Ethereum Post-Quantum Signatures Plummet 94% to 1.23M Gas

A significant breakthrough has been made in post-quantum cryptography on Ethereum. Researchers have optimized the ML-DSA-44 signature verifier, reducing gas costs to 1.23 million per verification, a 6.6× decrease from the previous benchmark of 8.09 million gas.

This development is crucial for Ethereum's long-term viability in a post-quantum computing era. The current cryptographic foundation, ECDSA, is not quantum-safe, and if quantum computers capable of breaking ECDSA signatures were developed, existing Ethereum accounts could be compromised.

The researchers behind the project reengineered key computations to minimize gas costs, achieving significant reductions in SHAKE-256 hashing and number-theoretic transforms (NTTs). For instance, SHAKE-256 operations dropped from 3 million gas to 0.4 million, while memory expansion costs were slashed from 1.8 million gas to just 7,000.

While the implementation has yet to undergo a formal audit, its rigorous testing provides confidence in its reliability. Developers interested in experimenting with the verifier can access the full code and proofs on GitHub.