Paper 2025/091

poqeth: Efficient, post-quantum signature verification on Ethereum

Ruslan Kysil, Eötvös Loránd University
István András Seres, Eötvös Loránd University
Péter Kutas, Eötvös Loránd University, University of Birmingham
Nándor Kelecsényi, Eötvös Loránd University
Abstract

This work explores the application and efficient deployment of (standardized) post-quantum (PQ) digital signature algorithms in the blockchain environment. Specifically, we implement and evaluate four PQ signatures in the Ethereum Virtual Machine: W-OTS+, XMSS, SPHINCS+, and MAYO. We focus on optimizing the gas costs of the verification algorithms as that is the signature schemes' only algorithm executed on-chain, thus incurring financial costs (transaction fees) for the users. Hence, the verification algorithm is the signature schemes' main bottleneck for decentralized applications. We examine two methods to verify post-quantum digital signatures on-chain. Our practical performance evaluation shows that full on-chain verification is often prohibitively costly. Naysayer proofs (FC'24) allow a novel optimistic verification mode. We observe that the Naysayer verification mode is generally the cheapest, at the cost of additional trust assumptions. We release our implementation called poqeth as an open-source library.

Note: Preprint.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Implementation
Publication info
Preprint.
Keywords
Post-Quantumdigital signaturesEthereumhash-based cryptographymultivariate quadratic cryptography
Contact author(s)
ruslan ilesik @ gmail com
seresistvanandras @ gmail com
kutasp @ gmail com
kelecsenyi @ protonmail com
History
2025-01-22: approved
2025-01-21: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2025/091
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2025/091,
      author = {Ruslan Kysil and István András Seres and Péter Kutas and Nándor Kelecsényi},
      title = {poqeth: Efficient, post-quantum signature verification on Ethereum},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2025/091},
      year = {2025},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/091}
}
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