X25519

X25519 is the Diffie-Hellman function over Curve25519, defined in RFC 7748, used to establish a shared secret from a 32-byte public key and a 32-byte private key. Fast and resistant to many implementation pitfalls, it is the default elliptic-curve key exchange in TLS 1.3, SSH, WireGuard, and the Signal protocol, replacing older Diffie-Hellman groups.

Role in post-quantum hybrids

On its own X25519 is a classical scheme broken by Shor's algorithm, so it is being combined rather than replaced. Current TLS deployments run X25519 alongside ML-KEM-768 in a hybrid key-exchange group named X25519MLKEM768, which concatenates both shared secrets so the handshake stays secure if either component holds. TLS libraries and browsers have shipped this hybrid as a default group since 2024, making it one of the most widely deployed pieces of hybrid cryptography. The X25519 half preserves today's classical security while ML-KEM adds resistance to a future quantum computer.

Sources

  1. RFC 7748: Elliptic Curves for Security (IETF, 2016)
  2. FIPS 203, Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism Standard (NIST, 2024)
  3. Post-quantum hybrid ECDHE-MLKEM Key Agreement for TLSv1.3 (IETF, 2025)
Cite this entry
"X25519." postquantum.wiki. Updated July 11, 2026. https://postquantum.wiki/x25519@misc{pqwiki-x25519, title = {X25519}, howpublished = {\url{https://postquantum.wiki/x25519}}, year = {2026}, note = {postquantum.wiki, updated 2026-07-11} }