Analysis: Solana Quantum Threat Experiment Reveals Trade-Off Between Security and Speed

ME News message, April 4 (UTC+8). As Bitcoin developers urgently seek quantum-safe solutions, Ethereum prepares for “Q-Day,” and Solana is trying to get ahead of potential threats. Currently, Project Eleven is working with the Solana Foundation to deploy quantum-safe signatures (Post-Quantum Signatures) on a test network, simulating how the network would operate after replacing the existing cryptographic algorithms. Preliminary results show that quantum-safe signatures are about 20–40 times larger than the current signatures, causing the network’s transaction processing speed to drop by about 90%, directly undermining Solana’s design advantages, which are known for high throughput and low latency. In addition, Solana’s public key design leaves the entire network 100% exposed to quantum attack risks. Hackers can choose any wallet to try to recover private keys, a risk that is higher than the technical and community-coordination challenges faced by Bitcoin and Ethereum. Solana is leading the industry in quantum-safe experiments, and it has already obtained a quantum-safe testnet that can run in practice. Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden said, “If the industry waits until quantum threats truly arrive before starting to fix them, it may take four years.” (Source: ODAILY)