Overview
- Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko warned that Ethereum Layer 2 networks lack quantum safety, arguing their use of ECDSA on the secp256k1 curve leaves accounts exposed if future machines can reverse public keys into private keys.
- He described a “harvest now, decrypt later” risk in which attackers save today’s transaction data and use a powerful quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm to unlock funds once the technology exists.
- Yakovenko said AI could break post-quantum signature schemes by finding math or implementation flaws, so he urged two-of-three multisig that mixes different signature types rather than trusting a single scheme.
- Solana teams are building support for Falcon-512, a post-quantum signature option slated first for new accounts, with Anza and Firedancer developing implementations and migration tools for existing wallets without a forced network-wide switch.
- Rollups that use zero-knowledge proofs such as Groth16 or Plonk face theoretical quantum risks due to elliptic-curve pairings, while in Bitcoin, Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn noted Satoshi-era coins sit across thousands of P2PK addresses that would need to be cracked one by one.