Why can I not migrate a credential I issued last year to quantum-safe signatures?
Opportunity
NIST finalized ML-DSA and ML-KEM in 2024, giving new systems a clear cryptographic target, but every verifiable credential already in circulation is signed with ECDSA or EdDSA. There is no technical path to upgrade an issued credential to a new signature scheme without revoking and reissuing it, which requires simultaneously coordinating every issuer and every holder. Long-lived credentials in government, healthcare, and education are precisely the documents an adversary archives today to decrypt when quantum capability matures. On top of the key-migration problem, ML-DSA signatures are roughly five times larger than Ed25519, which breaks the compact presentation formats that selective-disclosure implementations currently depend on. The cryptography has a standardized roadmap; the credential lifecycle does not.
Why it matters
Without a migration path for already-issued credentials, the post-quantum transition will force simultaneous mass-reissuance crises at governments and health systems worldwide.
How I score the opportunity
The Opportunity Score is my own read, not a measurement: how much it hurts, how often it bites, and how little exists to solve it today. Higher means I think it is more worth building.
How much pain it causes when it shows up.
How often people actually run into it.
How little good tooling exists for it today.
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