Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Warns Post-Quantum Crypto Could Slow Blockchains by 10x

• Charles Hoskinson warned that adopting post-quantum cryptography today could drastically reduce blockchain performance.
• He cites proof sizes and verification speeds that are up to 10 times less efficient than current systems.
• While quantum-resistant standards already exist, Hoskinson suggested that premature upgrades could impose permanent throughput trade-offs before quantum computers pose a credible threat.
• Instead of an immediate protocol shift, Hoskinson advocated for phased safeguards such as post-quantum checkpoints.

Charles Hoskinson, CEO and Founder of Input Output Global (IOHK), the company behind the Cardano blockchain, has cautioned that while post-quantum cryptography is already technically viable, adopting it too early could severely slow blockchain networks and compromise their efficiency.

Speaking to Decrypt, the Cardano founder said the industry’s challenge is no longer about inventing quantum-resistant cryptography, but about deciding when the cost of adopting it outweighs the risks of waiting.

According to Hoskinson, post-quantum standards finalized by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2024 are available today, but remain impractical at scale due to performance constraints.

“Post-quantum crypto oftentimes it’s about 10 times slower, 10 times larger proof sizes, and 10 times more inefficient,” Hoskinson said. “If you adopt it, what you’re basically doing is taking the throughput of your blockchain and reducing it by cutting off a zero.”

Most major blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cardano, rely on elliptic curve cryptography, which could theoretically be broken by sufficiently powerful quantum computers running Shor’s algorithm. While that threat remains hypothetical, Hoskinson argued that premature protocol upgrades could impose immediate, irreversible trade-offs on throughput and finality.

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Rather than reacting to speculative timelines from technology firms, Hoskinson pointed to DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative as a more reliable indicator of when quantum computing becomes a real-world cryptographic risk. DARPA has set 2033 as a target year to determine whether utility-scale quantum computing is feasible.

Hoskinson said the industry already understands the available mitigation paths, but the debate has narrowed to two competing cryptographic approaches. Ethereum is increasingly leaning toward hash-based cryptography, while Cardano is exploring lattice-based systems, which support more advanced encryption features but also come with higher computational costs.

“There’s two big bets you can make,” Hoskinson said. “Hashes, which is what Ethereum is making, and lattices, which is what we’re making.”

For now, Hoskinson does not support an immediate network-wide shift. Instead, he outlined a staged mitigation strategy that could include post-quantum-signed checkpoints of Cardano’s ledger using systems such as Mithril and its privacy-focused Midnight sidechain. This approach, he said, would allow the network to hedge against future risks without sacrificing present-day performance.

“There are always trade-offs with these systems,” Hoskinson said. “Once you’ve made that decision, you live with the consequences.”

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Editorial Note: This news article has been written with assistance from AI. Edited & fact-checked by the Editorial Team.

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