Ethereum's Quantum Move: Abandoning Poseidon for SHA and BLAKE

Ethereum is shifting its base layer security, leaving the Poseidon hash function behind for traditional options like SHA and BLAKE. The announcement by researcher Justin Drake on August 13 signals a major strategic pivot. This comes after eight years of research aiming to future-proof Ethereum against quantum computing threats.

Since 2018, Ethereum funded SNARK-friendly hashes, with Poseidon quickly becoming a key player in 2019. But new advancements in SNARK designs have challenged the need for specialized hashes. Drake argues that traditional hashes can now match Poseidon's efficiency in a SNARK setting thanks to breakthroughs in proof systems built over binary fields. These systems directly interact with bit-level operations of traditional hashes, bypassing the need for expensive large prime number operations.

Drake credits research by Benjamin Diamond and Jim Posen, which adapted proof techniques to handle standard hashes efficiently. The capability to execute roughly one million traditional hash calls per second on a laptop, albeit 100x slower than native CPU, showcases this progress. Stepping away from riskier structures like lattices and isogenies that have faced setbacks, Ethereum's pivot could speed up deployment timelines. Production-grade leanVM by 2027 and full consensus, data, and execution layers by 2028 are on the horizon.

Here's the thing: this shift doesn't make Poseidon obsolete or force current projects to change. It's about reshaping Ethereum's Layer 1 design for future scalability and security. As AI improves cryptanalysis, Ethereum's conservative bet on traditional hashes stands out. The trend is clearer when you see it, simpler might just be the safer route in the cryptography race.