# Litecoin (LTC) Quantum Readiness Report

> Litecoin has a QRI score of 5/100 and is assessed at Stage 1 (Quantum Risk Assessed) with medium evidence confidence.

Evaluation date: 2026-06-05. Review status: draft. Evaluated scope: Native asset (LTC) on Litecoin mainnet, including MWEB extension block and all standard address formats (L, M, ltc1q, ltc1p, ltcmweb1).

Litecoin is a classical PoW UTXO chain with ECDSA/secp256k1 spend authorization and an optional MWEB privacy extension using classical Schnorr, Pedersen commitments, and Bulletproofs on secp256k1-zkp. Every critical cryptographic layer is quantum-vulnerable. The Litecoin project has published exactly one quantum-related mitigation proposal: LIP-0003's switch-commitment-to-Elgamal for MWEB commitments, which addresses only supply-inflation risks in the extension block—not ECDSA key recovery, not base-layer transaction signing, not long-exposure public-key theft. This proposal has never been implemented or activated. No comprehensive cryptographic inventory, quantum threat model, PQC design, prototype, testnet, or migration plan exists. Charlie Lee publicly acknowledged quantum risk in March 2026 but stated the community 'can quite easily switch to quantum safe encryption algorithms' without publishing a roadmap. With ~0.45% of supply in MWEB and >99.5% on the transparent ECC-vulnerable ledger, material long-exposure value-at-risk exists with no protection or migration path. Litecoin's 2.5-minute block time provides partial mitigation against on-spend attacks (<3% success probability per Google Quantum AI) but zero protection against at-rest attacks on already-exposed public keys. The project earns minimal credit for LIP-0003's quantum acknowledgment (Stage 1) but remains far from any production quantum protection. QRI Score 5 reflects evidence of quantum risk awareness at the specification and founder level with no meaningful production protection.

## Core resources

- [Litecoin QRI report](https://qrindex.org/projects/litecoin/): Human-readable assessment with score, stage, evidence, blockers, risks, and assurance notes.
- [Litecoin structured report data](https://qrindex.org/projects/litecoin/report.json): Complete report as JSON for deterministic machine processing.
- [QRI methodology](https://qrindex.org/methodology/): Scoring model, evidence handling, readiness stages, confidence, assurance, and report status.
- [All QRI project reports](https://qrindex.org/llms.txt): Score-ranked index of every published project assessment.
- [Litecoin official website](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/litecoin): Project-maintained website.



## Evidence sources

- [Evidence source 1](<https://github.com/litecoin-project/lips/blob/master/lip-0003.mediawiki>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 2](<https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/625>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 3](<https://bmic.ai/gb/quantum-audit/litecoin/>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 4](<https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 5](<https://blog.quarkslab.com/audit-of-the-mimblewimble-integration-inside-litecoin.html>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 6](<https://blockchair.com/litecoin>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 7](<https://www.mwebexplorer.com/>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 8](<https://github.com/litecoin-project/libmw>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 9](<https://litecoin.com/learning-center/addresses-prefixes>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 10](<https://litecoin.watch/articles/litecoin-address-formats-explained-legacy-segwit-bech32-and-mweb>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 11](<https://litecoin.org/>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 12](<https://postquantum.com/quantum-threat-crypto/blockchain-ecosystem-quantum-vulnerabilities/>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 13](<https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/what-is-mimblewimble>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 14](<https://electrum-ltc.org/>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 15](<https://docs.cakewallet.com/cryptos/litecoin>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.
- [Evidence source 16](<https://blog.quarkslab.com/resources/2021-12-08_litecoin/21-08-872-REP.pdf>): Public source cited by the Litecoin QRI assessment.