Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko said the most underappreciated risk facing the industry is that post-quantum cryptography signature schemes could eventually be broken by AI, warning that neither the mathematical foundations nor the practical deployment of PQC are fully understood yet.
Why it matters
Yakovenko's framing treats PQC not as a far-off theoretical exercise but as a live engineering problem — one where the failure modes are invisible until they aren't. The gap between "we've standardized a PQC scheme" and "we trust it under adversarial AI pressure" is where he sees the real exposure sitting.
Market impact
His proposed mitigations are concrete: add 2-of-3 multi-signature wallet support for post-quantum schemes, or wire native PQC support through Program Derived Addresses (PDAs) inside Solana's transaction processing pipeline. Both routes give users a transition path before any single scheme is forced to carry the entire security burden of the network.
Frequently asked questions
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What did Anatoly Yakovenko say about post-quantum cryptography?
He said the biggest underappreciated risk in crypto is that post-quantum signature schemes could eventually be cracked by AI, and that the industry lacks full understanding of both the math and the practical deployment risks of PQC.
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What mitigations did Yakovenko propose for PQC risk on Solana?
He suggested adding 2-of-3 multi-signature wallet support for post-quantum schemes, or providing native PQC support through Program Derived Addresses (PDAs) inside Solana's transaction processors.
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Why is post-quantum cryptography a concern for crypto networks?
If signature schemes that protect wallets and transactions are broken, attackers could forge signatures and drain funds. Yakovenko argues the failure modes are invisible until they surface, which is why the gap between standardization and trust under adversarial AI pressure matters.
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What is a Program Derived Address (PDA) in Solana?
A PDA is a Solana account address derived deterministically from a program, used to let programs own and sign for accounts. Wiring PQC support through PDAs would let Solana's transaction processing pipeline handle post-quantum schemes natively.
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How would 2-of-3 multisig help with PQC transition?
A 2-of-3 multi-signature wallet requires two of three keys to sign a transaction. If one key uses a PQC scheme, redundancy lets users migrate between signature schemes without putting the full security burden on a single algorithm.
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