Research group Ethlabs is withdrawing its Quick Slots proposal from Ethereum's Hegotá upgrade and redirecting its resources to a security roadmap called pqai27. The plan targets quantum and AI threats by 2027, a considerably more aggressive timeline than the Ethereum Foundation's.
Ethlabs announced it would withdraw its Quick Slots proposal from Ethereum's planned Hegotá upgrade. The group is redirecting its resources toward pqai27, a new security roadmap. The initiative aims to make Ethereum's core infrastructure and user accounts more resistant to emerging cryptographic threats by 2027.
Ethlabs puts security ahead of faster blocks
Ethlabs had backed EIP-8198, known as Quick Slots, which would cut Ethereum's block production interval from 12 seconds to 10 seconds. The group now believes that preparing for future cryptographic threats should take priority over performance gains.
The group also addressed FOCIL, a feature meant to make it harder for block producers to exclude valid transactions. Ethlabs said it should proceed only if its development does not interfere with the quantum-security timeline. Frame Transactions, known as EIP-8141, would remain a central part of the plan, since they could allow alternative signatures designed to withstand quantum attacks.
A two-stage path to quantum-ready Ethereum
The proposal divides the transition into two stages. The first, pqai-ready, would upgrade the consensus layer with post-quantum cryptography and give users a way to migrate their accounts to more secure authentication. Under those conditions, the network could experience reduced performance.
The second stage, pqai-scaled, would aim to restore full network functionality while supporting quantum-resistant transactions at volumes comparable to current activity. Ethlabs acknowledges it is the more ambitious engineering challenge. It would also require post-quantum signature aggregation and improved data-availability technology.
The Foundation's deadline sits at 2029
The timeline is considerably more aggressive than the Ethereum Foundation's roadmap. In September, the Foundation set December 2029 as its target for making Ethereum's execution, consensus, and data layers resistant to quantum attacks.
The concern is that sufficiently powerful quantum computers could eventually derive a private key from an exposed public key. No existing quantum computer can currently break Ethereum's security, but researchers argue that replacing the network's underlying cryptography could take years. Migrating the blockchain, its wallets, and its validator infrastructure requires extensive testing and coordination.
Source: Bitcoinist
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