Quantum-safe L0 blockchain protocol

Cellframe CELL

Cellframe has credible production evidence of post-quantum native transaction signing: public code, official tooling, and current mainnet records show Dilithium use, with Falcon also supported by wallet tooling. Native CF-20 ownership is materially stronger than a roadmap-only claim and no classical native ownership namespace is evidenced. The evaluated system is not treated as fully quantum-ready because consensus-critical authentication, complete state and supply bindings, and possible bridge or wrapped-token dependencies are not sufficiently verifiable from the supplied record. Monitoring is appropriate until these properties and any external value exposure are documented with canonical production evidence.

PQ-Native (native CF-20)PQ-Resistant TransactionsPartial ProtectionExternal Exposure Unverified

Product website Source repository CoinGecko

Stage Migration Live

Confidence Medium

Urgency [Monitor for Updates]

Review Status Draft

Evaluated 2026-08-20

Scope Current Cellframe Backbone production protocol and native CF-20 CELL ownership, including consensus, state, P2P, wallet, custody, and external bridge or wrapped-asset dependencies only to the extent verifiable from the canonical dossier as of 2026-08-20.

AI-generated report. This report was produced by the evaluator and synthesis pipeline. Review status: draft.

Category breakdown

QRI Factors

Algorithm & Implementation Assurance 17.5 / 20

Migration Mechanism, Governance & Ecosystem Coordination 13.25 / 15

Migration Status & Value-at-Risk 18.75 / 25

Production Cryptographic Protection 28.98 / 35

Security Assessment & Evidence Preparedness 3.5 / 5

Critical Quantum Blockers

The exact production cryptography for all validator authentication, block certification, randomness, and other consensus-critical operations is not independently verifiable from the supplied artifacts.
Quantum safety of every supply-binding, privileged state-update, and bridge-verification path is not established by a complete public cryptographic inventory.
The canonical record does not establish whether active ERC-20, BEP-20, wrapped CELL, or bridge paths currently expose material CELL value to classical ownership systems.

Key Risks

A quantum-critical consensus path could remain if any validator, randomness, block-certificate, or privileged consensus key uses classical authentication not disclosed in the supplied documentation.
Undocumented commitment, supply-control, bridge-verification, governance, or privileged state-update keys could preserve a quantum-enabled forgery or ownership path.
If material CELL value is actively held through classical wrapped-token or bridge representations, it may inherit host-chain or bridge authorization risk; neither current operation nor exposure is established by the canonical record.
The incomplete cryptographic inventory makes it difficult to exclude classical fallbacks or undisclosed dependencies outside the well-evidenced native transaction path.

Assurance Notes

Current mainnet transaction evidence and public source code verify production Dilithium signing for native transactions.
The 2024 CyStack review is stale but relevant. The supplied audit listing says it covered post-quantum cryptography and consensus, but detailed scope, findings, remediation, and current-version mapping are unavailable.
Consensus documentation establishes wallet-signed block validation and discusses post-quantum signature overhead, but no validator-level mainnet artifact directly verifies every consensus signature, randomness, or block-certification mechanism.
The public record names major PQ algorithms and explains the quantum threat, but it is not a complete layer-by-layer cryptographic inventory.
No dedicated side-channel, fault-injection, HSM, hardware-signer, custody-control, or signing-state review was supplied.
No formal quantum-specific emergency governance process was found. This is an assurance caveat rather than an independent quantum-risk cap.
Several excluded dead-link artifacts reportedly concerned bridge and audit details; excluded artifacts are not evidence and cannot establish current bridge behavior.

Non-Scoring Caveats

Audit age alone does not reduce readiness because public code and current mainnet evidence independently support native Dilithium spend authorization.
No formal quantum-specific incident-response playbook was supplied; absent a demonstrated vulnerable path preserved by that gap, it remains note-only.
The ESBOCS documentation addresses post-quantum signature-size constraints but is not a comprehensive benchmark.
Missing exchange or custody attestations do not demonstrate vulnerability of native CF-20 custody.
The dossier narrative alleges major exchange exposure and an unrestricted two-way bridge, but SRC-004 only identifies bridging as part of an audit scope. It does not establish current bridge operation, unrestricted flow, vulnerable host-chain value, or material exposure; bridge and legacy-value caps therefore are not applied.

Evidence record

Claims and Caveats

Security Assessment & Evidence Preparedness

Public cryptographic inventory and quantum threat model

Claim: Public documentation identifies principal PQ algorithms and the ECC/RSA quantum threat, but does not provide a complete layer-by-layer cryptographic inventory and formal threat model.

