Ethereum Foundation Anticipates Quantum Security Upgrade by 2029

BlockBeats News, March 25th - The Ethereum Foundation released a new roadmap on Tuesday outlining how the development team is preparing for the threat of quantum computing. The Foundation's quantum team anticipates a series of initial network upgrades to be completed by 2029, involving primarily four key hard forks.

The Foundation stated that quantum computing will eventually break the public-key cryptography that secures ownership, authentication, and consensus in all digital systems, but it is not expected to happen immediately. Researchers from the Foundation's quantum team estimate that quantum computing with cryptographic capabilities is still 8 to 12 years away.

Among the four hard forks, the "I" fork will provide quantum-secure public keys to network validators, and the "J" fork will lower the Gas cost for validating quantum-secure signatures, with both upgrades being considered for the planned Hegota fork later this year. The "L" fork will compress network state expression into zero-knowledge proofs, while the "M" fork will shield Layer 2 networks from quantum threats.

Researchers stated that the Layer 1 protocol upgrades could be completed by 2029, with a full execution layer migration requiring additional years thereafter. The Ethereum Foundation established a dedicated quantum team in January this year, and developer testnets began testing partial quantum functionality in March.