post-quantum

According to Cryptopolitan, over 100 researchers, using AI coding agents, have reduced the quantum attack resource score for the Bitcoin secp256k1 elliptic curve point addition subroutine by 86.1% (from 10.75 billion to 1.496 billion). This optimization only targets a single step in Shor's algorithm and does not break any private keys or transfer funds; a complete attack still requires fault-tolerant quantum hardware that does not yet exist. However, each efficiency improvement compresses the time window for quantum migration after blockchain completion.According to Glassnode data, approximately 6.04 million BTC (30.2% of the circulating supply) face potential quantum risks due to exposed public keys on-chain. Ethereum plans to achieve full quantum resistance by December 2029, while the Bitcoin community faces greater challenges at the governance level, including how to handle approximately 1.7 million suspected dormant P2PK address coins held by Satoshi, which remains unresolved.

The a16z crypto research team today released a new version of the open-source zkVM Jolt, called Lattice Jolt. This version has the same architecture as the previous version but changes the underlying cryptography from elliptic curves to lattices, while achieving post-quantum security, a 2-3 times speed increase for provers and verifiers, and proof sizes below 100 KB.Lattice Jolt replaces the previous elliptic curve-based Dory with a new polynomial commitment scheme Akita based on the Module-SIS assumption, targeting full 128-bit security. Akita was developed by researchers and engineers from LayerZero in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Southern California, and the a16z crypto team. On the same machine, Lattice Jolt proofs exceed 2 million RISC-V cycles per second using only the CPU, and over 10 million cycles per second with Apple Metal GPU acceleration, with prover space reduced to about 200 bytes per cycle.

LayerZero announced the launch of Akita, calling it the first production-ready, lattice-based polynomial commitment scheme for post-quantum security.LayerZero stated that this is the first major step to achieve quantum security for Zero and will be implemented on the first day of Jolt's launch, thanks to collaboration with a16z crypto.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) stated that the Protocol Cluster has released two new articles that systematically assess the upcoming network upgrade Hegotá. Among them, the "Hegotá EIP Opinion Post and Tier List" evaluates and ranks the currently proposed 62 EIPs, marking the first time the team has published a unified EIP rating list for a major network upgrade.It was reported that approximately 60 researchers, engineers, and domain experts from 9 teams under the Protocol Cluster participated in the review, submitting a total of 397 rating opinions and engaging in live discussions on controversial proposals. The accompanying article outlines the current and future key directions of the Ethereum protocol layer, with one core goal being to promote Ethereum L1's quantum resistance by December 2029.The Ethereum Foundation indicated that the aforementioned upgrade plans, long-term commitments, and shared priorities at the cluster level provide the contextual basis for finalizing the scope of the Hegotá upgrade and the EIP ratings. Additionally, the Protocol Cluster will hold an AMA on September 16 at 14:00 UTC in the r/ethereum community on Reddit to discuss topics such as the Hegotá EIP ratings and key protocol developments.

The G7 Cybersecurity Working Group stated in its latest report that quantum computing poses security threats to both public and private institutions, as well as economic threats, and relevant organizations should begin migrating to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) immediately. The working group noted that the migration process could take several years, and attackers can currently collect and store encrypted data to decrypt it once sufficiently powerful quantum computers become available.Quantum computing may also break digital signatures, leading to identity theft and exposing businesses and their supply chains. The report did not mention cryptocurrencies, but similar public key cryptography is used for blockchain wallets and transaction authorizations. Currently, quantum computers are unable to break Bitcoin's cryptography, but developers are considering post-quantum solutions such as BIP-360. Ethereum researchers plan to replace several cryptographic components used by accounts, validators, and applications. The Solana Foundation has tested post-quantum signatures on its testnet and launched an optional hash-based vault. The G7 working group also urged governments to support relevant research, public-private collaboration, and national PQC strategies.

