A curated view of the cryptography securing Ethereum today and the research that may reshape tomorrow.
Review date 2026-10-09. This is a curated, versioned catalog, not a real-time cryptanalysis feed. AI breakthrough timelines remain unverified. No entry proves that an algorithm has been broken.
Ethereum EOA transaction signatures and some smart-account owners
ESTABLISHED FACTS• Shor’s algorithm threatens ECDLP on sufficiently powerful fault-tolerant quantum computers.
• Published ECDSA signatures can expose corresponding EOA public keys.
HYPOTHESES / UNCERTAINTY• AI-assisted classical cryptanalysis might improve attacks on ECDLP; no practical general-purpose classical break is established.
Threshold authorization backed by owner wallets or other contract owners
ESTABLISHED FACTS• Safe owners and signature thresholds are configured in contract storage.
• Module execution, guards and account ownership must be analyzed separately from threshold EOA signatures.
HYPOTHESES / UNCERTAINTY• A cryptographic break impacting EOA owners could change effective signing assumptions. Exposure depends on each signer and signature publication.
Consensus signatures, some polynomial commitments and zero-knowledge systems
ESTABLISHED FACTS• Discrete-logarithm based constructions face known quantum algorithmic threats.
• Security depends on curve choice and the exact protocol composition.
HYPOTHESES / UNCERTAINTY• Unknown classical mathematics may change concrete attack costs.
NIST-standardized lattice-based post-quantum signature scheme
ESTABLISHED FACTS• ML-DSA is standardized in NIST FIPS 204.
• No generally accepted practical break of the standardized scheme is established by the cited standards.
HYPOTHESES / UNCERTAINTY• AI-assisted mathematical research could alter concrete lattice security margins. No timeline for such a break is verified.
NIST-standardized stateless hash-based signature scheme
ESTABLISHED FACTS• SLH-DSA is standardized in NIST FIPS 205.
• Hash-based signature security assumptions differ from those of elliptic curves and lattices.
HYPOTHESES / UNCERTAINTY• Future breakthroughs, implementation flaws, or poor parameters could still change practical security.
Some ZK applications, including the current zkAPI architecture
ESTABLISHED FACTS• This proof-system family relies on pairing-friendly elliptic-curve assumptions.
• Using a ZK proof does not by itself provide post-quantum security.
HYPOTHESES / UNCERTAINTY• Cryptanalytic advances could affect security margins; a practical break is not established.
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Mode: MANUAL_REVIEW_ONLY. Sources are reviewed manually; a new publication cannot trigger an alert until the catalog is updated and released. Hash-only cryptography is not universally suitable for encryption.