Ethereum Foundation pivots away from Poseidon in post-quantum plan
Advances in compact proofs have erased Poseidon’s previous performance advantage, according to researcher Justin Drake.
The Ethereum Foundation has decided to abandon the Poseidon hash function in its post-quantum architecture plans, according to researcher Justin Drake. Advances in compact proofs have diminished Poseidon's previous performance edge, as noted by Drake. The foundation plans to replace Poseidon with established alternatives like SHA or BLAKE, researchers said.
Hash functions transform data into fixed digital fingerprints, allowing computers to verify that information hasn't been altered. Poseidon was being considered for future post-quantum systems such as leanVM, which would assist Ethereum in efficiently verifying large volumes of blockchain activity. However, these systems have not yet been deployed on mainnet.
Drake explained that recent advancements in SNARKs, compact proofs used to confirm computations without repeating underlying work, have made conventional hashes efficient enough to replace Poseidon in these planned systems. He anticipated a production-ready leanVM by 2027, followed by deployments across Ethereum's consensus, data, and execution layers by 2028, though these dates remain preliminary.
Eigen Labs' Sreeram Kannan stated that established hash-based systems have fewer known attack avenues than other post-quantum approaches and can be deployed faster due to years of scrutiny. Kannan highlighted joint work with the foundation and zero-knowledge proof company Succinct, which had increased proving speeds by 2.5 times.
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