The Ethereum community has released a deposit contract EIP proposal that supports post-quantum computing. The proposal aims to introduce a new contract that supports variable-length public keys and credential metadata, along with a clear scheme identifier, where scheme 0 is reserved for the current BLS deposits.The new contract no longer relies on the Merkle tree structure of the old deposit contract but instead passes deposit information to the consensus layer through execution requests derived from EIP-7685 logs. This contract features an irreversible mode controlled by protocol system calls: deposits are initially disabled, BLS deposits are enabled at a specified timestamp, and BLS deposits are permanently disabled at a later timestamp, with no option for re-enabling. During the migration period, the execution client must merge deposit requests from the new and old contracts.

The open automated research challenge better.codes, created by the Ethereum Foundation's formal verification team in collaboration with Yukon and zkSecurity, is now live. This platform formalizes the self-contained problems from the Proximity Prize in Lean and places the machine-checked reliability bounds of koalaIRS12 on a public leaderboard, allowing anyone to contribute to improvements, advancing hash-based SNARK and post-quantum Ethereum-related security benchmarks.Solvers can bring their own AI agents to prove higher lower bounds of reliability for this Reed-Solomon proximity problem, moving towards a fixed target of 128 bits. The Lean kernel verifies each submission, and the promoted proofs will enhance the public bounds, with new lemmas, proof techniques, and impossibility results being synchronized upstream for reuse by all participants. Most hash SNARKs in production environments rely on related proximity gaps and related conclusion agreements, while the currently provable results remain below the benchmarks trusted by researchers; this challenge aims to narrow this gap in an open, incremental, and verifiable manner.koalaIRS12 originates from related papers and is end-to-end formalized in ArkLib. Participants can log in via GitHub and clone the challenge repository, submitting under fixed theorem statements and verification frameworks; results confirmed by the comparator and Lean kernel are recorded in a public repository, noting the solver and the model used. Today's launch features the reliability challenge that raises the proven lower bound of koalaIRS12 to 128 bits, with more problems potentially added later, subject to project terms.

Justin Drake posted on the X platform that Ethereum L1 will no longer use the SNARK-friendly hash function Poseidon, which has dominated since 2019, and will instead turn to traditional hash functions such as SHA2 or BLAKE2s.This adjustment is based on advancements in the field of SNARK design, shifting the focus from "SNARK-friendly hashing" to "hash-friendly SNARK." By aligning Boolean operations in traditional hashing with binary field native, the proof performance of traditional hashing in SNARK has reached 1 million per second, with an overhead of about 100 times.Research from Binius and Flock has driven relevant progress. The Ethereum Foundation's post-quantum team is advancing this route, with a roadmap that includes deploying production-level leanVM in 2027, and deploying in the consensus layer, execution layer, and data processing layer in 2028.Justin Drake also stated that the enhanced capabilities of AI in cryptanalysis have recently led to setbacks for the lattice-based scheme HAWK and the homomorphic scheme SQIsign, with hash-based schemes being used for post-quantum signatures on the blockchain. The trend of open-source automated research is also accelerating, with SNARK.fast achieving 1.8 million BLAKE3 proofs per second.

Vitalik Buterin stated that he has compared the 2023 Ethereum roadmap with the current Strawmap, and while there is still a high degree of overlap in the overall direction, some priorities and technical paths have been clearly adjusted. This includes elevating the priority of quantum security, downplaying VDF and certain EVM improvements, and replacing old designs with unified binary trees, PBT, new state types, and other solutions.He pointed out that the most significant change in the current Strawmap is the emergence of several new topics not included in the 2023 roadmap, reflecting a shift in the focus of Ethereum's development. These new focal points include: stronger native privacy support, aggressive scaling in a post-quantum context, streamlined specifications for formal verification, Blob and Gas futures, native Rollup, and a more open design space around the future form of EVM.Vitalik also emphasized that Ethereum's scaling approach is shifting from "broadly scaling all activities" to "designing more easily scalable dedicated mechanisms for specific high-load scenarios," and views STARK proofs and AI-accelerated formal verification as important foundations for the protocol's future. Overall, this update indicates that the Ethereum roadmap is evolving towards quantum security, privacy-first, censorship resistance, high performance, and more simplified protocol design.

