Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has warned that the most pressing risk from post-quantum cryptography may not lie in quantum computers themselves, but in the possibility that AI could reveal weaknesses in signature systems designed to defend against them. His comments add further benefit to Solana’s recent quantum readiness initiative, which focused on Falcon signatures, migration planning, and portfolio-level resilience.
The exchange began after developer Dean Little highlighted the progress of the Solana Falcon implementation, saying that version “0.1.2 now only costs about 173-183,000 CU to verify”, with Lean and Kani proofs expected next. This prompted Yakovenko to suggest deeper native support within Solana’s transaction architecture, writing: “Syscall to bring the is_signer PDA to the transaction processor, charge a fee to valid signers at the end of the block. Do so, please.”
Solana’s post-quantum plan comes under new scrutiny
The most important point came soon after, when Yakovenko presented the problem less as a simple migration of current cryptography to post-quantum signatures, but rather as a security design problem with unresolved unknowns.
“I think the biggest risk is that pqc signature systems will be broken by AI,” Yakovenko wrote. “We don’t even know all the implementation weapons, let alone the math weapons. So we need to support 2/3 of the wallets for them. @fusewallet or ideally natively with PDAs in the tx processor.”
This point is noteworthy because Solana’s official message on quantum readiness is generally confident. In an April 27 developer post, Solana said quantum computing remains “years away” and that if the threat materializes, the migration work is “well documented, understood, and ready to deploy.” The post outlined a roadmap built around continued research, adopting a post-quantum schema for new wallets if necessary, and migrating existing wallets to the selected schema.
Solana’s current research has converged around Falcon, a post-quantum digital signature system independently identified by Anza and Firedancer, two leading validator client developers in the Solana ecosystem. According to Solana, both teams came to the same conclusion: the network would need a compact post-quantum signature format suitable for high-throughput blockchain use. Early implementations are already available via the Firedancer and Anza repositories, while Solana says the transition would be manageable and shouldn’t create a significant performance hit.
Yakovenko’s warning does not directly contradict this roadmap. This restricts the scope of action. Rather than questioning whether Solana can migrate to post-quantum cryptography when necessary, it highlights the fragility of assuming that a new cryptosystem will remain secure once implementation details and mathematical assumptions are exposed to increasingly powerful AI-assisted analysis.
This distinction is important for manufacturers. The quantum readiness debate often views post-quantum signatures as the end point: once a chain can effectively verify Falcon or a similar system, the network has a path forward.
Yakovenko’s comments suggest that the safest architecture might be one that avoids reliance on a single system, even after migration. Its preference for “2/3 different signature schemes” indicates a defense-in-depth model, where wallets or transaction processors could require threshold approval on multiple cryptographic primitives.
Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance, asked whether “proper formal verification” could help address this concern. Yakovenko’s response was cautious: “If we know exactly what to check. I would still like to have 2/3 different signature schemes.”
This response reflects the unresolved part of the debate. Formal verification can reduce implementation risk when target properties are precisely defined. Yakovenko’s concern is that the industry may not yet know all the relevant failure modes, particularly if AI systems are better at detecting edge cases, deployment flaws, or deeper mathematical weaknesses of post-quantum constructs.
At press time, SOL was trading at $84.03.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
Editorial process as Bitcoinist focuses on providing thoroughly researched, accurate and unbiased content. We follow strict sourcing standards and every page undergoes careful review by our team of top technology experts and seasoned editors. This process ensures the integrity, relevance and value of our content to our readers.
