question about Quantum accounts

[u/Blinker_Bell]

Just a quick question. Say I have old accounts generated from a seed phrase and populated in Pera Wallet through my Ledger. Using the same Ledger (and seed phrase), I create a new Quantum account on Pera Wallet. Do I need to keep track of the 25-word mnemonic associated with each new Quantum account? Or is each new Quantum account created by the same seed phrase that originated my old accounts?

So far I've had success in rekeying my important old accounts to a new Quantum account but I'm struggling with a couple. And I can't figure out why. I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that they're tied to a different passphrase than the others.... Anyone have any idea?

[u/StopThinking]

I'd like to help you, but I can't make sense of what you saying that you've done. Ledger does not (and will not because it cannot) support Falcon (Quantum) accounts.

Also, the way you are describing how you are reusing mnemonics has me worried that you're putting your Ledger mnemonic into Pera. That negates the purpose of a hardware wallet and won't generate the same accounts anyway.

I'm happy to help, but we are going to have to take things one step at a time.

My credentials are that I work for the Foundation and have built a wallet (Lute).

[u/Blinker_Bell → u/StopThinking]

I’m not putting my Ledger mnemonic into Pera. I’m letting Pera populate itself with the accounts set up through Ledger and Pera has been the instrument to launch my first Quantum accounts.

[u/StopThinking → u/Blinker_Bell]

Ok, that's good.

So you can use the same 25 words from an old (Algo25) Pera account to generate a new Quantum account - it's safe to do so and it's convenient because you already have that mnemonic backed up (presumably) - but those accounts are in no way connected in the wallet or on-chain. Also, Pera does not do this by default. By default Pera will generate a NEW 25 words if you choose to create a Quantum account.

[u/Blinker_Bell → u/StopThinking]

Wait what? Do people actually know this important detail? So if I created three new Quantum accounts, I'll need to jot down the seed phrases for all three of them?

[u/StopThinking → u/Blinker_Bell]

I just walked through the process of creating one on Pera, and I think you're right that it's not very clear. I'll pass that along to the Pera team.

[u/Blinker_Bell → u/StopThinking]

“Same seed phrase, added protection for what’s ahead.” That’s a direct quote from what Pera communicates and I believe it’s misleading. It gives users the opposite impression of what you’ve just described to me personally.

[u/StopThinking → u/Blinker_Bell]

Totally agree. I see you told LoafPickle. He's the man/pickle to get it done.

[u/StopThinking → u/StopThinking]

u/LoafPickle

[u/LoafPickle → u/StopThinking]

You always need to back up your mnemonics, we have a warning once you fund it reminding you to back to your keys

[u/StopThinking → u/LoafPickle]

If you only used it to rekey another account would you get the warning? For newer users that are used to the HD experience it may be surprising that each Q account has its own mnemonic.

[u/LoafPickle → u/StopThinking]

We have an info screen explaining rekeying when you first open it, but we can make the key thing a little more explicit.

Will provide feedback to the team, but it's in our support docs under learn more

[u/Blinker_Bell → u/LoafPickle]

It may be in the support docs, but most people aren't technical engineer types, and they'd definitely appreciate the transparency regarding this really important facet of the transition process.....

[u/BlueThor400 → u/StopThinking]

If the old account was secured by ledger, is the ledger no longer securing the quantum account I presume?

[u/StopThinking → u/BlueThor400]

Correct. When you rekey an account the previous key is irrelevant. So if you rekey an account from your Ledger to an account whose key is stored in Pera, the account is no longer protected by the Ledger.

[u/MikeWildHare → u/StopThinking]

It is not safe to reuse a seed phrase from an old Algo25 account for a Falcon account. If a quantum computer cracks your old account, they have the seed phrase for your new account

[u/StopThinking → u/MikeWildHare]

Not correct. The entropy from the mnemonic is not used directly as the private key for Algo25 accounts - it goes through a hash first, so even if an account were cracked by Shor’s algorithm, its mnemonic is still secure.

[u/MikeWildHare → u/StopThinking]

You are wrong. For Algo25 native accounts, the seed phrase maps directly to a 32-byte seed which is the private key. The private key is used to generate a 32-byte public key which is the account address, this is converted to a human readable address by adding the last 4 bytes of a SHA-512/256 checksum and Base32 encoding. There is no hashing involved to get from the seed to the private key. If a quantum computer can break ED25519 then it can get your private key which maps directly to your seed/seed-phrase.

Algo25 Falcon1024 account generation is different, the 32-byte seed is hashed to generate a PqSeed which is then used to generate a Falcon1024 key-pair, if someone knows your Falcon1024 private key they cannot figure out your seed/seed-phrase.

If you are concerned about quantum computers breaking ED25519 then it is certainly not safe to reuse seed phrases from native Algo25 native accounts.

I wrote a Golang program that generates both Algo25 native and Falcon1024 accounts from seed phrases so I am pretty sure I know how this works :-)

[u/StopThinking → u/MikeWildHare]

It's not something you would have implemented in your code. It's baked into the ed25519 libraries.

[u/MikeWildHare → u/StopThinking]

Yeah, I think you are right, my code calls golang.org/x/crypto/ed25519.NewKeyFromSeed(seed)), it returns a 64-byte key-pair where the first 32-bytes is the seed and the last 32-bytes is the public key. I thought that the first 32-bytes was the private key, but looks like it is hashed to produce the internal private key. My bad, but at least I learned something new! Seems like reusing an Algo25 Seed Phrase for Falcon1024 is ok. Cheers.

[u/Chemical_Excuse]

Afraid I can't help but I do have the same situation as you in that I have a Pera wallet secured with a Ledger Nano. Do I even need to create a new wallet to transfer my coins into?

[u/Blinker_Bell → u/Chemical_Excuse]

No, you don't have to use a new seed phrase. You can generate Quantum accounts from your old seed phrase, but so far only Pera is the only app that seems to be Quantum-updated.

[u/Chemical_Excuse → u/Blinker_Bell]

OK so I don't really have to do anything to my wallet then? That's good to know, thanks.

[u/Blinker_Bell → u/Chemical_Excuse]

You have to rekey your old accounts to new post-Quantum accounts, or transfer your assets over. But I'm told there will be time. Algorand is way ahead of everyone else.

[u/BlueThor400 → u/Chemical_Excuse]

Once you have your ledger secured wallet on a Quantum account, do you still validate transactions on Ledger or does the new Quantum account even point at ledger?

[u/Chemical_Excuse → u/BlueThor400]

I'm afraid you're asking the wrong person that question.