Anthropic announced that the Claude Mythos Preview model has made breakthroughs in cryptographic research, discovering improved attack methods against the post-quantum digital signature candidate HAWK. HAWK is a post-quantum signature candidate solicited by NIST to combat quantum computer attacks, which has already passed two rounds of expert review. However, Claude reduced the effective key strength of HAWK-256 from 2^64 to 2^38 in just 60 hours, significantly lowering the theoretical cost of cracking. HAWK has not yet been deployed in practice, and this attack currently does not affect any production systems.Claude also discovered an improved attack against 7-round AES, achieving a speed increase of 200 to 800 times. During the research process, Claude independently completed literature reviews, mathematical reasoning, and experimental validation with limited guidance from cryptographers. The HAWK attack took about 60 hours and had an API cost of approximately $100,000; the AES attack was completed independently by Claude, which generated about 1 billion tokens before proposing core innovative ideas. Anthropic researchers then spent hundreds of hours validating the results. Anthropic stated that AI models can now help identify significant flaws in cryptographic algorithms, and the cryptography community may face bottlenecks similar to those in the software vulnerability field—AI-generated research results far exceed human verification capabilities. Anthropic has collaborated with academic institutions to launch the CryptanalysisBench benchmark and coordinated disclosures with NIST authors and government partners. The research team has achieved preliminary results on algorithms such as LEA and Serpent-128. Anthropic warns that as AI capabilities improve, actual attacks against deployed systems may be discovered in the future, necessitating the establishment of response mechanisms in advance.

According to the official announcement from NEAR Chain Status, the NEAR mainnet version 2.13.0 has been released, introducing post-quantum transaction signature schemes and dynamic sharding features.Voting will begin at 8:00 AM Beijing time on July 20. Former NEAR core developer Vadim introduced that this upgrade includes features that would typically require a ten-year roadmap for most blockchains: the post-quantum signature ML-DSA-65 becomes the third key type in the protocol after ed25519 and secp256k1, allowing accounts to hold keys that cannot be forged by quantum computers, with only a 32-byte hash recorded on-chain; dynamic sharding enables the chain to automatically monitor the status and size of each shard and to split and re-shard at epoch boundaries without the need for protocol upgrades or manual intervention; Gas Keys provide critical functionality for the proxy economy, allowing a single account to run a batch of proxies to send transactions simultaneously without nonce conflicts.

According to PR Newswire, QIZ Security announced the completion of a $17 million seed round financing, led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Merlin Ventures, with participation from Evolution Equity Partners, Qbeat Ventures, Singtel Innov8, Qino Cyber Capital, and others.The company positions itself as a management platform for crypto assets and post-quantum cryptography (PQC), providing continuous crypto asset discovery, risk modeling, and governance, helping large clients in finance, telecommunications, healthcare, and critical infrastructure achieve "crypto agility" to address the risk of "Q-Day," when quantum computing capable of breaking existing encryption systems may emerge as early as 2029, and collaborates with Cisco, AWS, Google, CrowdStrike, Deloitte, EY, IBM, and others to promote enterprise quantum security migration planning.

According to Cointelegraph, StarkWare has released the Starknet post-quantum roadmap, stating that the roadmap is divided into three phases to address the risks of future quantum computing attacks.The first phase of the roadmap includes replacing some existing security mathematical mechanisms, specifically the Pedersen hash, with post-quantum versions and adding post-quantum signatures; the second phase focuses on migration tools that upgrade existing smart contracts without requiring developers to manually rebuild applications; the third phase involves dependencies that Starknet cannot resolve on its own, primarily relying on Ethereum's quantum upgrade roadmap.

