Vitalik Buterin says public-key cryptography may need one or two more upgrades

Vitalik Buterin thinks the cryptography protecting your private messages isn’t quite finished yet. In a post on X, the Ethereum co-founder said public-key cryptography may need one or two more parameter upgrades before it settles into long-term stability. What Buterin actually said The post, shared on October 7, 2026, focused on lattice-based cryptography. This is a family of encryption and signature schemes built on hard geometric problems involving grids of points in many dimensions. Buterin’s concern is a different adversary: artificial intelligence. He pointed to rapid progress in AI-driven mathematics and suggested it could significantly weaken key lattice schemes, including ML-DSA and Falcon, within two years. His proposed hedge is blunt. To protect public-key encryption, particularly in uses outside blockchain such as secure messaging and VPNs, he suggested increasing lattice key sizes by a factor of ten. Why hashes alone can’t do the job Buterin was clear that he prefers hash-based cryptography when security is the priority. That preference already shows up in Ethereum’s plans. The roadmap known as Lean Ethereum has leaned on hash-based signatures such as WOTS and SPHINCS+,...