Buterin Proposes Quantum-Safe Ethereum Transactions at 1% of Current Cost

Vitalik Buterin has proposed a solution to make Ethereum's post-quantum transactions significantly cheaper. The Ethereum co-founder's proposal, EIP-8288, could reduce the cost of quantum-safe signatures on the network by over 99%. This is crucial as current estimates suggest that highly optimized privacy transactions require around 300,000 gas, while a quantum-safe implementation could balloon to roughly 10 million gas.

The proposed architecture would aggregate pending transactions into recursive STARK proofs before they enter a block. This would shift the computationally heavy verification work away from Ethereum's main execution path. Block creators would package the necessary proofs for transactions to be included in a block, meaning the main chain only needs to verify one aggregate proof instead of checking each signature individually.

Buterin noted that this approach could also help establish RISC-V as the standard instruction set for recursive STARK transactions across the Ethereum ecosystem. The proposal is still in its early stages and will be considered after the Hegota fork under a placeholder name, I-Star. The Ethereum Foundation has set December 2029 as the deadline for making Ethereum's base layer quantum-resistant.