170K–340K
Execution-Only Peak TPS
<$0.01
Cost / Million Tx
0%
PQC Penalty Eliminated
~600ms
Hard Finality Target
Public Key = Identity Is a Dead End
Every major blockchain is built on one assumption: your public key is your identity. This creates cascading failures across security, usability, and performance.

The Private-Key Trilemma

Self-custody, inheritance, and yield generation — pick two. Losing a private key means losing everything. Death of a holder means permanent asset loss. Millions of BTC are already gone forever.

Signature Verification Bottleneck

Every transaction requires per-signature verification at the consensus layer. Ed25519 takes ~76μs per signature. This is the primary throughput bottleneck across all Layer-1 chains, capping TPS at the verification speed.

Quantum Extinction Event

When Shor's algorithm breaks elliptic curves, replacing the signature algorithm means replacing every user's identity. State migration, contract updates, address changes — an ecosystem-wide catastrophe.

Identity-Authorization Separation
ACE-GF (Atomic Cryptographic Entity — Generative Framework) decouples on-chain identity from public keys. Your identity becomes a zero-knowledge commitment — public keys are reduced to replaceable authorization instruments.

One Decision, Six Solutions

Identity-authorization separation is not a feature — it is a generative principle. From this single design decision, six previously independent problems resolve simultaneously:

  • Self-custody + Inheritance + Yield coexist within one identity framework via dormant inheritance paths (CT-DAP)
  • O(1) block verification — credentials batch-verified in ZK circuits, cost independent of block size
  • Zero-cost PQC migration — swap algorithm, keep identity. No state migration, no address changes
  • Human-friendly payments — send to email or phone number via HFI-Pay, recover wallet with password via VA-DAR
  • Multi-VM execution — same identity across EVM, SVM, BVM, TVM, natively
  • Zero-coordination sharding — identity-based partitioning without cross-shard state sync
// Traditional: public_key == identity // ACE Chain: idcom == identity, keys are instruments Identity Material (16 bytes) // Single seed, deterministic multi-algorithm derivation ├─ HKDF("ACEGF-V1-ED25519-SOLANA") │ → Ed25519 key pair ├─ HKDF("ACEGF-V1-SECP256K1-EVM") │ → Secp256k1 key pair └─ HKDF("ACEGF-V1-ML-DSA-44-PQC") → ML-DSA-44 key pair (FIPS 204) // On-chain identity commitment (algorithm-agnostic) idcom = HKDF(identity_material, "identity") // 32 bytes, never changes regardless of key algorithm // Swap algorithm, keep address: OP_SET_AUTH_PUBKEY(idcom, ML-DSA-44 pubkey) // Same account, same balance, quantum-safe
What This Unlocks
Every feature below is a direct consequence of identity-authorization separation — not bolted on, but built in.
Industry First

PQC-Shielded Cross-VM Execution

Sign EVM, SVM, BVM, and TVM transactions with post-quantum ML-DSA-44 signatures — today. The authorization layer verifies PQC signatures before execution; VM engines are completely algorithm-agnostic. No need to wait for Ethereum or Solana to upgrade. Deploy your Solidity contracts on ACE Chain and get quantum protection with zero code changes.

Dual-Algorithm Native Layer

Ed25519 and ML-DSA-44 coexist as first-class peers at every protocol level — consensus, account, and client. Legacy wallets (MetaMask, Phantom) and PQC wallets (Yallet) share the same accounts and balances.

n-VM Multi-Virtual Machine Architecture

Native, EVM, SVM, BVM, and TVM engines share a unified state tree. Cross-VM asset transfers are balance changes on a unified ledger — no wrapping, no bridging. Each VM maps idcom to its native address format automatically. Future VMs inherit full infrastructure with zero integration cost.

ZK-Compressed Verification

STARK/FRI proofs batch-verify all credentials in a block. Verification cost is O(1) regardless of transaction count. 128-bit post-quantum security for the proof system itself. No trusted setup required.

HFI-Pay: Human-Friendly Payments

Send crypto to an email or phone number. Recipients claim funds by verifying their identity — no wallet needed upfront. Intent-based architecture handles discovery, locking, and settlement automatically.

VA-DAR: Serverless Recovery

Recover your wallet with just a password and human-memorable identifier. No seed phrase backup. No centralized custodian. Encrypted artifacts stored on-chain with enumeration-resistant addressing.

CT-DAP: Inheritance Without Exposure

Create dormant inheritance paths that activate only upon holder death or incapacitation. Beneficiaries inherit assets without ever having access to the holder's private key material. Self-custody, yield, and inheritance — all three, simultaneously.

