Ethereum Foundation sets strict 128-bit encryption rules for 2026

Golden Finance reports that the Ethereum Foundation stated that the only acceptable ultimate goal for L1 is “provable security,” rather than “security based on assumption or conjecture X.”
They set the 128-bit security level as the target to align with mainstream cryptographic standards agencies and academic literature on long-term systems, as well as with real-world recorded computational results, which indicate that 128 bits are practically out of reach for attackers.
EF pointed out some specific tools aimed at achieving the 128-bit, sub-300 KB goal. They highlighted WHIR, a new Reed-Solomon proximity test, which is also a multi-linear polynomial commitment scheme.