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Fireblocks published an optimized EVM implementation of an ML-DSA-44 signature verifier, a post-quantum cryptographic scheme compliant with NIST’s FIPS 204 standard. The headline number: verification now costs 1.23 million gas, down from the previous state-of-the-art benchmark of 8.09 million gas set by ZKNox’s ETHDILITHIUM project. That is a 6.6x reduction, achieved without any changes to the Ethereum protocol itself.
What actually changed under the hood
ML-DSA-44, formerly known as CRYSTALS-Dilithium, is a lattice-based signature scheme selected by NIST as a post-quantum standard.
Fireblocks targeted the specific bottlenecks. The largest single gain came from optimizing SHAKE-256 hashing, a core component of the ML-DSA scheme, cutting its gas contribution from roughly 3 million down to approximately 400,000. Additional improvements came from more efficient number theoretic transform (NTT) computations and smarter memory expansion techniques within the EVM.
For comparison, EIP-7885, a pending Ethereum improvement proposal that would add a dedicated NTT precompile to the protocol, was projected to bring ETHDILITHIUM’s cost down to around 5.73 million gas. Fireblocks reached 1.23 million without any precompile support, working entirely within the existing EVM instruction set.
An AI team did most of the heavy lifting
Fireblocks used an autonomous AI-driven research team of 144 agents operating over nine days. Total cost: approximately $7,500.
The AI agents conducted formal verification as well as performance tuning, producing over 320 verification tests and 62 machine-checked arithmetic properties validated in Z3, a formal verification tool from Microsoft Research.
Where this fits in Ethereum’s quantum roadmap
Ethereum’s longer-term roadmap already anticipates the need to replace its native signature scheme. The plan involves account abstraction, specifically moving toward a model where smart contracts, rather than the protocol itself, handle signature verification. This architecture, sometimes called de-enshrining native signatures, means any NIST-approved post-quantum scheme can be deployed as a contract verifier without requiring a hard fork to change Ethereum’s consensus rules.
Earlier in 2026, other research efforts focused on SPHINCS+-derived schemes, a hash-based post-quantum approach that achieved costs around 127,000 gas. Hash-based schemes come with significant drawbacks including large signature sizes and statefulness requirements that make them awkward for general wallet use. The lattice-based ML-DSA approach Fireblocks optimized is the NIST primary recommendation for general-purpose digital signatures.
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