BNB Smart Chain tests NIST ML-DSA-44 post-quantum signatures as throughput falls 40%-50%

BNB Smart Chain developers completed a large-scale test of post-quantum cryptography on a live-style blockchain setup, swapping transaction signatures to NIST’s ML-DSA-44 and upgrading vote aggregation with pqSTARK proofs. The shift lifted average transaction size from about 110 bytes to roughly 2.5KB and expanded blocks from ~130KB to nearly 2MB at similar load, while throughput declined 40%-50%. The team said the results show quantum-safe migration is feasible with today’s standards, despite clear performance trade-offs.