# Prover Speed Reopens Settled Crypto Primitives

Advances in proof-system performance keep invalidating the constraints that drove earlier protocol cryptography choices, so major chains repeatedly reopen supposedly settled decisions on hash functions, curves and commitment schemes — meaning roadmap risk for rollups and infrastructure comes from prover benchmarks as much as from attacks or governance.

- Conviction: 34 / 100 (strengthening)
- 7-day move: -1
- Horizon: Emerging (watchlist)
- Tracking since: 2026-09-23T00:00:00.000Z
- Last updated: 2026-10-12T14:07:13.213Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/crypto/trends/prover-performance-rewrites-protocol-cryptography
- Publisher: Polylog
- Affected regions: Global

## Recent score history

- 2026-10-11: 32
- 2026-10-12: 34

## Recent evidence

- [confirms] StarkWare weighs moving Starknet off Ethereum to a hash-based, quantum-resistant chain by 2027 (2026-10-12): StarkWare's plan to put Starknet on a hash-based chain reopens a major network's choice of settlement layer and cryptography, which was thought to be settled. That fits the pattern of earlier primitive decisions being revisited, although the stated driver here is quantum risk rather than prover benchmarks.
- [confirms] Ethereum Researchers Ask the Network to Pick an Instruction Set for Post-Quantum Proofs Under EIP-8288 (2026-10-09): EIP-8288 puts the choice of proving instruction set to the network because that choice decides whether phones and laptops can generate post-quantum proofs fast enough. Prover benchmarks are again driving a core Ethereum cryptography decision.

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