New post-quantum signatures are 40x larger, threatening to crush network throughput and user costs
Ethereum elevated post-quantum cryptography to a high strategic precedence this month, forming a devoted PQ group led by Thomas Coratger and asserting $1 million in prizes to harden hash-based primitives.
The announcement got here in the future earlier than a16z crypto revealed a roadmap arguing that quantum threats are continuously overstated and untimely migrations threat buying and selling recognized safety for speculative safety.
Each positions are defensible, and the obvious pressure reveals the place the actual battle lies.
The Ethereum Basis’s announcement frames PQ security as an inflection point. Multi-client consensus devnets are dwell, bi-weekly All Core Devs calls begin subsequent month to coordinate precompiles and account abstraction paths, and a complete roadmap guarantees “zero lack of funds and 0 downtime” throughout a multi-year transition.
Coinbase launched an unbiased quantum advisory board on Jan. 21, together with Ethereum researcher Justin Drake, signaling cross-industry alignment round long-horizon planning.
Solana ran PQ signature experiments on testnet in December underneath Challenge Eleven, explicitly branding the work as “proactive” quite than emergency-driven.
Polkadot’s JAM proposal outlines ML-DSA and Falcon deployment alongside SNARK-based migration proofs.
Bitcoin’s conservative BIP-360 proposal for pay-to-quantum-resistant-hash represents an incremental first step constrained by governance realities.
The sample resembles an arms race, however not one pushed by an imminent risk.
This can be a competitors in institutional readiness, the place the winner preserves price economics, consensus effectivity, and pockets UX whereas upgrading cryptographic foundations earlier than exterior strain forces rushed coordination.
The harvest paradox
a16z’s core argument hinges on distinguishing harvest-now-decrypt-later threat from signature vulnerability. HNDL assaults matter when adversaries can intercept encrypted information right this moment and decrypt it as soon as quantum computer systems obtain ample scale.
That risk maps cleanly to TLS, VPNs, and data-at-rest encryption. Much less so to blockchain signatures, which authenticate transactions in actual time and go away no encrypted payload to retailer for future cracking.
Ethereum’s response implicitly accepts this framing however argues operational urgency stays excessive as a result of altering signature schemes touches every part: wallets, account codecs, {hardware} signers, custody infrastructure, mempools, price markets, consensus messages, and L2 settlement proofs.
Migration requires years of lead time, not as a result of quantum computer systems are imminent, however as a result of the engineering floor is huge and failure modes are catastrophic.
NIST finalized its first post-quantum standards in 2024, FIPS 203, 204, and 205, and chosen HQC as a backup key encapsulation mechanism whereas advancing Falcon and FN-DSA towards draft phases.
The EU issued a coordinated PQC transition roadmap in June 2025. These developments cut back “which algorithms?” uncertainty and make migration planning concrete, even when cryptographically related quantum computing stays distant.
Citi’s January 2026 report cites probability ranges for widespread breaking of public key encryption by 2034 and 2044, although many consultants view CRQC within the 2020s as extremely unlikely.
The timeline ambiguity would not remove the planning crucial: it amplifies it, as a result of chains that wait till risk indicators are unambiguous will face compressed timelines and coordination chaos.
Signature bloat because the base-layer bottleneck
The fast technical problem is signature dimension.
ECDSA signatures consume roughly 65 bytes, which interprets to roughly 1,040 gasoline underneath Ethereum’s calldata pricing mannequin at 16 gasoline per non-zero byte.
ML-DSA candidates produce signatures within the 2-3 KB vary, with Dilithium variants more likely to see huge adoption. A 2,420-byte signature consumes roughly 38,720 gasoline only for the signature bytes, a 37,680-gas delta versus ECDSA.
That overhead is materials sufficient to have an effect on throughput and charges except chains compress or mixture signatures on the protocol stage.
That is the place Ethereum’s guess on hash-based cryptography and the $1 million Poseidon Prize turns into strategic. Hash-based signatures keep away from the algebraic construction that quantum algorithms exploit, and hash capabilities combine naturally with zero-knowledge proof methods.
If Ethereum could make STARK-based signature aggregation sensible, it preserves price economics whereas upgrading safety assumptions. The problem is that no sensible post-quantum analogue to BLS aggregation exists but, and zk-based aggregation introduce actual efficiency constraints.
Consensus effectivity will depend on this downside.
Ethereum’s consensus layer depends closely on BLS signature aggregation right this moment. Validators signal attestations and sync committee messages, and the protocol aggregates 1000’s of signatures into compact proofs.
Shedding that functionality and not using a alternative would power dramatic modifications to consensus participation economics or liveness assumptions.
EF’s public emphasis on “lean” cryptographic foundations and interop calls coordinating multi-client PQ devnets suggests the group understands aggregation is the hidden cliff.
| Signature scheme | Signature dimension (bytes) | Calldata gasoline @ 16 gasoline / non-zero byte | Delta vs ECDSA (gasoline) | Implication |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ECDSA (secp256k1, r||s||v) | 65 | 1,040 | 0 | Baseline right this moment |
| ML-DSA-44 | 2,420 | 38,720 | +37,680 | Price + throughput shock |
| ML-DSA-65 | 3,309 | 52,944 | +51,904 | Aggregation turns into necessary |
| ML-DSA-87 | 4,627 | 74,032 | +72,992 | L1 scaling strain spikes |
Pockets UX because the social layer of cryptography
Protocol help alone would not full the migration.
Externally owned accounts cannot rotate keys cleanly underneath Ethereum’s present design. Customers want one-click migration flows that do not require deep technical data. {Hardware} wallets should ship firmware updates. Custodians want a protected bulk migration tooling.
