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Merkle Tree Certificates aim to scale post-quantum Web PKI signatures

blog.cloudflare.com by Mari Galicer 11 min read Editor score 7/10

The piece presents Merkle Tree Certificates as a way to make post-quantum signatures practical for Web PKI, where simply swapping in new cryptography could hurt performance. Engineers planning large-scale protocol migrations can learn from this design trade-off.

What: Merkle Tree Certificates aim to make post-quantum signatures practical for Web PKI at Internet scale.
How: Cloudflare says its certificate authority will support MTC issuance, with a target of early 2027 for Chrome’s Quantum-resistant Root Store.
Why it matters: MTCs offer engineers a path to upgrade web authentication to post-quantum cryptography without unacceptable performance degradation.

Root programs set CA policies, and CAs submit issued certificates to public logs. Sketched from the article's own text.

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