Coverage basis: Official documentation describes Dilithium, Falcon, SPHINCS+, Kyber, and defense against quantum attacks on classical public-key cryptography.

Implementation score: 0.5 · Evidence confidence: Medium

Issue classification: quantum-critical uncertainty · Score treatment: score-reducing

Quantum blocker: No complete inventory establishes every consensus, state, bridge, privileged-key, and transport dependency.

Assurance: The record is substantive but not a formal attack-surface inventory.

Native PQ design is documented; external and privileged pathways remain incompletely inventoried.

Security Assessment & Evidence Preparedness

Public evidence record supporting the assessment

Claim: Public code, documentation, current mainnet transaction data, and an independent review listing support production PQ transaction signing.

Coverage basis: The evidence record includes SDK code, explorer artifacts, command-output documentation, wallet documentation, and a protocol audit listing.

Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High

Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable

Assurance: Evidence is strongest for native spend authorization and weaker for other critical layers.

The record does not prove ecosystem-wide protection.

Production Cryptographic Protection

Spend authorization / transaction signatures

Claim: Native mainnet transactions demonstrably use Dilithium signatures, with official tooling also supporting Falcon.

Coverage basis: A current explorer datum reports sig_dil, official transaction examples use sig_dil, and public SDK and wallet tools implement PQ signing.

Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High

Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable

Assurance: This is the best-supported quantum-critical property in the dossier.

The claim applies to native Cellframe transactions, not automatically to external representations.

Production Cryptographic Protection

Account, address, public-key exposure, and key derivation

Claim: Native wallet ownership uses PQ signature certificates and public-key-hash addresses, with no documented classical native ownership namespace.

Coverage basis: Wallet documentation describes public-key hashes and signature identifiers, while cryptography documentation and mainnet artifacts identify PQ signatures.

Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High

Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable

Assurance: External token, bridge, or custody representations are not covered by this finding.

Public-key hashing provides additional exposure reduction; PQ authorization is the primary control.

Production Cryptographic Protection

Consensus-critical authentication

Claim: ESBOCS uses wallet signatures for block creation and validation, but the exact production algorithms for all validator and consensus-critical authentication are not directly demonstrated.

Coverage basis: Consensus documentation describes signed PoS validation, general PQ signature support, and resource constraints arising from large PQ block signatures; the audit listing identifies consensus review.

Implementation score: 0.75 · Evidence confidence: Medium

Issue classification: quantum-critical uncertainty · Score treatment: cap-applying

Quantum blocker: No validator-level production artifact or complete specification verifies every consensus signature, randomness, threshold, or certification mechanism.

Assurance: The evidence supports a credible PQ production path but not independently verified universal coverage.

No classical consensus algorithm is affirmatively identified; this is uncertainty, not a demonstrated vulnerability.

Production Cryptographic Protection

State-integrity and data-availability mechanisms

Claim: Production architecture includes signed validation, hashing, state management, and access controls, but the quantum assumptions of every critical state, supply, and bridge binding are not inventoried.

Coverage basis: Official architecture and crypto-module documentation identify validation, state management, signatures, hashing, random generation, and controlled database groups.

Implementation score: 0.5 · Evidence confidence: Low

Issue classification: quantum-critical uncertainty · Score treatment: cap-applying

Quantum blocker: The record does not exclude quantum-vulnerable commitments, privileged state keys, supply controls, or bridge-verification dependencies.

Assurance: Architecture descriptions establish that this layer exists but do not fully verify all quantum-security properties.

No specific pairing, KZG, or vulnerable commitment dependency is established.

Production Cryptographic Protection

Privacy and proof layers

Claim: No dedicated shielded transaction, zero-knowledge proof, nullifier, or protocol-level privacy-pool layer is identified in the supplied production architecture.

Coverage basis: The cited crypto module provides generic encryption and integrity functions, while architecture sources do not describe a shielded or proof system.

Implementation score: 0 · Evidence confidence: Medium

Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable

Assurance: Generic encryption support is not treated as evidence of a shielded asset or ZK proof layer.

Reassess if a production privacy pool, ring-signature layer, or proof system is documented.

Production Cryptographic Protection

P2P transport, node identity, and peer authentication

Claim: The SDK contains certificate-based P2P authentication and PQ-capable primitives, but production peer certificate and key-exchange algorithms are not specified.

Coverage basis: Public SDK evidence supports certificate-based peer authentication and PQ-capable cryptographic modules.

Implementation score: 0.5 · Evidence confidence: Low

Issue classification: quantum-critical uncertainty · Score treatment: score-reducing

Quantum blocker: It is not established whether a classical P2P identity path can affect consensus participation, privileged node roles, or bridge operation.

