Solana's Anza and Firedancer Both Pick Falcon to Defend Against Quantum
Solana's two core dev teams, Anza and Jump's Firedancer, both picked the Falcon post-quantum signature scheme. They've started early Falcon builds, citing compact signature size as critical for the network's high-throughput design.
Solana's two independent core development teams — Anza (the spin-off from Solana Labs) and Firedancer (Jump Crypto's high-performance validator client) — both arrived at the same answer for post-quantum security: the Falcon digital signature scheme. Both teams have already started building early Falcon implementations for testing, the Solana Foundation said April 27.
The Choice
Falcon was selected over alternatives like SPHINCS+ and ML-DSA primarily because of its compact signature size — a hard constraint for a chain that processes thousands of transactions per second and cannot absorb the bandwidth or storage cost of larger post-quantum signatures. Both teams concluded Falcon can operate within Solana's current performance envelope without throughput degradation.
The Roadmap
The Foundation outlined a phased migration: continue research into Falcon and alternatives through 2026; introduce post-quantum schemes for new wallets as an opt-in once standardized; migrate existing wallets as a final phase. The Foundation acknowledges quantum-relevant compute is still "years away," but framed early implementation as insurance — exactly the framing Bitcoin's BIP-360 quantum-freeze authors used last week.
CoinDeskThe Bigger Picture
Two of the three largest L1s have now publicly committed to post-quantum migration paths in April 2026 — Bitcoin (via BIP-361/BIP-360) and Solana (via Falcon). Ethereum's path remains less defined; Vitalik has discussed STARK-based options publicly but no concrete migration plan has been ratified. The chains that commit early get to design the migration around their throughput profile; chains that wait will have it dictated by external standards. Solana's Falcon pick puts it in the front group.
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