Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter said in a video shared on DEGEN NEWS on May 28 that Solana needs a complete rebuild to withstand quantum attacks. He pointed out that Solana’s architecture is highly optimized at the hardware level around elliptic-curve cryptography, and that adopting post-quantum cryptography solutions will inevitably affect throughput.
Nic Carter’s Direct Quote: Elliptic-Curve Optimizations and the Throughput Cost
In the video, Carter said: “This will be tricky for Solana, because they’re highly optimized around some variant of an elliptic curve, and they’ve also made targeted optimizations at the hardware level. Solana’s entire core philosophy is high throughput. In the end, they may adopt lattice-based cryptography, but the speed will slow down and throughput will likely drop— and that is exactly what Solana is all about.”
Carter’s core technical view is that lattice-based cryptography required for quantum resistance is naturally slower than elliptic-curve cryptography, while high throughput is Solana’s key competitive advantage.
Confirmed Technical Choices by Anza and Firedancer: Falcon Signatures
After years of independently researching post-quantum transition plans, Solana’s two main development teams, Anza and Firedancer, reached the same conclusion: adopting a new type of digital signature called “Falcon.” Falcon is designed for high-speed blockchains, aiming to improve security without significantly reducing transaction speed.
As of the time of the report, both teams have already published initial versions of Falcon on GitHub. In addition, the existing “Blueshift Winternitz Vault” tool has been running for more than two years. Google Quantum AI cites this tool in its 2026 research white paper, calling it one of the exemplars in the blockchain industry’s response to quantum risk.
Accelerated Upgrade Threat: Research Data Comparison from 2022 to 2026
A 2022 study by the University of Sussex estimated that breaking Bitcoin would require millions of physical qubits. A 2026 Google research paper shows that this requirement has dropped by about 20 times. The report states that a machine with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits could break existing cryptographic algorithms within minutes.
This breakthrough makes “attack during expenditure” technically feasible—meaning attackers can launch attacks on active transactions within Bitcoin’s 10-minute block time. Goldman Sachs has recently scaled back research related to quantum computing, while JPMorgan Chase has deployed 50 scientists to study the impact of quantum technology on network security.
FAQ
Why does Nic Carter think Solana’s quantum upgrade faces special difficulty?
Carter points out that Solana has already been highly optimized at the hardware level for elliptic-curve cryptography, while lattice-based cryptography that can resist quantum attacks is naturally slower. Carter’s core argument is that there is a direct technical contradiction between quantum-resistance upgrades and Solana’s core competitive advantage of high throughput— a contradiction that is less common in other architectures.
Why did both Anza and Firedancer independently choose Falcon?
The two development teams independently researched post-quantum transition plans and both believe Falcon is the best fit for high-throughput blockchain environments within post-quantum digital signature standards. Both teams have published initial versions separately on GitHub, but as of the time of the report, the specific network upgrade timeline had not been announced.
What are the specific findings of Google’s 2026 quantum research paper?
Google’s 2026 research paper states that the number of physical qubits required to break existing cryptographic algorithms has decreased by about 20 times compared with the 2022 assessment. The paper notes that machines with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits can break today’s cryptographic algorithms within minutes, making technically feasible attacks targeting active transactions within Bitcoin’s 10-minute block time.
