Vitalik Buterin has issued a public call for researchers to participate in the Poseidon cryptanalysis program as Ethereum developers contemplate integrating the specialized hash function into the blockchain network.
“We are seriously considering migrating Ethereum to the Poseidon hash to optimize zk-prover friendliness, so having more information about its security properties is extremely high value,”
the Ethereum co-Founder wrote in a recent post on X.
First introduced in 2019 by cryptographers including Dmitry Khovratovich of Dusk Network, Poseidon is specifically designed for zero-knowledge (ZK) proof systems. The hash function requires significantly fewer computational resources than traditional alternatives like SHA-256, potentially enabling faster ZK-proof generation and reduced gas costs for rollup transactions.
According to research presented at USENIX Security ’21, Poseidon demands up to eight times fewer constraints per message bit compared to conventional hash functions. Its successor, Poseidon2, launched in 2023, further reduces multiplication costs by 90%.
The proposal to integrate the has function with the Ethereum Blockchain came in the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 5988, which was published in 2022. The proposal outlined a plan for Poseidon as a precompiled contract within the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
ZK rollups, central to Ethereum’s scalability strategy, stand to benefit significantly from Poseidon’s integration. Solutions like Polygon’s Hermez ZK-EVM rely on efficient hashing to process thousands of transactions off-chain, potentially lowering fees and increasing throughput.
The Ethereum Foundation launched a comprehensive cryptanalysis program to evaluate Poseidon’ssecurity, with Phase 1 concluding in December 2025. The initiative offers bounties of up to $130,000 for identifying vulnerabilities, highlighting the critical importance of confirming the hash function’s cryptographic strength before network-wide implementation.
The Poseidon Group is also currently analyzing the hash function performance against SHA-256’s tested security.
According to EIP 5988, Possiedon’s implementation on Ethereum could come with the Pectra hard fork upgrade, which is scheduled for March 2025.
The Possiedon integration would add a list of highly anticipated improvements the Pectra upgrade is expected to bring to Ethereum. Some of these include advancements in account abstraction that enable externally owned accounts to execute batch transactions and sponsored gas payments. Notably, the Pectra upgrade went live on the Holesky testnet on February 24.
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