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

ME News message. On April 4 (UTC+8), as Bitcoin developers urgently search for quantum-safe solutions, Ethereum is preparing for its “Q-Day,” and Solana is trying to address potential threats ahead of time. 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 perform after replacing the existing cryptographic algorithms. Preliminary results show that quantum-safe signatures are about 20–40 times larger than 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 leaves 100% of the network exposed to quantum attack risk; hackers can choose any wallet to try to recover private keys. The risk is higher than the technical and community-coordination difficulties faced by BitcoinEthereum in the face of challenges—technical and community coordination difficulties. Solana is currently leading the industry in quantum-safe experiments and already has 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 the remediation, it may take four years.” (Source: ODAILY)