Ethereum Prepares for Post-Quantum Shift with Deposit Contract Redesign

The deposit contract on Ethereum is about to undergo a significant change. A developer proposal aims to redesign the entry point for validators, moving from fixed BLS signatures to variable-length public keys and credential metadata.

This shift will introduce scheme identifiers, with Scheme 0 reserved for existing BLS deposits. The legacy Merkle-tree mechanism will also be removed in favor of execution-layer requests based on EIP-7685.

The proposal includes an irreversible migration switch, which means once the new deposit types are enabled, new BLS deposits cannot be made anymore.

This change is part of Ethereum's transition to post-quantum cryptography. The network is preparing for a future where BLS signatures are not the default for new validators.