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

ME News update, April 4 (UTC+8). As Bitcoin developers urgently search for quantum-safe solutions and Ethereum prepares for “Q-Day,” Solana is trying to respond to potential threats in advance. Currently, Project Eleven is collaborating with the Solana Foundation to deploy quantum-safe signatures (Post-Quantum Signatures) on the test network, simulating how the network would run 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 impacting Solana’s design advantages, which are known for high throughput and low latency.

In addition, Solana’s public-key design exposes the entire network 100% to quantum-attack risk, allowing hackers to choose any wallet to try to recover the private key. The risk is higher than the technical and community-coordination challenges faced by BitcoinEthereum. In quantum-safety experimentation, Solana is leading the industry; it has already obtained quantum-safe testnets that can run in practice. Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden said, “If the industry waits until quantum threats truly arrive and then starts fixing, it may take four years.” (Source: ODAILY)