Securing NFT-Linked Digital Content Exchange in Software Wallets via Virtual PUF and Post-Quantum Cryptography

Cryptocurrency wallets are widely used to manage digital assets and interact with NFT marketplaces. However, while blockchain can verify ownership and transactions, protecting the digital content associated with an NFT before and during its exchange remains challenging. This paper presents virtual PUF-based NFT marketplace integrated with software wallet to provide a secure content exchange workflow without relying on permanently stored secret material. The proposed approach encrypts the seller’s digital asset before listing and generates a content-bound preview that allows buyers to inspect the asset without revealing the complete content. A virtual PUF-based mechanism is used together with cryptographic commitments and buyer-specific, post quantum ML-KEM-768 key encapsulation to support secure verification and recovery. Smart contracts coordinate the listing, payment, release, and settlement process, while encrypted artifacts are stored off-chain. Security analysis and prototype evaluation show that the system protects against common attacks such as artifact tampering, underpayment, unauthorized release, and invalid key registration while introducing only modest runtime and storage overhead. This architecture effectively enhances security and access control for NFT-linked content within software wallets.