Agent Economy Infrastructure

Sub-second finality and <$0.001 transaction fees make on-chain micro-payments economically viable. AI agents can execute high-frequency economic actions with cryptographic policy boundaries, settling directly on-chain.

Four-Layer Transaction Pipeline
Every transaction flows through authorization, execution, proof, and finality — each layer independently upgradeable.
User
Layer
YalletPQC-native wallet
MetaMaskLegacy EVM path
PhantomLegacy SVM path
HFI-PayEmail / phone
Authorization
Layer
TaggedSignatureEd25519 / Secp256k1 / ML-DSA-44
Attestation RelayAR-ACE mempool propagation
Credential VerifyAlgorithm-agnostic dispatch
↓ verified idcom (32 bytes)
Execution
Layer
Native VMTransfers, system ops
EVMSolidity / ERC-20
SVMSolana programs
BVMBitcoin Script
TVMTron contracts
Proof
Layer
STARK / FRI128-bit PQ security
Winterfell ProverGPU-accelerated, ~240ms/slot
ACPSAtomic proof bundle stitching
How ACE Chain Compares
The differences are architectural, not incremental.
Capability ACE Chain Ethereum Solana
Native PQC Signatures ML-DSA-44 (FIPS 204) None (EIP-7702 proposed) None
Identity Model idcom (ZK commitment) Public key hash Public key
PQC Migration Cost Zero (parameter switch) Full state migration Full state migration
PQC Impact on TPS 0% (decoupled layers) ~85% drop projected ~90% drop projected
Verification Cost O(1) via ZK batch O(n) per-sig O(n) per-sig
Multi-VM Execution EVM + SVM + BVM + TVM EVM only SVM only
Cross-VM PQC All VMs inherit PQC N/A N/A
Human-Friendly Payments Email / phone native ENS (paid, manual) SNS (paid, manual)
Serverless Recovery VA-DAR on-chain Seed phrase only Seed phrase only
Inheritance CT-DAP (dormant paths) Key exposure required Key exposure required
Academic Foundations
ACE Chain's architecture is grounded in published research.
arXiv 2511.20505

ACE-GF: A Generative Framework for Atomic Cryptographic Entities

The cryptographic foundation — identity-authorization separation, deterministic multi-algorithm key derivation, and zero-knowledge identity commitments.

arXiv 2603.07974

ZK-ACE: Identity-Centric Zero-Knowledge Authorization for Post-Quantum Blockchain Systems

O(1) verification through recursive STARK proofs, batch credential verification, and post-quantum-secure proof composition.

arXiv 2603.10242

ACE Runtime: A ZKP-Native Blockchain Runtime with Sub-Second Cryptographic Finality

The execution runtime that unifies identity verification, ZK proof generation, and transaction processing into a single sub-second pipeline.

arXiv 2603.23670

n-VM: A Multi-VM Layer-1 Architecture with Shared Identity and Token State

Multi-virtual-machine execution with a unified state tree — EVM, SVM, BVM, and TVM sharing identity and token balances natively.

arXiv 2603.07982

AR-ACE: ACE-GF-based Attestation Relay for PQC

Lightweight mempool propagation without on-path proofs — solving the bandwidth challenge of 2420-byte ML-DSA-44 signatures at scale.

arXiv 2603.02690

VA-DAR: A PQC-Ready, Vendor-Agnostic Deterministic Artifact Resolution for Serverless, Enumeration-Resistant Wallet Recovery

Serverless wallet recovery using on-chain encrypted artifacts and human-memorable identifiers, with enumeration-resistant addressing.

arXiv 2603.07933

CT-DAP: Condition-Triggered Cryptographic Asset Control via Dormant Authorization Paths

Crypto-asset inheritance without key exposure — dormant authorization paths that activate only upon verifiable trigger conditions.

arXiv 2603.00318

AESP: A Human-Sovereign Economic Protocol for AI Agents with Privacy-Preserving Settlement

Agent economic sovereignty — policy-bounded spending, privacy-preserving micro-settlement, and A2A interoperability on-chain.

Technical Whitepaper

The complete technical specification — from cryptographic primitives to consensus design.

ACE Chain Technical Whitepaper

Redefining Blockchain Identity from Cryptographic Primitives. Covers ACE-GF foundations, n-VM architecture, ZK-compressed verification, PQC-Shielded Cross-VM execution, and economic analysis.

Download PDF