The Ethereum Foundation has declared post-quantum security (PQ) as a key strategic priority and has assembled a dedicated team of developers.
Today marks an inflection in the Ethereum Foundation’s long-term quantum strategy.
We’ve formed a new Post Quantum (PQ) team, led by the brilliant Thomas Coratger (@tcoratger). Joining him is Emile, one of the world-class talents behind leanVM. leanVM is the cryptographic…
— Justin Drake (@drakefjustin) January 23, 2026
The group will be led by cryptographic engineer Thomas Coratger from the EF, supported by a specialist from the leanVM team known as Emile, as reported by researcher Justin Drake.
“Our journey began in 2019 with the Eth3.0 Quantum Security presentation at StarkWare Sessions. Since 2024, PQ has been central to the leanEthereum concept. The pace of engineering breakthroughs in PQ has been phenomenal since then. But now it’s 2026, and timelines are accelerating,” he wrote.
Drake described leanVM as the “cornerstone” of Ethereum’s post-quantum cryptography strategy. The virtual machine is optimized for using zero-knowledge proofs and quantum-resistant hash-based signatures.
Transition Accelerates
In November 2025, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warned that the cryptocurrency’s underlying elliptic cryptography could become vulnerable by 2028.
According to Drake, the blockchain project’s task is to transition to quantum-resistant technologies soon without downtime or loss of funds. He outlined several steps planned or already implemented in this direction:
- The consensus client teams Lighthouse and Grandine have already implemented post-quantum developer networks. A similar solution is expected soon from Prysm;
- EF is launching a $1 million prize to enhance the reliability of hash functions. An equivalent amount is allocated for another PQ initiative called the Proximity Prize;
- Next month, weekly developer sessions dedicated to PQ will begin under the leadership of Antonio Sanso. The sessions will focus on user-oriented security, including account abstraction and signature aggregation using leanVM.
- In October, EF will hold a three-day thematic workshop in Cambridge, and at the end of March, a separate session before the EthCC conference in Cannes.
And What About Bitcoin?
The community of the first cryptocurrency acknowledges the quantum risk to the blockchain. However, timelines vary significantly.
Renowned cypherpunk and Blockstream CEO Adam Back is confident that the risk of hacking will not become real for another 20-40 years. Some experts, like analyst Willy Woo and the Quantum Doomsday Clock project team, are less optimistic. They consider the range of 2028-2030.
Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter has even criticized Bitcoin developers for ignoring the threat of quantum computing. In his view, the risk is already negatively affecting the dynamics of digital gold’s prices. This assertion was disagreed with by Checkonchain founder and lead analyst James Check.
According to Back, developers are conducting relevant research. However, Check believes that the main problem will not be creating but implementing a protection mechanism—the Bitcoin community is extremely slow to reach consensus on protocol changes.
Naoris Protocol’s Chief Commercial Officer Youssef El Maddarsi, in a column for Cointelegraph, reminded that even a “minor” update like Taproot required lengthy discussions and agreements.
Another significant issue he highlighted is the potential transition to quantum-resistant technologies, which will require a fundamental upgrade of signature mechanisms in the protocol. Researchers from the University of Kent estimate such a major upgrade would result in 75-300 days of downtime. For a global financial asset with a market capitalization exceeding $1 trillion, this seems unacceptable, Maddarsi emphasized.
Back in December, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, pointed out the risk of blockchain performance dropping significantly during migration to quantum-resistant solutions.