Final Layer is a fork of NEAR Protocol with post-quantum cryptography built in from the ground up. Ed25519 and secp256k1 are removed and replaced with three NIST-standardized schemes: FN-DSA (Falcon-512, FIPS 206), ML-DSA (Dilithium3, FIPS 204), and SLH-DSA (SPHINCS+-128, FIPS 205).
Elliptic curve cryptography is broken by Shor's algorithm on a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. NIST finalized its first post-quantum signature standards in 2024. Most blockchains haven't acted on this yet. Final Layer does.
| Algorithm | Standard | Family | Sig size | Gas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FN-DSA (Falcon-512) | FIPS 206 | Lattice | 666 bytes | 1.4 TGas |
| ML-DSA (Dilithium3) | FIPS 204 | Lattice | 3309 bytes | 3.0 TGas |
| SLH-DSA (SPHINCS+-128) | FIPS 205 | Hash-based | ~8000 bytes | 8.0 TGas |
final-layer has the staking contract, architecture docs, gas benchmark results, and upgrade guides.
nearcore-pq has the full node source — 2800+ files, all PQC changes applied, protocol v1005.
nearcore is an unmodified fork of NEAR Protocol kept as a reference base.
Chain ID final-layer-mainnet, protocol v1005, 9 shards, ~1 second blocks, native token FLC.
