Stellar’s next upgrade, Bell, takes a first step toward quantum-safe accounts
@StellarOrg has set validator votes on Protocol 30, called Bell, for November 3 on testnet and November 23 on mainnet. It lets one smart account hold funds for multiple customers through a new address format starting with W.
Smart contracts will also be able to check ML-DSA signatures, a standard set by the US agency NIST in 2024 to resist future quantum computers, while regular network transactions keep today’s signatures. A new millisecond ledger clock lets future upgrades set block times in fractions of a second.