Blockstream Names Falcon-1024 Its Leading Lattice Option for Bitcoin Signatures

Blockstream is evaluating lattice-based signatures for Bitcoin (BTC), with Falcon-1024 offering the best balance among three schemes studied as the company assesses defenses against future quantum computing threats.

The research compares Dilithium, Falcon and Hawk. If a lattice-based scheme had to be selected now, it identifies Falcon-1024 as the strongest balance of signature size, verification speed and maturity of security assumptions.

The assessment also lists hurdles: Falcon-1024 standards are not final, hardware wallets may face memory demands, and a viable method for deriving public keys is lacking. Blockstream's research describes hash-based signatures as the more conservative near-term choice and raises a possible future combination of hash-based and lattice-based signatures.

Falcon-1024 also supports Algorand accounts, including a way for existing users to switch transaction authorization to the scheme.