assets, competitive migration)
• Measurement and evidence for “PQC-ready” claims — what can be standardized, and what cannot

Out of scope as a primary contribution: proposals whose main goal is a new PQC scheme outside existing standards processes; purely promotional material for a vendor or a single chain; policy statements with no peer-reviewable technical claim or evaluation method.

Important dates

All submission deadlines are Anywhere on Earth (AoE = UTC−12h) unless noted. The reviewed-paper and Work-in-Progress tracks have separate deadlines.

Milestone	Date
Reviewed paper submission	Monday 19 October 2026
Reviewed paper notification	Friday 6 November 2026
Work-in-Progress extended abstract submission	Friday 20 November 2026 (AoE)
Work-in-Progress notification	Monday 23 November 2026
Workshop	Sunday 13 December 2026, 10:00–16:00 ET
SSR 2026 main conference	13–15 December 2026

SSR 2026’s own LNCS timeline (15 September / 5 October / 15 October) is for the main conference. This workshop has a separate call and submission process.

Submissions

The workshop accepts submissions through two distinct tracks: Reviewed Papers and Work-in-Progress (WiP) Presentations.

Reviewed Paper Track

The workshop solicits original papers for peer review. Submissions that are primarily talk proposals or unreviewed extended abstracts are not considered under the reviewed-paper track.

Language: English. Format: Springer LNCS (authors’ guidelines and templates). Review: Double-blind peer review by the workshop Program Committee. Each paper will receive at least two reviews.

Submitted papers must be original, and not under review at another venue that publishes proceedings. Author names and affiliations must be omitted; citations to the authors’ own prior work should be in the third person.

Paper types:

1. Regular papers — up to 12 pages in LNCS format, including references (appendices optional; reviewers are not required to read them). Original research: technical results, measurements, evaluation-framework or competition-design contributions, or standardization-process analysis.
2. Short papers — up to 6 pages including references. Focused results, case studies, or well-motivated negative findings. Same review standard as regular papers.
3. SoK or Vision papers — same length as regular papers. The title must start with SoK: or Vision:.

How to Submit (EasyChair)

Papers must be submitted through this workshop’s EasyChair site. Do not use the SSR 2026 main-conference submission server.

1. Create an EasyChair account if you do not already have one.
2. Open the PQC for Blockchains workshop submission site.
3. Start a new submission and select the paper type (Regular, Short, SoK, or Vision).
4. Enter the title, abstract, authors, and keywords. For double-blind review, author names and affiliations must not appear in the PDF.
5. Upload a PDF in Springer LNCS format by October 19, 2026, AoE.

At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the workshop and present the paper.

Call for Work-in-Progress Presentations

Scope

Alongside the reviewed paper track, the workshop invites Work-in-Progress (WiP) extended abstracts for short presentations. The WiP track is for early results, ongoing measurements, prototypes and open problems in migrating blockchains and distributed ledgers to post-quantum cryptography. Work on crypto-agility is particularly welcome: how a ledger changes its signature or key-establishment scheme once, and how it stays able to change again.

WiP presentations show the community what is being built now, and give authors feedback from the people writing the competition specification before their work is finished. The workshop is linked to Japan’s NEDO/METI international prize programme (FY2026–2028) on blockchain PQC migration and advanced key management. Open questions raised in WiP sessions feed its evaluation design.

WiP Topics

Any topic in the workshop’s scope, and especially:

• Crypto-agility mechanisms: algorithm identifiers, versioned account and address formats, key rotation and re-keying of long-lived accounts, dormant-key handling
• Hybrid (classical + PQC) signatures and phased cut-over plans
• Measurements of PQC signature size and verification cost on throughput, block space, node cost, light clients and decentralisation
• Wallet, custody, HSM and key-management migration paths
• Benchmarks, testbeds and reproducibility methods for “PQC-ready” claims
• Threat models and migration timelines for long-lived ledgers
• Governance and coordination of a migration across stakeholders
• Experience reports from deployments, testnets or migration exercises

Out of scope: New PQC primitives outside a standards process, vendor or chain promotion, and policy statements without a technical claim or evaluation method.

WiP Submission Guidelines

• Submit an extended abstract of up to 4 pages in Springer LNCS format, including references, in English.
• State the problem, the approach, what exists today (results, prototype, data) and what remains open. A short “questions for the audience” paragraph is welcome.
• Author names and affiliations are included. WiP screening is not double-blind.
• Submit via EasyChair, conference ID:pqc4b, selecting the Work-in-Progress track.

Presentation and Publication

• Accepted WiP abstracts are presented as short talks. Format and length are announced with the programme.
• WiP abstracts are not included in any proceedings. Authors are encouraged to submit a full version to SSR 2027.
• Abstracts of accepted WiP presentations will be made available to workshop participants.
• At least one author of each accepted WiP must register for the workshop and present.

WiP Important Dates (Anywhere on Earth)

Milestone	Date
WiP extended abstract submission	20 November 2026
WiP notification	23 November 2026
Workshop	13 December 2026

Blockchain Governance Initiative Network (BGIN) · SSR 2026 Organizing Committee

Organization

Program Chairs

Program Committee

Program Committee members are listed in alphabetical order.

More Program Committee members to be added.

Organizing Chair

Organizing Committee

Registration and venue

Register through the SSR 2026 site: https://ssresearch26.umbc.edu/

Workshop-only registration is available (in person or virtual). A student discount is available; contact Carol Bateman (cbateman1@umbc.edu) before registering.

Indicative fees (confirm on the registration site):

Registration	Early (through 13 September 2026)	Regular (14 September – 12 November)	Late (from 13 November)
In person	$200	$250	$300
Virtual	$100	$125	$150

Lunch for Sunday workshop attendees is included (12:00–13:00, Tubman A-B). The conference reception is Sunday evening (Diamond Tavern). Hotel: Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor — book via the SSR 2026 site.

Contact

Shin’ichiro Matsuo — matsuo@bg2x.org
Workshop page and Call for Papers: PQC for Blockchains Workshop at SSR 2026
BGIN: https://bgin-global.org/