Ethereum Abandons Poseidon After Proof Systems Flip Performance Tradeoff

Ethereum has abandoned its eight-year effort to create specialized cryptography for proof systems after recent advancements in proof systems changed the performance tradeoff, according to Ethereum researcher Justin Drake. The shift comes as researchers have built hash-friendly SNARKs, reducing the need for SNARK-friendly hashes.

The Ethereum Foundation is pivoting toward using SHA or BLAKE hashes for future layer-1 designs instead of Poseidon, which was designed to lower the proving cost for proof systems by fitting the preferred math. Drake noted that there has been no break in Poseidon and issued no migration order, but emphasized the change in circumstances.

A recent benchmark by Flock demonstrated significant improvements in hash throughput using newer techniques on standard hash computations. The benchmark showed one M4 Max core can prove about 82,000 BLAKE3 compression evaluations per second, with ten cores exceeding 660,000 compressions per second.