Ethereum Foundation prioritizes post-quantum security planning

The Foundation said the new team will turn years of academic research into engineering work, with a focus on wallet safety, transaction signatures and account abstraction. In practical terms, post-quantum protection aims to ensure that private keys and signatures used to control Ethereum accounts cannot be forged by quantum-capable machines, and that users can migrate to new cryptographic schemes without losing funds or access.

The roadmap includes biweekly post-quantum transaction calls starting next month, multi-client work on quantum-resistant consensus and account systems, and a dedicated post-quantum event scheduled for October. The Foundation also plans a post-quantum day in late March, timed ahead of EthCC, to review progress and coordinate across teams.

To incentivize development, the Ethereum Foundation announced two prize programs totaling $2 million. The Poseidon Prize will target advances in post-quantum cryptography and implementation, while the Proximity Prize will focus on practical tooling and integration that can be adopted by wallets, clients and applications.

The PQ effort is being led by Thomas Coratger, with support from cryptographer Emile, as part of a broader push to make quantum-resistant upgrades compatible with Ethereum’s existing account and execution model. The Foundation said the work will prioritize incremental changes that can be tested in parallel across clients before any network-wide decisions are made.

Post-quantum security has moved higher on the industry agenda as researchers warn that sufficiently powerful quantum computers could eventually break widely used signature schemes. While such machines are not yet available, the Foundation said early preparation is necessary because cryptographic transitions at network scale require long lead times.

The announcement comes the same week that Coinbase disclosed the formation of a quantum advisory board to study how advances in quantum computing could affect crypto custody and infrastructure. The parallel initiatives serve as the signal for growing coordination across the ecosystem as major platforms and protocol developers begin planning for a post-quantum future.