Quantum and post-quantum map: PQ crypto assets by readiness
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Map of crypto assets by PQ readiness: opt-in PQ on mainnet (NEAR, ALGO, CKB), PQ-native chains (QRL, QTC, ABEL) and announced or draft (BTC, ETH, TRX, ZEC, SUI), with mcap, moves and ATH distance. Flags thin volume and the lattice vs hash-based debate.
Key claims
NEAR has offered ML-DSA-65 key rotation since the 20 July 2.13 upgrade
~6.26M BTC sit in addresses with exposed pubkeys
Ethereum L1 PQ upgrades could be completed by 2029
Have been diving deep down the quantum rabbit hole these past days, trying to wrap my head around the whole ecosystem both on the crypto side (PQ-secure assets) as well as on the equity side (quantum computing).
This thread will cover both landscapes.
Still very much in the process tho, so treat this as v0.1, the lists are not final, and if I'm missing a name or looking at something the wrong way, please tell me. CT hivemind > me alone.
Lets start with crypto: here's my map (mcap/FDV, 7d and 30d moves, distance from ATH):
1) Opt-in PQ on mainnet
- $NEAR ($7.6B, +15% 7d, +145% 30d, 72% off ATH):
The biggest chain where you can actually sign post-quantum today. Since the 2.13 upgrade on July 20th, any account can rotate to an ML-DSA-65 key with a single tx, same address, same assets. That works bc NEAR accounts were never tied to one key in the first place, which is exactly the design ETH and BTC wish they had right now. It's voluntary tho, so the number that matters is how many accounts actually rotate, and I haven't found it yet. NEAR also became the distribution layer for the whole theme, QTC trades on near(.)com. Just don't credit the full 30d move to quantum, intents and the issuance cut proposal are in there too.
→ DYOR: @nearprotocol
- $ALGO ($1.2B, flat 7d, +40% 30d, 96% off ATH):
The one I slept on. Algorand has the longest PQ track record of any major: Falcon-signed State Proofs since 2022, the first Falcon-authorised mainnet tx in Nov 2025, and since August native Falcon-1024 accounts, supported in Pera. You rekey an existing account and keep your address. What's not done is the chain itself: consensus still runs on classical keys, a PQ VRF paper is due early 2027 and "broad quantum resilience" is the goal for end of 2027. So your funds can be protected today, the network underneath not yet. Still further along than everything in section 3.
→ DYOR: @algorand
- $CKB ($82M mcap, $84M FDV, +26% 7d, +56% 30d, 96% off ATH):
Nervos has a structural edge here: the cell model lets any signature scheme live as a lock script, so adding a new one needs no fork. A SPHINCS+ lock is live on mainnet, audited, and usable through the Quantum Purse wallet. SPHINCS+ is hash-based, so CKB also sits on the right side of the Vitalik argument. Two caveats: the default lock is still secp256k1, so almost nobody is protected by default, and onchain demand is weak (~16.6K txs a day, no real DeFi TVL). Volume ran several times its normal level this week, that's the narrative trading, not the chain.
→ DYOR: @nervosnetwork
- $TSC ($26M, +8% 7d, flat 30d, 20% off ATH):
TensorCash is a weird one, in a good way. It's a Bitcoin Core fork where the proof of work is AI inference, miners run an open LLM and every answer comes with a proof. The quantum part: an ML-DSA-65 address type exists from block zero, opt-in. And the team is refreshingly honest that nobody has actually spent from one of those addresses yet. AI x PQ in one PoW coin is a fun combo, but volume sits on SafeTrade at under $100K a day. Watching, too early for more.
→ DYOR: @Tensorcash
2) PQ-native chains
- $QRL ($93M, +43% 7d, +71% 30d, 69% off ATH):
The OG. Live since 2018 and signing with XMSS from day one, a hash-based scheme, so security rests on hash functions only. That's the family Vitalik said he prefers in his October 7th post, which is a big part of why it caught a bid. The catch is what comes next: QRL 2.0 (Zond) moves to PoS and an EVM, and validators will sign with ML-DSA-87, a.k.a. lattice. So the chain people buy as the hash-based hedge is moving its consensus onto exactly the thing the hash crowd worries about. Zond is on testnet, audits were 50% done in June, mainnet date still TBD. And it's thin: ~$60K daily volume on a $93M cap.
