The technology world is divided on how immediate a threat quantum computing is; some say it could be before the end of the decade, while others give it over 50 years. However, blockchain networks like IOTA and Aptos are working on post-quantum (PQ) security in advance, and the Ethereum Foundation has become the latest to launch a PQ initiative.
Justin Drake, a researcher with the Foundation, announced recently that it has launched a new PQ team led by Thomas Coratger, another researcher who has been at the Foundation for years. Coratger’s team will include the mind behind LeanVM, a proposed zero-knowledge virtual machine that accelerates scaling in post-quantum world.
While the Foundation is only now launching a dedicated team, Drake revealed that it has been at work since 2019, preparing for the rise of quantum computing. Founder Vitalik Buterin has been consistently calling on blockchain projects to speed up their pace as quantum computers are an existential threat. As we reported, he believes that they could break Ethereum and Bitcoin’s cryptographic techniques in four years.
To prepare for this future, researcher Antonio Sanso will begin a bi-weekly breakout call for all core developers starting next month. These calls will focus on “user-facing security, covering dedicated precompiles, account abstraction, and longer-term transaction signature aggregation with leanVM.”
Later this year, the Foundation will also host a PQ workshop, similar to the inaugural one, held last year in Cambridge. At the Ethereum conference in Cannes in March, there will also be a dedicated PQ day to discuss the latest developments.
The Foundation is also running multi-client PQ consensus development networks, which have brought together teams like Ream Labs and Zeam ETH, with the Foundation’s protocol coordinator Will Corcoran running the initiative.
As with any other development, education and awareness campaigns are vital to bringing more interested parties onboard. The Foundation has been working on a 6-part video series about its PQ strategy. It also joined the independent advisory board created by Coinbase last week.
To stimulate community engagement, the Foundation has announced a $1 million prize for the winners of its Poseidon challenge, which aims to strengthen the Poseidon hash function. It insists that despite the criticism, hash-based cryptography is still the way to go, although some like Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson have disagreed publicly. This is in addition to the existing $1 million Proximity Prize.
The new PQ team comes just as Optimism, a leading Layer 2 on Ethereum, unveiled its post-quantum roadmap. Optimism noted that if large-scale quantum computers arrive, “core cryptography in Ethereum and the Superchain could be at risk. Signatures and commitments are the foundation of the system. If those break, everything built on top is in trouble.”
While the entire tech world agrees that quantum computing is a systemic risk for crypto and finance, there’s major division on the timeline. Some like Vitalik believe it’s only a few years away. Others, like a16z Crypto, say these predictions are “frequently overstated.” The company, which has invested in almost every other major crypto project, says the cost of running these computers will be prohibitive, even if the technology itself matures faster than expected.
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