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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined and presented a strategy to address four aspects of the network that he believes are vulnerable to quantum influence.

Quantum technology and cryptocurrencies have been the subject of much discussion recently over fears that Bitcoin and other blockchains may be defenseless against quantum supercomputers.

On Thursday, Buterin unveiled an action plan to counter quantum computing for Ethereum, highlighting four key areas: validator signatures, data storage, user account signatures and zero-disclosure proofs.

He noted that replacing the current BLS (Boneh-Lynn-Shacham) consensus signatures with frugal cryptographically resistant to quantum attacks hash signatures would solve this problem. The difficulty lies in choosing a suitable hash function, as this solution is likely to be a long-term one.

This could be the ultimate Ethereum

hash function, so it’s critical to choose thoughtfully, he emphasized.

In August 2025, Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake introduced the concept of Lean Ethereum, a vision of a network that is resistant to quantum threats.

Regarding data storage, or blobs, Ethereum currently uses the Kate-Zaverucha-Goldberg (KZG) method to store and verify information.

The plan is to move to STARK (Zero-Knowledge Scalable Transparent Argument of Knowledge), which are quantum stable.

This is realizable, but will require significant engineering effort, Buterin added.

The third point is user accounts. Today, Ethereum relies on ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) signatures, which are standard cryptographic keys. The solution is to update the network so that accounts can use any signature scheme, including lattice-based methods that are resistant to quantum attacks.

However, quantum-resistant signatures are more resource-intensive and consume more gas.

The long-term solution will be protocol-level recursive signatures and evidence aggregation, which can reduce these unit gas costs to almost zero, he explained.

Quantum-resistant proofs are very costly to process in the network, so the way out is again in the recursive signature of the protocol level and aggregation of proofs, Buterin specified.

Instead of verifying each signature and proof separately on the blockchain, a single master proof or verification framework will be able to verify thousands of records simultaneously, minimizing costs.

So one block could hold a thousand verification frames, each containing either a 3KB signature or up to 256KB of evidence, he explained.