# Justin Drake: The EF Is Moving Away From Poseidon for Ethereum L1

*Author: Bankless*
*Published: Aug 13, 2026*
*Source: https://www.bankless.com/es/read/news/justin-drake-the-ef-is-moving-away-from-poseidon-for-ethereum-l1*

---

Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake said the EF is [ditching Poseidon](https://x.com/drakefjustin/status/2087905684180418733), the specialized hash function that's long secured L1-bound zk-proofs, in favor of standard hashes like SHA-2 or BLAKE. 

> Goodbye, Poseidon!An epic 8-year, 8-figure rabbit hole in post-quantum cryptography reaches its dream conclusion. The Ethereum Foundation is abandoning Poseidon for L1, pivoting to SHA or BLAKE. This milestone unlocks ultimate security for lean Ethereum and foreshadows a golden…— Justin Drake (@drakefjustin) [August 13, 2026](https://x.com/drakefjustin/status/2087905684180418733?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

## **What's the Scoop?**
- **The caveat: **No formal EF blog post or EIP has followed yet, so for now this is Drake's own framing of an internal research shift rather than a finalized protocol update.
- **The technical flip:** New binary-field SNARK designs, building on 2023's Binius and 2026's Flock, let standard hashes match Poseidon's in-proof performance, what Drake calls "hash-friendly SNARKs" rather than "SNARK-friendly hashes." The claimed throughput potential is about 1 million hash calls proven per second on a laptop.
- **Why it matters:** Poseidon has secured billions in zkrollup and zkVM value since 2019, but its novel design meant years of cryptanalysis before L1-scale trust. Standard hashes carry no such wait.
- **The roadmap:** This feeds Drake's "lean Ethereum" vision, with a strawmap timeline a production leanVM will arrive in 2027 and consensus, data, and execution layer deployments in 2028.
---

*This article is brought to you by [NEAR](https://www.bankless.com/es/sponsor/near-1785257427?ref=read/news/justin-drake-the-ef-is-moving-away-from-poseidon-for-ethereum-l1)*