Ethereum researchers have explored key-recovery-friendly proof systems and seed-based migration approaches exactly to cut back coordination threat and UX friction.
a16z warns that untimely migration introduces fragility, together with immature implementations, shifting requirements after deployment, and bugs in new cryptographic libraries.
The group argues that present safety points, corresponding to governance failures and software program bugs, pose a better fast threat than quantum computer systems.
That is the crux of the “do not panic” framing: migrating too early trades recognized safety for speculative safety, and the price of getting it fallacious is doubtlessly greater than the price of ready for requirements maturity and higher tooling.
Each positions are defensible as a result of they optimize for various failure modes. EF prioritizes avoiding rushed coordination underneath strain.
a16z prioritizes avoiding self-inflicted wounds from hasty deployment. The divergence reveals the actual battleground: chains that thread the needle, constructing migration infrastructure early with out prematurely forcing customers onto immature requirements, will acquire a aggressive benefit.
Three eventualities, completely different winners
The migration timeline will depend on exterior breakthroughs that nobody controls.
In a slow-burn situation the place CRQC would not arrive till the 2040s, migration happens on a regulatory and requirements cadence, prioritizing security over velocity. Chains that invested in crypto agility, with dual-signature intervals, hybrid schemes, break-glass playbooks, can adapt with out disruption.
Within the base case the place materials quantum threats emerge within the mid-2030s, right this moment’s work determines outcomes. If the ecosystem desires clean transitions by 2035, pockets tooling and aggregation analysis have to be production-ready years earlier.
That is the situation EF’s roadmap optimizes for, and the one the place multi-year lead occasions justify present funding.
In a fast-shock situation the place breakthroughs sign credible threat earlier than 2030, the differentiator turns into how rapidly a series can freeze publicity, migrate accounts, and keep liveness. a16z argues this consequence is unlikely, however the group’s emphasis on planning suggests even low-probability tail dangers justify preparation.
Triggers to look at embrace credible demonstrations of error-corrected scaling, logical qubit stability, and sustained gate fidelities. NIST or main governments advancing migration deadlines, and main custodians delivery PQ-capable signing in manufacturing.
None are imminent, however all would compress resolution timelines.
| Battleground layer | Why it issues | What EF’s push indicators | a16z “don’t panic” counterpoint | KPI to look at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Planning & crypto agility | Migration is a multi-year program; the failure mode is rushed coordination underneath strain | Devoted PQ group + governance cadence (PQ ACD) = treating migration as a protocol program, not a analysis thread | Untimely shifts can enhance threat (immature libs, shifting requirements, new bugs) | Existence of a revealed chain roadmap + clear “break-glass” plan + staged rollout milestones |
| Pockets UX & account migration | Customers received’t migrate except it’s near-frictionless; EOAs are the lengthy tail | Emphasis on account abstraction paths + “zero downtime / zero loss” messaging = UX is central | Keep away from forcing customers onto new schemes too early; UX failures turn into self-inflicted losses | % of wallets/custodians supporting dual-sign / key rotation flows; time-to-migrate for non-technical customers |
| Aggregation & price economics | PQ sigs may be giant; with out aggregation you lose throughput and lift charges | LeanVM + hash/zk foundations + devnets suggest the guess is protocol-level compression | Even “right” PQ may be unusable if it breaks economics; don’t commerce usability for theoretical security | Demonstrated signature aggregation efficiency (proof dimension/verification time) and ensuing value per tx/attestation |
| Consensus effectivity & validator overhead | Ethereum’s consensus depends on aggregation right this moment; dropping it threatens liveness/economics | Multi-client PQ consensus devnets + interop calls = treating consensus because the exhausting half, not simply wallets | New consensus crypto is high-risk engineering; conservative rollout beats rushed redesign | Measured bandwidth/CPU overhead per validator vs right this moment; attestation inclusion charges underneath load |
| Interop & requirements maturity | Requirements cut back “which algorithm?” uncertainty; ecosystems converge on safer decisions | Prizes + workshops + exterior alignment (advisory boards) = ecosystem coordination | Anticipate requirements/implementations to mature earlier than forcing mass migration | NIST/EU milestone alignment; delivery PQ help in main libraries/HW wallets with out crucial CVEs |
The brand new standing recreation
Put up-quantum readiness is turning into an institutional credibility metric, following the identical path L2 maturity took in earlier cycles.
Chains with out credible PQ roadmaps threat being perceived as unprepared for long-term settlement assurance, even when the fast risk is distant.
This dynamic explains why Solana, Polkadot, and Bitcoin all have energetic PQ workstreams regardless of the absence of imminent Q-day consensus.
The arms race is not about who flips PQ first. As a substitute, it is about who preserves UX, price economics, and consensus effectivity whereas doing it.
Ethereum’s strategy bets on hash-based foundations, zk aggregation, and governance coordination.
Solana’s high-throughput structure makes signature overhead notably acute, forcing design innovation.
Polkadot’s heterogeneous sharding mannequin permits per-chain experimentation.
Bitcoin’s conservatism displays governance constraints and a protracted tail of legacy outputs that may’t be migrated with out proprietor cooperation.
If PQ turns into the subsequent L1 arms race, the winner will not be the chain that asserts essentially the most prizes or devnets. Will probably be the chain that ships a migration path regular customers truly full, preserves throughput regardless of multi-KB signature candidates, and replaces right this moment’s aggregation assumptions with out sacrificing liveness.
The planning layer, pockets UX layer, and aggregation layer at the moment are the actual battleground, and the clock began years earlier than most contributors realized the race had begun.