→ DYOR: @QRLedger
- $QTC ($39M mcap, $801M FDV, +43% 7d, +187% 30d, 25% off ATH):
Quantus is a one-month-old PoW chain (mainnet 9 Sep) with ML-DSA signatures from block 0 and ZK privacy on top. Bitcoin-style 21M cap, Balaji led the last round, and it trades on near(.)com through NEAR Intents. The tech is real, but the price is a float story: only ~1.3% of the 21M cap circulates, so at the full cap you pay close to $3B for a chain with no measurable usage yet, and 27% of supply is a premine that starts unlocking in Sep 2027. It's also all-in on lattice, so it's the most exposed name if the AI-vs-lattice worry ever plays out.
→ DYOR: @QuantusNetwork
- $ABEL ($13M mcap, $20M FDV, +34% 7d, +37% 30d, 94% off ATH):
Abelian is basically the "what if Zcash, but quantum-safe" pitch: a PoW L1 with lattice-based crypto (built on Dilithium and Kyber per its own description) and a privacy coin where you choose the level, from full privacy to privacy with accountability. Post-quantum plus privacy in one asset is a combo almost nobody else has live yet. The problem is purely market structure: it trades on MEXC only, with a miniscule volume of around $20K a day. A few k moves the price, in both directions.
→ DYOR: @PQabelian
- $CELL ($2.6M, +25% 7d, +79% 30d, 99% off ATH):
Cellframe is a 2021-era L1 framework for building chains and services, with Falcon and Dilithium integrated and SPHINCS+ sitting in the SDK. It's 99% off ATH, so the market wrote it off long ago. What it does have is venues (Gate, MEXC, Pancake, Uniswap), which is probs why it's the micro cap that catches the bid whenever the narrative runs. I couldn't find any specific news behind the weekend pump tho, and for now I couldn't confirm from their docs which scheme is the default on mainnet either. So for me def a beta play until proven otherwise.
→ DYOR: @cellframenet
- $XNT ($1.5M, +119% 7d, +293% 30d, 37% off ATH):
Neptune Privacy is the purest hash-only story on the list: PoW, private by default, everything built on zk-STARKs and hash-based crypto, no lattice and no elliptic curves in the proofs. On paper that's the cleanest answer to Vitalik's argument. In practice tho, it's a community fork of Neptune Cash where the original cryptographers stayed with the other chain, while nobody (or at least not I) knows who actually runs XNT, and the codebase it inherited had two chain-level bugs within about six months. Given the low mcap and $50K daily volume, it's mostly a lottery ticket imo.
→ DYOR: @NeptunePrivacy
3) Announced, testnet or draft
- $BTC ($1.68T, -3% 7d, +8% 30d, 34% off ATH):
Bitcoin might be considered the reason this trade exists: most to lose, slowest to move. BIP-360 is the proposal everyone points to, a new output type that works like Taproot minus the key path, so your public key stays hidden while coins just sit there. That only covers the "long exposure" attack. The authors say themselves that it doesn't protect coins at the moment you spend, that needs actual PQ signatures. It's a draft, it needs a soft fork and there's no activation path. Meanwhile roughly 6.26M BTC sit in addresses with exposed pubkeys.
→ DYOR: BIP-360
- $ETH ($312B, -6% 7d, +1% 30d, 48% off ATH):
Ethereum deff has one of the most serious research efforts but also the longest timeline. Their own roadmap page says L1 upgrades "could be completed by 2029", and that migrating the execution layer (a.k.a. your wallet) takes years beyond that. Around ten client teams are already building post-quantum consensus clients in the meantime tho. So the work is real, but if you believe Drake's "months, not years" worst case, 2029 is not a comforting number. That gap between the roadmap and the fear is what's driving a lot of the other tokens on this list.
→ DYOR: pq(.)ethereum(.)org
- $TRX ($31.5B, -1% 7d, -2% 30d, 23% off ATH):
Probs the most underdiscussed one. Tron has been running PQ signatures on its public Nile testnet since 30 June, and not just for transactions: Falcon-512 and ML-DSA-44 for txs, block signing, node handshakes and smart contract verification. Mainnet needs a separate committee vote per scheme and wallets and exchanges on board first, no date. The cost is real, signatures are big enough to mean 10 to 30x more data per tx. But this is the biggest USDT chain out there, and it's the one name in this section the quantum bid hasn't touched at all.
→ DYOR: @trondao
- $ZEC ($22.2B, -2% 7d, +14% 30d, 59% off ATH):
Covered ZEC in the privacy post, so just the quantum bit: PQ signature opcodes are planned for January, hash-based, and only for the transparent side, where around 70% of supply still sits. The shielded pool needs its own separate migration. No activation date confirmed yet. Worth noting how fast that came together after the bunker mode week tho, the Zcash devs react quicker than most.
