Cryptocurrencies have been obsessed with speed, fees, and scalability for years. Now the company may have to face a more existential question: What happens when its core security is breached?
The issue is moving from theory to urgency. Quantum computers are machines that use the principles of quantum physics to process information in a fundamentally different way than current computers, and could ultimately solve the kinds of mathematical problems that are the basis of modern cryptography.
The debate over post-quantum cryptography has intensified across the industry in recent weeks. The debate has intensified, especially after new research by Google and academic collaborators suggests that such systems could one day break widely used encryption and crack systems like Bitcoin in minutes rather than years.
While Bitcoin developers are scrambling to find a solution and Ethereum is preparing for the event, Solana is trying to get ahead of that scenario.
Crypto company Project Eleven is collaborating with the Solana Foundation to experiment with post-quantum security, a technology designed to withstand quantum attacks that could render today’s cryptography obsolete. Early work is already surfacing difficult realities. Making Solana quantum safe means potentially sacrificing the performance that defines Solana.
In practice, that effort means moving beyond theory to real-world testing. Project Eleven worked with the Solana ecosystem to model how the network would behave if current encryption were replaced. This includes deploying a test environment with quantum-resistant signatures (digital keys that authorize transactions). The goal is not only to prove that the technology works, but also to understand what goes wrong when scaled up.
Early results show a clear trade-off.
The new quantum-secure “signatures” that approve transactions are much larger and heavier than signatures currently in use, roughly 20 to 40 times larger, Alex Pruden, the CEO who founded the project, told CoinDesk that he brings a combination of military and industrial experience to the problem after years working in cryptocurrencies and venture capital. This means that the network can process far fewer transactions at once. In tests, a version of Solana using the new cipher ran about 90% slower than it does now, Pruden said.
This tradeoff goes directly to the heart of Solana’s design. Blockchain has built a reputation for high throughput and low latency, establishing itself as one of the fastest networks in cryptocurrencies. But while post-quantum cryptography is more secure against future threats, it involves heavier data and computational requirements, making it harder to maintain its speed.
“Please choose any wallet”
Solana may also face more immediate structural challenges than its peers.
Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, where the wallet address is typically derived from a hashed public key, Solana exposes the public key directly. This difference is important in quantum scenarios. “At Solana, 100% of our network is vulnerable,” Pruden said.
“A quantum computer could pick any wallet and immediately start trying to recover its private keys.”
Pruden, a former Army Green Beret, first became interested in Bitcoin while serving in the Middle East, then worked at Coinbase and joined Andreessen Horowitz’s venture team’s first fund. He went on to become an early leader in the privacy-focused blockchain Aleo, and later launched Project Eleven. Project Eleven is a company focused on preparing digital assets for what he calls “Q-Day,” the moment when quantum computers can crack today’s codes.
Meanwhile, some developers in the Solana ecosystem are looking at simpler, immediate fixes. One example is something called “Winternitz Vaults,” which uses a different type of encryption that is considered more secure against quantum attacks. These tools focus on securing individual wallets rather than making changes to the entire network, giving users a way to safely secure their funds now while larger, system-wide upgrades are still being considered.
Despite these hurdles, Solana has moved forward faster than much of the industry in at least one respect: experimentation. “There’s something tangible,” Pruden said. “In fact, we have a testnet with post-quantum signatures,” he said, adding that the Solana Foundation “is commendable for wanting to at least participate and engage in the activity.”
Across cryptocurrencies, this level of engagement remains rare. Some ecosystems, particularly Ethereum, have begun discussing long-term migration paths, but concrete implementations are limited.
The broader challenges are not only technical but also social. Upgrading cryptography in a decentralized system requires coordination across developers, verifiers, applications, and users, all of which must act in sequence.
The risk for Pruden is that the industry waits too long to begin that process. “This is tomorrow’s problem, but not until it becomes today’s problem,” he said. “And it will take four years to fix it.”
Read more: How Bitcoin, Ethereum and other networks are preparing for the looming quantum threat