Assurance: The separation needed to classify a classical transport path as satisfied by design is not shown.

The dossier does not establish an exploitable classical P2P path.

Production Cryptographic Protection

Critical wallet, custody, HSM, signer, and hardware-wallet workflows

Claim: Official wallet and signing tools support Dilithium and Falcon for native account creation and transaction signing.

Coverage basis: Wallet documentation and signing APIs expose PQ signature types, and the SDK contains production PQ implementations.

Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High

Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable

Assurance: No hardware-wallet, HSM, or institutional custody evidence was supplied; that does not negate the verified native software-wallet path.

External exchange custody through non-native representations is outside the verified workflow.

Migration Status & Value-at-Risk

Percentage of economically relevant value-at-risk protected

Claim: Native CF-20 ownership appears complete by PQ design, but total economically relevant protection cannot be established across possible external representations and bridges.

Coverage basis: Native wallet and mainnet transaction evidence supports PQ ownership; no canonical analytics or primary bridge evidence quantifies or confirms external vulnerable value.

Implementation score: 0.75 · Evidence confidence: Low

Issue classification: quantum-critical uncertainty · Score treatment: cap-applying

Quantum blocker: Economically relevant exposure outside native CF-20 cannot be measured or excluded from the supplied record.

Assurance: No protected-supply percentage or external exposure figure is supported by a canonical source.

The dossier narrative about major ERC-20/BEP-20 exposure is not treated as settled fact.

Migration Status & Value-at-Risk

Critical wallets migrated, protected, or inherently PQ-native

Claim: Critical wallets using native CF-20 controls are inherently PQ-protected, while external exchange, bridge, treasury, and custody control paths are not documented.

Coverage basis: Native wallet construction supports PQ signatures, but canonical attestations or contract records do not identify every institutional path.

Implementation score: 0.75 · Evidence confidence: Low

Issue classification: quantum-critical uncertainty · Score treatment: score-reducing

Quantum blocker: External custody or bridge wallets could use classical controls, but their existence and exposure are not verifiable from supplied sources.

Assurance: Missing attestations alone do not reduce native-chain readiness; the broader exposure perimeter remains unresolved.

No specific vulnerable critical wallet is identified by canonical evidence.

Migration Status & Value-at-Risk

Legacy vulnerable pools identified, measurable, deprecated, migrated, frozen, or absent by design

Claim: No classical native ownership pool is described, but the dossier does not conclusively inventory or measure external wrapped-token or bridge pools.

Coverage basis: Native address and transaction-format evidence supports a PQ-native namespace; external contract and bridge records are absent.

Implementation score: 0.75 · Evidence confidence: Low

Issue classification: quantum-critical uncertainty · Score treatment: score-reducing

Quantum blocker: Potential non-native legacy pools are neither verified as nonexistent nor measured, deprecated, frozen, or migrated.

Assurance: No legacy-coverage cap is applied because canonical sources do not first establish that vulnerable legacy value exists.

Native-only complete-by-design treatment cannot be extended to unverified external pathways.

Migration Mechanism, Governance & Ecosystem Coordination

Public migration or protection roadmap

Claim: Native protection is already deployed and does not depend on an ECC-to-PQC roadmap, but no roadmap is evidenced for any external classical representation.

Coverage basis: Current code, wallet documentation, and mainnet transaction evidence show deployed native protection rather than roadmap intent.

Implementation score: 0.75 · Evidence confidence: Medium

Issue classification: quantum-critical uncertainty · Score treatment: score-reducing

Quantum blocker: If external classical representations are active, no sequencing, activation criteria, or deprecation plan is supplied for them.

Assurance: Absence of a native migration roadmap is not itself a defect because native PQ signing is live.

Future PQ-to-PQ upgrades are not current migration requirements.

Migration Mechanism, Governance & Ecosystem Coordination

Migration accessibility and defaults

Claim: Users can create native wallets and sign transactions using Dilithium or Falcon through official tooling.

Coverage basis: Wallet and signing documentation expose PQ signature creation and transaction paths, and current ledger data demonstrates PQ use.

Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High

Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable

Assurance: The evidence does not establish defaults for external exchanges or wrapped assets.

Dilithium and Falcon are accessible native signing options.

Migration Mechanism, Governance & Ecosystem Coordination

Migration enforcement and ecosystem coordination

Claim: Native transaction formats enforce PQ-capable certificate signing, but unsafe fallback prevention across any bridges, wrappers, exchanges, and custodians is not verifiable.

Coverage basis: Native transaction and wallet sources show PQ controls; no canonical bridge restriction, deprecation, freeze, or institutional coordination evidence is included.