→ DYOR: @zcash
- $SUI ($4.6B mcap, $11.2B FDV, -9% 7d, +54% 30d, 79% off ATH):
The clearest dated plan among the majors. Native ML-DSA-65 accounts on testnet by end of 2026 and on mainnet in Q1 2027, plus hash-based vaults for cold storage this year. The part I like: you keep your address and the new key derives from the same seed phrase, so for the user it's a wallet update, not a migration. Nothing is live yet, audits are still running and the team itself calls the dates open. But if they hit Q1, Sui is one of the first majors with PQ accounts as a native feature.
→ DYOR: @SuiNetwork
- $STRK ($780M mcap, $1.05B FDV, +78% 7d, +260% 30d, 98% off ATH):
The leader of the trade, and the one where price is furthest ahead of facts. The base is legit: STARK proofs are hash-based already, and the roadmap swaps the remaining pieces (Pedersen hashes out, Falcon-512 consensus signatures in). The 2027 "first fully quantum-resistant network" target comes from Starknet's own posts. But the L1 move that sent it flying is something they're "actively considering", not something that can be taken as a fact. And the last phase depends on Ethereum's own PQ transition as long as it stays an L2. A 3.6x month prices in a lot of that.
→ DYOR: @Starknet
- $APT ($769M mcap, $1.07B FDV, +8% 7d, +44% 30d, 96% off ATH):
Aptos picked the most conservative option on the menu: SLH-DSA, pure hash-based, big signatures but no lattice assumptions. AIP-137 is accepted, so the design is settled. The honest part is in the proposal itself, which says there is "no urgency to deploy this on any of the networks" over the next year. So think of it as a fire extinguisher on the wall: ready when needed, not a catalyst with a specific date for now.
→ DYOR: @Aptos_Network
- $XTZ ($356M, -4% 7d, +26% 30d, 96% off ATH):
Funnily, Tezos did something nobody else has: it stood up a full post-quantum chain on a testnet (Quantumnet, 24 Sep). Not just accounts with ML-DSA-44, also hash-based block attestations aggregated with STARKs and a new data availability scheme. They even left their private transactions out bc those aren't quantum-safe. The devs are explicit that this is not a preview of a mainnet upgrade, each piece has to go through governance separately. Then again, Tezos governance actually ships upgrades, so I wouldn't dismiss it.
→ DYOR: @tezos
- $MON ($306M mcap, $2.6B FDV, -21% 7d, +10% 30d, 47% off ATH):
Disclosure, I'm long. Monad published its PQ roadmap on 28 Sep, nine days before bunker mode made it fashionable. Step one is about user funds: accounts add a quantum-resistant key and retire the old one while keeping the same address, so nobody has to move anything. A PQ version of the consensus is in development in parallel. All of it is design, none of it is live, and there's a major unlock on 24 Nov. The bet is simply that STRK did a 3.6x month on a similar-stage roadmap while MON is down 21% on the week.
→ DYOR: @monad
4) PQ vaults and infra
- $QONE ($0.5M mcap, $3.8M FDV, -8% 7d, -19% 30d, 29% off ATH):
Might be one for the Hyperliquid maxis. qVAULT is a non-custodial vault on HyperEVM that puts a second, Falcon-based signature on top of your normal wallet key, and afaik it's the only way to hold HYPE behind a PQ signature today. It only protects what's inside the vault tho, HyperEVM accounts themselves stay ECDSA. The product is more interesting than the token for now tho: half a million mcap, barely trades, and down while the sector ran.
→ DYOR: @qlabsofficial
- $NAORIS ($18M mcap, $120M FDV, -10% 7d, -15% 30d, 82% off ATH):
Naoris pitches a decentralised cybersecurity mesh for enterprises and governments, running on its own post-quantum L1 that went to mainnet on 1 April, invite-only for now still tho. What bugs me a bit is: everything I read says "NIST-approved cryptography" without ever naming the schemes specifically. For a project whose entire product is PQ security, that's the first thing I'd want spelled out. It's also bleeding in the hottest quantum month so far, with 85% of supply not circulating yet.
