Ethereum Abandons Poseidon in Favor of Standard Hashes

The Ethereum Foundation has made a significant shift in its cryptography strategy to prepare for the era of quantum computers. After an eight-year research effort, the foundation will drop the Poseidon SNARK-friendly hash function and adopt standard hashes like SHA-2 or BLAKE2.

This move is based on breakthroughs in binary-field proof systems, which have enabled traditional hash functions to match the speed of Poseidon. The Ethereum Foundation's researcher, Justin Drake, credited the Binius research by Benjamin Diamond and Jim Posen in 2023, alongside newer work called Flock, for this advancement.

The new approach allows for the use of standard hashes without the need for specialized primitives, reducing reliance on riskier structures like lattices and isogenies. Drake framed the security case around minimal assumptions, arguing that plain hashes give Ethereum a foundation it can trust for decades.