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 is built around original papers peer-reviewed by the workshop Program Committee, with 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 – are therefore intended to inform and be reflected in 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 deadlines are Anywhere on Earth (AoE = UTC−12h) unless noted.

Milestone	Date
Paper submission	Monday 12 October 2026
Author notification	Friday 6 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; the dates above are two weeks later, as a proposed path if workshop papers are to be considered for Springer proceedings.

Submissions

The workshop solicits original papers for peer review. Submissions that are primarily talk proposals or unreviewed extended abstracts will not be considered.

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 12, 2026, AoE.

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

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):

	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 (this text) and CfP: co-located PQC workshop at SSR 2026 BGIN: https://bgin-global.org/