→ DYOR: @NaorisProtocol
- $QANX ($20M mcap, $25M FDV, -6% 7d, -5% 30d, 94% off ATH):
QANplatform is an EVM-compatible L1 aimed at enterprises. The idea is neat: a cross-signer that attaches a Dilithium signature to your normal EVM transaction, so you keep your wallet and still get PQ protection. But it has been testnet-only for a long time, mainnet is still not live, and the token didn't move while everything with quantum in the name ran. Might be the market telling you what it thinks about the timeline.
→ DYOR: @QANplatform
5) Narrative beta
- $ZK ($173M mcap, $336M FDV, +25% 7d, +66% 30d, 95% off ATH):
Disclosure, long this one too, but I'm putting it here on purpose. ZKsync's Airbender prover is STARK-based, so the "post-quantum by design" line is true for that layer. But the proof gets wrapped in a pairing-based SNARK before it lands on Ethereum, and accounts are plain ECDSA. Neither of those is quantum-safe, and there's no dated roadmap to fix them. So it's a catalyst trade around the 10/21 teaser, not a proper PQ thesis (yet). If that announcement covers the wrapper and signatures, it moves up a section.
→ DYOR: @zksync
- $AZTEC ($59M mcap, $205M FDV, +15% 7d, +39% 30d, 50% off ATH):
Aztec sits here for now, but it's the one in this section most likely to move up. Today its privacy runs on elliptic-curve based proofs, so nothing about it is post-quantum yet. But Zac said on the 9th of October that an Aztec-specific security post and roadmap covering the AI and quantum threats is coming, spent the weekend at a post-quantum cryptography conference, and confirmed a security and roadmap update for this week. He also called bunker mode hyperbolic and warned against rushing into untested crypto, so I'd expect a careful plan rather than a flashy one. With V6 heading to mainnet at the same time, that post is the next main catalyst to watch.
→ DYOR: @aztecnetwork
That's the token side. Equities in the next post.
Again: not final, still digging. What am I missing, and where am I wrong?
1/2
Now the equities side of the quantum trade. Same theme, completely different angle and market situation.
While the PQ tokens ripped over the last two weeks tho, the quantum computing stocks kept bleeding ($IONQ -12%, $QBTS -16%, $INFQ -24% from 25th of Sep to 9th of Oct).
Also, same disclaimer as before: v0.1, still researching, so pls tell me what I'm missing.
Numbers are 9 Oct closes: mkt cap, mkt cap / trailing sales, 1 month move, distance from 52w high.
1) Pure-play hardware
- $IONQ ($15.9B, 64x sales, +8% 1m, 53% off high):
The biggest and most liquid pure play, building trapped-ion machines. $80M revenue last quarter (+287% y/y), $3B in cash, and the only pure play selected for Stage C of DARPA's quantum program. For crypto people it's the most relevant name: IonQ co-authored the September estimate that breaking Bitcoin's curve would take ~19,400 physical qubits and ~26 days per attempt on its architecture, while saying clearly that no such machine exists. The flags: a lot of the growth is acquired, there's a short report from February, and insiders sold ~$450M of stock over two years. And it fell on the days the DARPA news came out, which tells you what this market cares about right now.
- $QNT ($10.9B, 473x sales, -15% 1m, 52% off high):
Quantinuum, the Honeywell spin-out, and on the numbers the technical leader: its Helios machine has the best published gate fidelity (99.92% on 98 qubits). It IPO'd in June at $60 and trades at ~$41 now, so everyone who bought the IPO is down 31%. You pay 473x sales on $23M of revenue for the best tech, with $2.1B of cash behind it. The near-term issue is supply: the IPO lock-up is reported to expire around December 1st, and Honeywell still holds ~48% of the votes.
- $QBTS ($5.4B, 437x sales, -13% 1m, 69% off high):
D-Wave is the odd one out. It sells quantum annealers, which are real machines with real customers, but annealing can't run Shor's algorithm, so it's irrelevant for the "breaks crypto" question. Revenue has been flat at ~$3M a quarter, and its own gate-model roadmap only reaches 10 logical qubits in 2030. At 437x sales you're paying a quantum multiple for a business that isn't growing rn.
- $RGTI ($4.7B, 351x sales, -8% 1m, 76% off high):
Rigetti builds superconducting chips, same approach as IBM and Google but without their budget. The newest 108-qubit system runs at ~99.1% two-qubit fidelity, which is behind the ion-trap guys. $13M of trailing revenue against a $4.7B cap, but $541M of cash and no debt, so it has years of runway. Pure high-beta narrative stock, moves hardest in both directions.
