The Ethereum Foundation has formed a dedicated Post-Quantum team to prepare the network for emerging quantum threats, researcher Justin Drake stated. Drake’s announcement came in late January 2026 and names the effort a strategic inflection point.
The team will be led by Thomas Coratger and contributors behind LeanVM, which the Foundation calls a cryptographic cornerstone. Coratger’s profile appears in the original announcement.
Beginning in February, Antonio Sanso will host biweekly All Core Developers breakout calls focused on post-quantum transactions and account-abstraction security. These calls will address user-facing risks and longer-term signature aggregation plans.
The Foundation also announced a $1 million Poseidon Prize to strengthen the Poseidon hash function used in Ethereum applications, aiming to favor hash-based cryptography. More information appears on the Poseidon initiative site.
Co-founder Vitalik Buterin has urged urgent action to protect the protocol for decades, stating “Being able to say ‘Ethereum’s protocol, as it stands today, is cryptographically safe for a hundred years’ is something we should strive to get to as soon as possible, and insist on as a point of pride.”
Drake also participates in a cryptocurrency quantum advisory board at Coinbase, aligning the Foundation’s plans with broader industry efforts.
