Ethereum Foundation forms quantum security strategy for 2026

Ethereum crypto network just declared war on its own limits.

The Ethereum Foundation is pushing scale, speed, and quantum defense at the same time.

This is a power grab for the next decade of crypto infrastructure.

Bitcoin also makes efforts to fight against quantum threats.

The foundation wants the gas limit pushed toward and beyond 100 million in 2026.

It is prioritizing smarter wallets, tighter cross chain links, and formal post quantum readiness.

The gas limit already doubled from 30 million to 60 million between the Pectra and Fusaka upgrades in 2025. Some community voices like Anthony Sassano argue 180 million should be the baseline next year. A new Post Quantum team, announced by researcher Justin Drake, signals that cryptography upgrades are no longer theoretical. And the Glamsterdam upgrade is slated to harden performance in the first half of 2026 while native account abstraction aims to make wallets act more like programmable apps than static key vaults.

Vitalik Buterin also wants to reroute AI through Ethereum.

The disruption behind the news: Ethereum is turning scale into a political weapon.

A 100 million gas target reframes what fits inside a single block.

Post quantum work is a preemptive strike on long term trust.

Blockspace is supply.

Gas is throughput.

Doubling gas again effectively doubles the surface area for onchain activity without waiting for new layers. At 60 million gas, Ethereum handles roughly 15 to 20 simple transactions per second on layer 1. Push that toward 100 million and beyond, and you move closer to 30 plus transactions per second before even counting layer 2 compression. That compounds when rollups settle faster.

Here is the adoption mechanism. Developers follow capacity and cost curves. If confirmation times drop and settlement windows shrink, decentralized exchanges, gaming apps, and AI agents can run tighter loops. That reduces reliance on centralized matching engines and offchain batching. It chips away at the argument that high frequency activity must live outside Ethereum.

Now layer in quantum defense. Most chains are pretending the threat is decades away. Ethereum is staffing for it now. That matters because blockchains store value indefinitely. A quantum capable adversary does not need to break today’s transactions. It only needs to archive keys and crack them later. By building migration paths early, Ethereum lowers switching costs for institutions that cannot tolerate cryptographic uncertainty.

Smarter wallets are not cosmetic. Native account abstraction means users can bundle transactions, pay fees in tokens other than ETH, and embed recovery logic. That reduces friction for the next 100 million users. It also makes wallets programmable endpoints for AI systems, something Vitalik Buterin has been hinting at in his AI market vision.

What to watch next

Gas targets will test social consensus inside Ethereum.

Wallet upgrades will show whether usability can finally rival Web2.

Quantum tooling will reveal who is actually serious about long term security.

Watch the gas limit climb month by month. If it clears 80 million without destabilizing nodes, confidence spikes. If validators struggle with hardware costs, decentralization critics will pounce.

Track how quickly major wallets integrate native account abstraction. If the top five wallets support seamless batching and flexible fee payments by late 2026, onboarding friction drops dramatically. That could cut failed transaction rates and support costs in half for consumer apps.

Finally, monitor whether large custodians and token issuers adopt post quantum address schemes early. The first Fortune 500 treasury to demand quantum safe rails will accelerate everything.

Ethereum is not just upgrading code, but redefining the security and capacity baseline for programmable money.