--- title: Algorand just shipped the thing we said to watch for description: Algorand's signature score moved from 8 to 9. The go-algorand 5.0.0 release shipped native Falcon-1024 accounts. What that changes, and what it does not. url: "https://hardyindex.com/news/algorand-native-falcon-accounts-ship" section: Why it moved type: score-change published: 2026-08-13 updated: 2026-08-13 chains: algorand methodology_version: 1.4 --- # Algorand just shipped the thing we said to watch for **Algorand's signature score moved from 8 to 9 today. The go-algorand 5.0.0 consensus release shipped native Falcon-1024 account signatures, post-quantum delegated LogicSigs and key management tooling. Ordinary holders can now use a post-quantum account type natively rather than through a workaround. Ed25519 remains the default, which is why this is not a 10.** *Published 13 August 2026. The rating below is current as of 2 October 2026. This is a security-readiness assessment, not investment advice.* Yesterday we wrote that the milestone worth watching was native Falcon accounts. They had landed the day before. ## What moved, and what caused it The signature dimension is the heaviest thing this index measures, worth 30 per cent of a chain's score, because it answers the most direct question there is: what actually protects the funds in your account. Algorand's moved up by a point. The release that caused the change. - **12 August 2026**: The go-algorand 5.0.0 stable consensus release ships, adding "native Falcon-1024 account signatures, PQ delegated LogicSigs, and new algokey pq commands for PQ key management". Post-quantum accounts move from a workaround built on LogicSignatures to a native account type in the protocol. Source: https://github.com/algorand/go-algorand/releases/tag/v5.0.0-stable This was picked up by the daily watch on Algorand's own repository, assessed against the published rubric, and opened as a proposal with the release attached as evidence. A human read the evidence and approved it. That is the only way a score moves here. ## Why this one counts Plenty of post-quantum announcements are a research paper, a testnet, or a promise with a date attached. This is a consensus release on mainnet, which is a different category of thing. The distinction that matters is between native and bolted on. Until this release, an Algorand holder who wanted a post-quantum account had to use a construction built on LogicSignatures, which carried program-size limits and the awkwardness of a workaround. A native account type does not. It is a first-class citizen of the ledger, and the release ships key management commands to go with it, which is the unglamorous part that decides whether anyone can actually use a feature. We flagged this specific milestone as the one to watch when we wrote about Algorand's readiness. It landed, roughly when the roadmap said it would. A chain doing what it published, on time, is worth saying out loud, because this index spends a lot of its time noting the opposite. ## What this does not mean It does not mean your ALGO is now post-quantum. Standard accounts still default to Ed25519, an elliptic-curve scheme that Shor's algorithm breaks, and the new account type is opt-in. If you do nothing, nothing about your account has changed. That is precisely why this is a move to 9 rather than to 10. The top of this band is reserved for a chain where a post-quantum signature protects every account by default, without the holder having to know the feature exists. Algorand is now one deliberate step away from that, rather than one architectural change away, which is a meaningful difference. > **The tier did not change.** Algorand's readiness tier is unchanged by this. The tier reflects deployment maturity across the whole chain, and an opt-in account type, however well built, does not move a chain into the rung above until it is the default. **Where this stands today.** - [Algorand](https://hardyindex.com/chains/algorand): Tier 2: Shipping, Hardy Score 77.5 of 100. As rated by the Hardy Index, current as of 2 October 2026. Ratings change when the evidence does, and every change is recorded at https://hardyindex.com/changelog.md. ## What this means if you hold ALGO For the first time there is something concrete you could do, rather than a roadmap to wait on. A native post-quantum account type exists on the chain you hold, with tooling to manage the keys. The sensible caution is that a feature shipped yesterday is a feature the wallet ecosystem has not caught up with yet. Native support in the protocol and support in the wallet you actually use are two different dates, and the second one has not been announced. Waiting for your wallet to offer this properly is a reasonable decision, and so is reading the release notes and trying it yourself if you are comfortable at that level. What has genuinely changed is the shape of the question. It used to be whether Algorand would ship this. Now it is whether holders and wallets take it up, and that is the thing we will be watching next. ## Where to go next - [Algorand: the full rating](https://hardyindex.com/chains/algorand.md): every dimension score, with the source behind each one. - [Which is the most quantum-resistant blockchain?](https://hardyindex.com/guides/most-quantum-resistant-blockchain.md): One question, one answer, with the working shown. This page is a summary of the Hardy Index, which is the live ranking behind it. - [Moving to a quantum-ready chain](https://hardyindex.com/guides/moving-to-a-quantum-ready-chain.md): If you have decided you want assets on a chain built for the quantum era, this is how that works in practice, and the honest case for not doing it. - [How Algorand became one of the few chains shipping post-quantum defences](https://hardyindex.com/news/algorand-falcon-shipped): The longer history, from State Proofs in 2022 to the account types that just landed. ## Sources Every dated event above carries its own primary source. These are those sources, checked on the dates shown. 1. [Algorand 5.0.0 stable release](https://github.com/algorand/go-algorand/releases/tag/v5.0.0-stable): algorand (GitHub) (primary, checked 13 August 2026) 2. [Post-Quantum Technology: Algorand's Quantum Resilience Journey](https://algorand.co/technology/post-quantum): Algorand Foundation (primary, checked 13 August 2026) 3. [Algorand targets broad quantum resilience by 2027](https://algorand.co/blog/algorand-targets-broad-quantum-resilience-by-2027): Algorand Foundation (primary, checked 13 August 2026) --- Cite as: The Hardy Index, "Algorand just shipped the thing we said to watch for", https://hardyindex.com/news/algorand-native-falcon-accounts-ship, published 13 August 2026.