Implementation score: 0.75 · Evidence confidence: Low

Issue classification: quantum-critical uncertainty · Score treatment: score-reducing

Quantum blocker: The record cannot establish whether economically relevant value can enter a classical external control path.

Assurance: No unrestricted bridge was proven, so the dedicated bridge cap is not applied.

Native enforcement is evidenced; ecosystem-wide enforcement is not.

Migration Mechanism, Governance & Ecosystem Coordination

Emergency disclosure, incident response, or quantum governance

Claim: No formal quantum-specific emergency governance process is supplied, but native production protection does not depend on such a process to complete an ECC migration.

Coverage basis: The native transaction system already uses PQ signatures and no current classical native fallback is evidenced.

Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium

Issue classification: assurance-only caveat · Score treatment: note-only

Assurance: This does not establish the quality of general incident response or governance.

Reassess if an external vulnerable path is confirmed.

Algorithm & Implementation Assurance

Standardized, standards-track, or broadly reviewed PQC algorithm selection

Claim: Cellframe implements standardized or broadly reviewed PQ algorithms, including Dilithium, Falcon, SPHINCS+, and Kyber.

Coverage basis: Official cryptography documentation and public SDK metadata identify the algorithms, while mainnet evidence confirms Dilithium use.

Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High

Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable

Assurance: The record does not establish which algorithm and parameter set protects every non-transaction layer.

No evidence shows that core protection primarily relies on bespoke cryptography.

Algorithm & Implementation Assurance

Independent cryptographic and implementation audit

Claim: An independent 2024 protocol review states that it covered post-quantum cryptography and consensus.

Coverage basis: The CyStack project record identifies a protocol audit with relevant stated scope.

Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium

Issue classification: assurance-only caveat · Score treatment: confidence-only

Assurance: Detailed findings, remediation, version mapping, and a current follow-up review are not supplied.

Audit staleness does not independently reduce implementation credit.

https://cystack.net/projects/cellframe_protocol

Algorithm & Implementation Assurance

Open-source, reproducible implementation

Claim: The core SDK is publicly available and contains PQ cryptographic and P2P implementations.

Coverage basis: The canonical source repository exposes SDK code and explicit PQ modules.

Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High

Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable

Assurance: No deterministic build or deployment-to-commit attestation was supplied.

Public code materially supports verification despite absent exact production-version mapping.

Algorithm & Implementation Assurance

Parameter agility and future upgrade path

Claim: Multiple PQ signature and KEM algorithms are implemented, but a documented parameter-change and production activation process is not supplied.

Coverage basis: Documentation and tooling expose Dilithium, Falcon, SPHINCS+, Kyber, and hybrid capabilities.

Implementation score: 0.75 · Evidence confidence: Medium

Issue classification: assurance-only caveat · Score treatment: confidence-only

Assurance: Algorithm multiplicity supports practical agility, but governance, compatibility, and activation mechanics are undocumented.

Future PQ-to-PQ upgrade uncertainty is not a current vulnerability.

Algorithm & Implementation Assurance

Stateful-signature, side-channel, fault-injection, HSM, and custody implementation risks

Claim: The supplied record does not document dedicated side-channel, fault-injection, secure-hardware, HSM, custody, or signing-state controls for PQ implementations.

Coverage basis: Public code and wallet documentation establish implementation existence but not specialized implementation-hardening controls.

Implementation score: 0 · Evidence confidence: None

Issue classification: assurance-only caveat · Score treatment: confidence-only

Assurance: No quantum-enabled exploit path is established solely by this documentation gap.

The evidenced algorithms are not identified as stateful XMSS/LMS schemes.

Algorithm & Implementation Assurance

Performance and resource-impact analysis

Claim: Consensus documentation evaluates PQ signature-size overhead and limits block signatures to keep block sizes manageable.

Coverage basis: The ESBOCS design discusses production resource impact and a concrete block-signature limit.

Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High

Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable

Assurance: This is design-level resource analysis rather than a comprehensive benchmark suite.

The documented mitigation shows PQ overhead was considered in consensus design.

https://wiki.cellframe.net/02.+Learn/Technology/Architecture/ESBOCS+Consensus

Report metadata

Generation Details

Network: Cellframe Backbone mainnet
QRI spec: draft-v3.1
Audit coverage: stale but relevant
Report version: 0.3.0
Prompt version: qri-draft-v3.1-hardened-v3
Evidence models: x-ai/grok-4.3, google/gemini-3.1-pro-preview
Evaluator models: openai/gpt-5.6-sol, anthropic/claude-opus-5
Synthesis model: openai/gpt-5.6-sol