Crypto: Vitalik Buterin Outlines Quantum-resistance Roadmap For Ethereum

The Ethereum co-founder said four areas that need changes include validator signatures, data storage, user accounts and proofs, but the evolution won’t be easy.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has identified and proposed a plan to address four areas of the network that he sees as most quantum-vulnerable.

Quantum computing and crypto have been in the headlines recently as concerns mount over Bitcoin and other blockchains’ resistance to quantum-capable supercomputers.

Buterin posted his quantum resistance roadmap for Ethereum on Thursday, stating that the four areas are: validator signatures, data storage, user account signatures, and zero-knowledge proofs.

He said that replacing the current BLS (Boneh-Lynn-Shacham) consensus signatures with “Lean” quantum-safe hash-based signatures would fix that component. The tricky part is picking the right hash function, since this choice will likely stick around for a long time.

“This may be ‘Ethereum’s last hash function’, so it's important to choose wisely,” he said.

Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake proposed “Lean Ethereum,” a plan to make the network quantum-secure, in August 2025.

Regarding data storage, or “blobs”, Ethereum currently uses a system called KZG (Kate-Zaverucha-Goldberg) for storing and verifying data.

The plan is to swap this out for STARKs (Zero-Knowledge Scalable Transparent Argument of Knowledge), which are quantum-resistant. “It’s manageable, but there's a lot of engineering work to do,” said Buterin.

Related: Buterin outlines 4-year roadmap to speed up and quantum-proof Ethereum

Source: CoinTelegraph