- $INFQ ($2.5B, 59x sales, -15% 1m, 48% off high):
Infleqtion is the one that looks most like an actual business. Neutral-atom computers plus quantum sensing (clocks, navigation), and the sensing side sells to defense customers today: $42M trailing revenue, +116% last quarter, cheapest multiple in the group. It also claimed 30 logical qubits on 80 physical ones in September, tho without publishing an error rate. Came public via SPAC in February, so keep an eye on the share supply.
- $QUBT ($1.7B, 171x sales, -5% 1m, 69% off high):
Quantum Computing Inc is basically a cash box with a call option attached. It raised a ton of equity near the highs, and ~77% of the market cap is cash now. The revenue ($9.8M) mostly comes from companies it bought this year, and the photonic chip foundry is the least proven product on this list. Downside is cushioned by the cash, upside needs the tech to show up.
- $XNDU ($1.2B, 164x sales, -57% 1m, 91% off high):
Xanadu is the cautionary tale. Photonic approach, respected research team, listed via SPAC in March. Then ~294M shares got registered for resale in May and the stock never recovered, it's down 91% from the high. Nothing broke in the tech. It's just what happens when supply hits a story stock, and it's the scenario to keep in mind for every lock-up on this list.
2) PQC security
- $LAES ($487M, 20x sales, 76% off high):
SEALSQ sells post-quantum secure chips, so it's the closest thing in equities to a direct play on the PQ migration (somebody has to make the hardware that runs the new signatures). $25M trailing revenue at 20x sales, which looks almost reasonable next to the hardware names, but it's loss-making and the PQC chip cycle is a multi-year story.
- $ARQQ ($286M, 262x sales, 72% off high):
Arqit does quantum-safe encryption software. The problem is one number: ~$1.1M of trailing revenue. 262x sales for a company that small is mainly a story, not a business yet.
3) Big tech programs
- $IBM ($214B):
The most concrete roadmap in the industry and the one to track for Q-day timing. The target is Starling in 2029 with 200 logical qubits. For context, the latest estimates for breaking 256-bit elliptic curves need roughly 1,200 to 1,450 logical qubits, so even an on-time Starling is an order of magnitude short. Also in DARPA Stage C. Earnings 21 Oct, developer conference 11 to 13 Nov, where they like to show new chips.
- $GOOGL ($4.3T):
Google's Willow chip (105 qubits) was the first to show error correction actually getting better as you scale up, which was the open question for the whole field. And a Google-led paper this March is the one that cut the estimate for breaking ECC-256 to under 500K physical qubits, which kicked off a lot of the current panic. Most important lab for the thesis, zero impact on the stock.
- $MSFT ($3.97T):
Microsoft bets on topological qubits, a totally different approach that would be far more stable if it works. Whether it works is openly disputed tho, plenty of physicists don't buy that the Majorana results show what Microsoft says they show. High-risk, high-reward science project inside a $4T company. Also in DARPA Stage C.
- $AMZN ($2.83T):
Amazon mostly rents out other people's quantum computers through Braket, and has its own Ocelot chip in the lab. It's the picks-and-shovels cloud angle, and a rounding error in the valuation.
- $NVDA ($5.54T):
Nvidia doesn't build qubits at all. It sells the classical side: quantum computers need a lot of classical compute next to them for control and error correction, and CUDA-Q is Nvidia's software layer for exactly that. If hybrid quantum-classical is how this plays out, they win regardless of which qubit type does.
4) Owners and foundries
- $HON ($65.8B):
Honeywell still holds ~48% of Quantinuum's voting power after the IPO. So it's the diluted, boring way to own the technical leader, inside an industrial conglomerate.
- $GFS ($26.5B, 3.8x sales):
GlobalFoundries is the fab angle. A real chip business at a normal multiple, with a reported CHIPS Act quantum award behind it. Quantum is optionality here, not the reason to own it.
5) Software
- $HQ ($0.9B):
Horizon Quantum builds software tools that are meant to work across hardware types. Listed via SPAC in March, and I couldn't get clean revenue numbers, so there's too little data for me to have a view yet.
6) ETF
- QTUM ($5.7B AUM, 0.40% fee):
The lazy option. But look at the holdings before you call it a quantum bet, most of it is semis and cloud names, so the quantum exposure is pretty diluted by all the other stuff.
NFA tho. DYOR.
2/2
Adding this post here for some context around the quantum debate in crypto:
x.com/zerokn0wledge_/status/2108900295317356795
1 more image on X