XRP Ledger Quantum Accounts: No Extra Fees, Extra Bytes
XRP Ledger quantum accounts are now a written design: owners add a quantum-resistant key and switch off the old one, and users pay no extra fee. CoinDesk and Crypto.news both report it. It is a proposal, not live code. Here is what it means, and what it does not mean for miners.
What the XRP Ledger quantum accounts plan says
The design sits in the XRP Ledger Foundation’s 2027 roadmap, updated November 4. An account owner would assign an ML-DSA-44 signing key, a scheme NIST approved in 2024, and disable the existing master key. Any account that has sent a transaction has exposed its public key, and that is the door a future quantum attacker would use. Closing the old key closes that door.
Who pays for the extra bytes
Importantly, the base transaction fee stays the same. The cost lands on network operators instead. CoinDesk says the key and signature together take 3,732 bytes, against 105 bytes for a regular payment. Storage per protected payment, with history and database overhead, is 5,331 bytes against a 1,704-byte baseline. XRP Ledger fees are burned, not paid to operators, so nobody is paid for carrying that extra weight.
What is still unfinished
First, developers are fixing a mismatch where the Python prototype and the server and JavaScript versions can derive different keys from one seed. Second, tests of the network with all validators on the new signatures are not published. The migration study is set for the first half of 2027, development and auditing for late 2027 or 2028. Ripple’s own target for a full transition is 2028. CoinDesk reports a review budget of $215,000 to $255,000 for this amendment alone.
What XRP Ledger quantum accounts do to your mining margin
However, the blunt answer is nothing today. XRP is not mined, so there is no XRP hashprice and no ASIC angle. Still, the real signal is wider. Every big chain is now pricing the cost of quantum-safe signatures, and bigger signatures mean heavier blocks. Bitcoin has the same fight ahead, and bitcoin miners will feel it in block space and fees. So we would not change a single buy or sell decision on this news. Your margin still comes from price, hashrate and power. Check the table.
Miner math: bitcoin hashprice today
Here is the live maths on November 10. Bitcoin is $73,206 and the network is 964 EH/s, so hashprice is about $34.41 per petahash per day. That is what one PH/s of hashing earns before power.
| Machine | 5c/kWh | 8c/kWh | 12c/kWh | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antminer S19 (95 TH/s, 3250 W) | -$0.63 | -$2.97 | -$6.09 | 4.2c |
| Antminer S19k Pro (115 TH/s, 2645 W) | $0.78 | -$1.12 | -$3.66 | 6.2c |
| Antminer S19 XP (141 TH/s, 3010 W) | $1.24 | -$0.93 | -$3.82 | 6.7c |
| Antminer S21 Pro (234 TH/s, 3510 W) | $3.84 | $1.31 | -$2.06 | 9.6c |
Numbers are profit per day after electricity, at the three power prices shown. Break-even is the most you can pay per kilowatt-hour before the machine loses money. Specs are the manufacturer ratings; network data comes from mempool.space. Try your own power price in our free bitcoin mining profit calculator. See what these machines really sold for in our used ASIC miner price index. Want to run the same numbers on a machine you can buy today? See our used ASIC miners, or buy several at once through bulk lots.
If bitcoin slides 10% while the market reprices quantum risk: the break-even power price on an S19k Pro falls from 6.2 to 5.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. At 8 cents, daily profit goes from -$1.12 to -$1.52.
That is a “what if”, not a forecast. See our mining economics guides for how we work these numbers.
If a machine no longer pays, you can sell us your used miners. To buy efficient units, see all miners.
-Nick
ING Mining
This is general information, not financial advice. Crypto is volatile, and exchanges can fail. Please do your own research.
How this story was made: drafted with the help of AI tools from public sources, then edited by Nick Squires. See our editorial policy. Spot an error? Email ns@ingmining.com.