Ethereum developers propose first step to protect ETH staking from quantum attacks

A group of Ethereum researchers proposed rebuilding the contract that allows participants to become validators to help secure the blockchain from potential quantum-computing enabled attacks.

The proposal targets the deposit contract, or entry point through which users lock up ether $ETH$2,451.96 to qualify as validators, the operators who verify transactions and keep the blockchain running. It seeks to add a switch to prevent the network accepting the signature format it currently relies on.

The current format is one of the obstacles to implementing a broader rollout. Because it hard-codes the size of the specialized cryptographic key pairs known as BLS keys, Ethereum could not accept a quantum-resistant signature even if developers agreed on one tomorrow.

Roughly 42.4 million $ETH is staked on Ethereum as of Wednesday, worth about $104 billion at current prices, all of it secured by validator keys using the format the draft would eventually retire.

The proposal is an early draft awaiting review, currently filed under a placeholder number, with one of the repository’s maintainers suggesting it be numbered EIP-8394.

The proposal also retires the old deposit-processing system Ethereum has used since staking was introduced in 2022 and transfers deposits onto the newer framework already handling withdrawals and validator changes.

How the tech works

Validators currently sign transactions with BLS, a system whose main advantage is that hundreds of thousands of signatures can be squashed into one, which is what keeps Ethereum’s consensus affordable.

The technology, however, is built on the elliptic curve maths that a quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm could unpick, letting an attacker forge a validator’s signature.