Ethereum Foundation Mobilizes for Quantum-Resilient Upgrade, Research Lead Says

The Ethereum Foundation has formalized a cross-discipline program to migrate the protocol to post-quantum (PQ) cryptography, combining active cryptographic research with pragmatic engineering milestones. A dedicated team now convenes recurring core-developer calls and operates multi-client PQ development networks to test candidate signature schemes and migration tooling under realistic multi-client conditions. Work is uneven across protocol layers: some subsystems are close to candidate implementations while others will require substantial re-engineering to accommodate larger signature sizes and new verification costs. The Foundation estimates roughly 20% progress on the overall migration effort but stresses that the metric varies significantly by component. Engineers are evaluating multiple technical mitigations — precompiles, account-abstraction patterns, signature aggregation and ZK-based compression — to control the bandwidth, storage and gas impacts of PQ signatures that can be an order of magnitude larger than current elliptic-curve schemes. A pragmatic emergency migration plan is being developed that leverages zero-knowledge proofs to allow users to prove ownership and transition funds to upgraded addresses without exposing private keys during a coordinated fork. Hardware and wallet vendors have begun prototyping lattice- and hash-based PQ schemes and demonstrated interoperability, but on-chain gas costs remain a major constraint when these algorithms are executed or verified by EVM-equivalent environments. The roadmap intentionally avoids a single rapid patch; replacing cryptography across execution, consensus and data-availability layers requires sequenced EIPs and community governance to align timing and acceptance. Broader context is sharpening the urgency: advances in AI are seen as accelerating quantum hardware progress and amplifying the risk that adversaries will collect encrypted archives today for decryption once quantum capability arrives. That “store now, decrypt later” threat concentrates priority on long-retention, high-value assets (custodial wallets, bridges, key-management services) and on any off-chain archives that, if exposed later, could enable large-scale breaches. Defenders therefore need not just algorithm swaps but automated, quantum-aware controls: resilient key management, zero-trust primitives, monitoring that operates at machine tempo, and migration playbooks for custodians and exchanges. If these mitigations and governance decisions are implemented well, the program reduces the chance of a disruptive emergency migration and large-scale fund loss; if coordination stalls or mitigation strategies underperform, users and custodians could face complex, costly transitions or retroactive exposures. Concrete near-term deliverables include published roadmaps, scheduled developer calls (first All Core Devs PQ call recorded), live PQ devnets and candidate precompiles under evaluation. For users, immediate practical steps remain simple and effective: avoid unnecessary reuse or exposure of public keys, rotate to fresh addresses where possible, and prioritize PQ-ready custody and wallet providers as they become available.