On Monday, U.S. President Trump signed two executive orders aimed at accelerating the development of U.S. quantum computing capabilities and advancing the government's transition to post-quantum cryptography. Although the executive orders did not directly mention Bitcoin, industry insiders believe this could benefit the blockchain's post-quantum security research and development.The two executive orders focus on defending against advanced cryptographic attacks and promoting cutting-edge quantum innovation. They include a clear timeline: to advance the construction of quantum sensors by September 2028 and require federal high-value assets and high-impact systems to complete the transition to post-quantum cryptography by the end of 2031. Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden stated that this means the U.S. government will invest time and resources to achieve post-quantum security goals and may extend related requirements to the entire federal contractor system, not just limited to government agencies, thereby accelerating the implementation of post-quantum cryptographic technology.At the time of this policy announcement, the blockchain industry’s concern about quantum threats continues to rise. Organizations like the Ethereum Foundation and the Solana Foundation have begun advancing post-quantum security research and development, while the Bitcoin community is also discussing potential risks. Some publicly exposed Bitcoin addresses are believed to face the risk of private keys being derived once powerful quantum computers emerge in the future. Pruden pointed out that this executive order clearly sets the deadline for adopting post-quantum cryptography as 2031, which is more binding than the previous guidance from the U.S. government that proposed phasing out traditional cryptographic systems by 2035. For Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency industry, government investment in post-quantum security may accelerate the maturity of related tools, standards, and migration paths.

According to The Defiant, Ethereum researchers Thomas Coratger, Justin Drake, and others released a proposal on June 1 at the Ethereum research forum, planning to establish a dedicated XMSS public key registry as the first concrete protocol upgrade for Ethereum's migration to post-quantum cryptography.This registry allows approximately 1 million validators to pre-register quantum-safe XMSS keys before the full switch to the BLS signature system, serving as an important "preheating phase" to reduce the impact of the subsequent switch on network stability. This proposal has been included in the Ethereum Foundation's protocol team's Strawmap roadmap, marking the first protocol fork on that roadmap.

Circle released the "Post-Quantum Security White Paper," proposing a phased post-quantum resilience roadmap focused on the long-term security of the Arc blockchain ecosystem.The roadmap covers multiple technical directions, including quantum secure signatures, private execution environments, validator hardening, infrastructure migration, and account recovery, applicable to core components such as the Arc network, USDC, smart contracts, and validators.Circle stated that it plans to provide post-quantum signature support when the Arc mainnet launches (in 2026) to enhance the ecosystem's ability to respond to future quantum computing threats.

NEAR Protocol stated on platform X that the team is adding post-quantum cryptography support for the network. NEAR's account model is different from Bitcoin and Ethereum; accounts are decoupled from cryptography and controlled through rotatable access keys.The NEAR One team is adding the NIST-approved lattice-based signature FIPS-204 scheme as the first post-quantum signature option. Once launched, any NEAR account holder can rotate keys through a single transaction, achieving quantum safety. NEAR is also collaborating with software and hardware wallets to advance post-quantum support.Through the chain signature feature, NEAR can provide threshold signatures for over 35 chains. The NEAR Intents team is developing a quantum-safe cross-chain signature solution. If other chains progress slowly in adopting post-quantum cryptography, NEAR can offer a quantum-safe environment. Aspects such as consensus mechanisms, validators, block synchronization, and transaction signatures also need to evolve for the post-quantum era, with the goal of achieving a one-time future-compatible migration.

According to the Korea Economic Daily, the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has announced that it will introduce post-quantum cryptography (PQC) technology to guard against the risk of future quantum computers potentially breaking existing encryption systems.Bithumb plans to comprehensively apply PQC technology from virtual asset wallet management to identity authentication systems, focusing on protecting customer private keys, and will collaborate with security technology company ATON to encrypt various stages of data processing, including input, authentication, transmission, and storage. Additionally, Bithumb will strengthen its real-time monitoring system to detect new types of hacker attacks and abnormal trading patterns that utilize quantum computers.