Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has added a new twist into the discussion of quantum risks in the blockchain domain. He offered an unambiguous warning concerning the Ethereum scaling ecosystem.
On May 2, 2026, Solana’s Yakovenko wrote, “Ethereum L2s are not quantum safe, abandon all hope.” Also, the statement comes at a critical point as Bitcoin faces quantum risks too. Moreover, his comments came in reaction to a developer update that showed that Solana was making progress in post-quantum cryptography.
The update demonstrated work on integration with Falcon-512 signature verification which is a scheme that is resistant to future attacks by quantum computers. Internal activities among Solana clients, such as Anza and Firedancer, show that the network is heading towards deploying these protections to production.
The criticism focuses on the fact that Ethereum Layer 2 networks are still dependent on cryptographic systems that can be broken by a quantum breakthrough. The user wallets of most L2 systems continue to rely on the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), with the popular secp256k1 curve.
After the broadcasting of transactions, related public keys can be seen on-chain. These could face exploit risks in the long-term in case of the launch of quantum decryption tools.
This has created a “harvest now, decrypt later” situation, as the Solana co-founder warned. In such a scenario, attackers might store the data about transactions today and use them in the future with quantum machines using the Shor algorithm. Such a type of development has the potential to enable enemies to reassemble private keys to unauthorizedly access funds.
In addition to security of wallets, some of the zero-knowledge systems employed in rollups can also have theoretical threats. Such technologies as Groth16 and Plonk, typical of zkEVM designs, are based on elliptic-curve pairings. It might be undermined in sufficiently advanced quantum settings. Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, and zkSync networks are some that utilize these frameworks.
In the meantime, Solana has a roadmap of progressive introduction of Falcon-based security. Here, new accounts are likely to implement the system initially. Migration paths of existing wallets are being developed, and there is no urgent need to disrupt network upgrades.
In other parts of the industry, things are different. Ethereum developers are aiming to hit quantum-resistance targets later this decade. Moreover, other projects such as Algorand and Cardano are pursuing different research directions.
Ripple has also vowed to make XRP quantum proof by 2028. Bitcoin, in its turn, is still at an earlier discovery phase when it comes to post-quantum preparedness.
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