Ethereum Foundation Abandons Poseidon Hash Function for Post-Quantum Security

The Ethereum Foundation is revising its post-quantum security strategy by dropping the Poseidon hash function. This change will affect plans for leanVM, a system designed to improve the efficiency of processing and verifying large amounts of blockchain activity.

Researcher Justin Drake announced the shift on August 13, citing improvements in SNARKs (compact cryptographic proofs) as making conventional hash functions efficient enough to handle the workload that Poseidon was initially expected to take on. SHA and BLAKE have been identified as potential replacements for Poseidon.

Sreeram Kannan, founder of Eigen Labs, noted that SHA and BLAKE offer a practical advantage over other post-quantum approaches due to their fewer known attack vectors. Collaborative work between Eigen Labs, the Ethereum Foundation, and Succinct has increased proving speeds by 2.5 times.