Narrative Goldmine

Public-Key Cryptography

4 min read

Properties

Type
  • Class
Resource
  • urn:ngm:class:public-key-cryptography
Domain
  • security
Status
  • stable
Maturity
  • established
Quality
  • 0.75
Is a
Has part
Requires
Enables
Generated
  • by: process:vault-migrate/1.0 · at: 2026-09-22T12:41:39.024503178Z
Bridges to
Contrasts with
Implemented in layer
Implements
Legacy term id
  • BC-0031
Links
Page resource
  • urn:visionflow:page:56688ddb1998eba7a63f6113d790f851a7ede9d4251e0a2be2f231f10647aa9f
Related to
Standardized by
Uses

An asymmetric cryptographic system using mathematically related key pairs — a public key for encryption or signature verification and a private key for decryption or signing — enabling secure communication, digital signatures, and authentication without requiring shared secrets. In blockchain systems it underpins wallet addresses, transaction signing, and identity verification.

Semantic Classification

Content

Class Declaration

Declaration(Class(:Public-KeyCryptography))

Subclass Relationships

SubClassOf(:Public-KeyCryptography :CryptographicPrimitive) SubClassOf(:Public-KeyCryptography :BlockchainEntity)

Essential Properties

SubClassOf(:Public-KeyCryptography (ObjectSomeValuesFrom :partOf :Blockchain))

SubClassOf(:Public-KeyCryptography (ObjectSomeValuesFrom :hasProperty :Property))

Data Properties

DataPropertyAssertion(:hasIdentifier :Public-KeyCryptography “BC-0031”^^xsd:string) DataPropertyAssertion(:hasAuthorityScore :Public-KeyCryptography “1.0”^^xsd:decimal) DataPropertyAssertion(:isFoundational :Public-KeyCryptography “true”^^xsd:boolean)

Object Properties

ObjectPropertyAssertion(:enablesFeature :Public-KeyCryptography :BlockchainFeature) ObjectPropertyAssertion(:relatesTo :Public-KeyCryptography :RelatedConcept)

Annotations

AnnotationAssertion(rdfs:label :Public-KeyCryptography “Public-Key Cryptography”@en) AnnotationAssertion(rdfs:comment :Public-KeyCryptography “Asymmetric encryption system”@en) AnnotationAssertion(dct:description :Public-KeyCryptography “Foundational blockchain concept with formal ontological definition”@en) AnnotationAssertion(:termID :Public-KeyCryptography “BC-0031”) AnnotationAssertion(:priority :Public-KeyCryptography “1”^^xsd:integer) AnnotationAssertion(:category :Public-KeyCryptography “cryptographic-foundations”@en) )

About Public-Key Cryptography

  • Asymmetric encryption system within blockchain systems, providing essential functionality for distributed ledger technology operations and properties.

Key Characteristics

    1. Definitional Property: Core defining characteristic
    1. Functional Property: Operational behavior
    1. Structural Property: Compositional elements
    1. Security Property: Security guarantees provided
    1. Performance Property: Efficiency considerations

Technical Components

  • Implementation: How concept is realized technically
  • Verification: Methods for validating correctness
  • Interaction: Relationships with other components
  • Constraints: Technical limitations and requirements

Use Cases

  • 1. Core Blockchain Operation
  • Application: Fundamental blockchain functionality
  • Example: Practical implementation in major blockchains
  • Requirements: Technical prerequisites
  • Benefits: Value provided to blockchain systems

Standards & References

  • IEC 23257:2021 - Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies
  • IEEE 2418.1 - Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies
  • NIST NISTIR - Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies

Current Landscape (2026)

  • The field’s centre of gravity has shifted to the post-quantum transition: on 13 August 2024 NIST finalised its first three standards replacing RSA and elliptic-curve schemes — FIPS 203 (ML-KEM, ex-CRYSTALS-Kyber) for key establishment, FIPS 204 (ML-DSA, ex-Dilithium) and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA, ex-SPHINCS+) for signatures.
  • Algorithm diversity was reinforced when NIST selected the code-based HQC as a backup key-encapsulation mechanism on 11 March 2025 (draft FIPS expected 2026, final 2027), while the Falcon-based FN-DSA signature standard (draft FIPS 206) remained unpublished as of mid-2026.
  • Hybrid key agreement has reached mainstream production: the X25519MLKEM768 group is enabled by default across Chrome/Edge (since Chrome 131, November 2024), Firefox and recent Apple OSes, and Cloudflare reported on 7 April 2026 that over half of the human traffic it processes now uses post-quantum key agreement.
  • Messaging and infrastructure providers moved early — Apple shipped iMessage PQ3 (ML-KEM-768 with ongoing re-keying) from iOS 17.4 in March 2024, Signal deployed PQXDH from late 2023, and OpenSSL 3.5 (April 2025) added native ML-KEM/ML-DSA/SLH-DSA support, bringing PQC to servers built on NGINX, Apache and HAProxy.
  • Regulation hardened sharply in 2026: US Executive Order 14412 and OMB memo M-26-15 (both June 2026) set hard deadlines of 31 December 2030 for federal key-establishment migration and 2031 for signatures, with agency plans due around 22 October 2026; the NSA’s CNSA 2.0 requires ML-KEM-1024 and ML-DSA-87 in new National Security System acquisitions from 1 January 2027, and the UK NCSC set a 2028/2031/2035 phased timeline.
  • NIST IR 8547 sets the retirement calendar for classical public-key cryptography — RSA-2048 and 112-bit elliptic curves deprecated after 2030 and disallowed by 2035 — and CMVP moves FIPS 140-2 modules to Historical on 21 September 2026, forcing federal procurement onto FIPS 140-3.
  • The frontier challenge is urgency versus scale: three papers between May 2025 and March 2026 cut the estimated qubit count to break RSA-2048 from roughly 20 million toward under 100,000, pushing Google and Cloudflare to pull full-migration targets forward to 2029, while “harvest-now-decrypt-later” interception, larger PQC keys and signatures (an ML-KEM-768 key is 1,184 bytes versus 32 for X25519), and slow signature/PKI migration remain open problems.

References

Provenance

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