Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, announced the abandonment of the Poseidon hash function in the planned post-quantum network architecture. The foundation is moving to proven alternatives such as SHA or BLAKE. A hash function converts information into a fixed digital fingerprint, which computers use to verify data integrity. Poseidon was previously considered for future post-quantum systems such as leanVM, which would help the network efficiently verify large amounts of activity on the blockchain. These systems have not yet been deployed to the main network.

Drake noted that advances in the field of SNARKs, which are compact proofs for confirming calculations without repeating the original work, allow ordinary hash functions to work quite efficiently. This makes it possible to completely replace Poseidon in the planned systems. He said that the industrial version of leanVM is planned to be launched in the twenty-seventh year, and in the twenty-eighth year it will be deployed in the layers of consensus, data and execution of Ethereum. These deadlines remain tentative and may be adjusted as the project progresses.

Sriram Kannan, founder and CEO of Eigen Labs, stated that systems based on proven hash functions have fewer known attack vectors compared to other post-quantum approaches. According to him, they can be deployed much faster, as they have already been tested for many years and have proven their reliability. Kannan also said that working together with the foundation and the zero-disclosure evidence development company Succinct has increased the speed of evidence generation by two and a half times. Such cooperation significantly accelerates the creation of a secure infrastructure for the network. The abandonment of Poseidon reflects a general trend in the industry, where preference is given to cryptographic primitives with a long history of practical use.