# Vitalik Pushes EIP-8288 Over New Precompiles

*Author: William M. Peaster*
*Published: Oct 19, 2026*
*Source: https://www.bankless.com/read/news/vitalik-pushes-eip-8288-over-new-precompiles*

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Vitalik Buterin [made the case Sunday night](https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/2112032009413439704) for Ethereum to quit baking new cryptography into the EVM through precompiles and lean on EIP-8288 instead, writing that precompiles and the EVM are “the wrong place to put most cryptography support into Ethereum.” 

> [ — (@)
> ](https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/2112032009413439704)

# **What’s the Scoop?**

- **The case against:** Precompiles are built-in contracts that make specific cryptographic operations cheap, but every new one requires a hard fork plus an implementation in every client, and the data they check must still be posted onchain as calldata. Vitalik estimated that data budget tops out around 8 MB/s, PeerDAS included. 

- **The alternative:** [EIP-8288](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-8288), which Vitalik co-authored with Thomas Coratger and which [we covered in September](https://www.bankless.com/read/news/vitalik-pitches-eip-8288-as-ethereums-next-big-cryptography-unlock), would have users prove any signature or proof scheme locally inside a STARK, with mempool nodes recursively folding those proofs together until each block carries just one. Under that model, he wrote, “Ethereum can then never add a new precompile again.” 

- **The lattice debate:** His posts capped a weekend argument that started Friday, when a16z crypto released [Aerie](https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/fast-post-quantum-signature-aggregation-with-lattice-snarks), which aggregated 32,768 lattice-based Falcon-512 signatures on a single laptop in 0.65 seconds. a16z argued the recursive proving that Ethereum’s hash-based plans rely on is “intricate and bug-prone,” while StarkWare’s Eli Ben-Sasson countered that lattices are “ripe for AI to attack.” Under EIP-8288, lattice fans could still use their schemes by wrapping them in a STARK client-side. 

- **Not settled yet:** EIP-8288 remains a draft, and the spec still marks its leanSTARK route as “reserved.” The EF’s [post-quantum roadmap](https://pq.ethereum.org) meanwhile keeps “PQ sig precompiles” on the docket for a later fork it calls J*, so Vitalik’s no-new-precompiles stance isn’t yet reflected in the Foundation’s own plans.
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