Fireblocks published an optimized EVM implementation of an ML-DSA-44 signature verifier, a post-quantum cryptographic scheme compliant with NIST’s FIPS 204 standard. The headline number: verification now costs 1.23 million gas, down from the previous state-of-the-art benchmark of 8.09 million gas set by ZKNox’s ETHDILITHIUM project. That is a 6.6x reduction, achieved without any changes to the Ethereum protocol itself.
What actually changed under the hood
ML-DSA-44, formerly known as CRYSTALS-Dilithium, is a lattice-based signature scheme selected by NIST as a post-quantum standard.
Fireblocks targeted the specific bottlenecks. The largest single gain came from optimizing SHAKE-256 hashing, a core component of the ML-DSA scheme, cutting its gas contribution from roughly 3 million down to approximately 400,000. Additional improvements came from more efficient number theoretic transform (NTT) computations and smarter memory expansion techniques within the EVM.
For comparison, EIP-7885, a pending Ethereum improvement proposal that would add a dedicated NTT precompile to the protocol, was projected to bring ETHDILITHIUM’s cost down to around 5.73 million gas. Fireblocks reached 1.23 million without any precompile support, working entirely within the existing EVM instruction set.
