blockchain network
Tidecoin TDC
Tidecoin (TDC) is a PQ-Native Proof-of-Work blockchain launched December 2020 that replaces ECDSA entirely with Falcon-512 (NIST Draft FIPS 206 / FN-DSA) lattice-based signatures since genesis. The native chain achieves a raw Factor Score of 88.5: spend authorization, address/public-key exposure, state integrity, consensus authentication (N/A for PoW), privacy (N/A), P2P (satisfied by design), wallet support, migration coverage, migration mechanisms, and NIST algorithm selection are all complete by design or verified from public code and mainnet evidence. The QRI Score of 89 is limited by the absence of an independent cryptographic audit (Algorithm & Implementation Assurance category scores 11.5/20) and lack of formal parameter-agility, side-channel, and performance documentation. Confidence is Medium due to audit absence and the unverified nature of the wTDC bridge on BSC. No critical quantum blockers were identified for the native chain.
PQ-NativePQ-Resistant
Category breakdown
QRI Factors
Algorithm & Implementation Assurance
11.5 / 20
Migration Mechanism, Governance & Ecosystem Coordination
12 / 15
Migration Status & Value-at-Risk
25 / 25
Production Cryptographic Protection
35 / 35
Security Assessment & Evidence Preparedness
5 / 5
Critical Quantum Blockers
- No critical quantum blocker analysis returned.
Key Risks
- A Wrapped Tidecoin (wTDC) token exists on BSC (0x0e182bd5c8703632c4c1761e0496c66c2b5d3385). No bridge contract on the Tidecoin side was identified. If this represents a functional two-way bridge, value flowing to BSC would be exposed to ECDSA quantum vulnerabilities. Manual review recommended.
- No independent audit of the Falcon-512 implementation. While the open-source code is publicly verifiable, implementation flaws (side-channel leakage, RNG issues, memory safety) could theoretically exist without detection.
- The Falcon-512 legacy nonce-reuse profile (TidecoinLegacyFalcon512) has weaker provable security properties than fresh-nonce regeneration, though it is not known to be practically exploitable.
- FN-DSA (FIPS 206) finalization may introduce breaking changes. The current production system uses legacy Falcon-512 which has been stable since genesis, but future standardization could require a consensus upgrade.
- Falcon-512 has received less third-party cryptanalytic attention than ML-DSA (FIPS 204), though it has been studied since the 2017 NIST PQC competition with no known efficient quantum algorithm against the SIS problem over NTRU lattices.
Assurance Notes
- No independent cryptographic or implementation audit of the Falcon-512 integration into the Bitcoin Core codebase has been identified. For a verifiable PQ-native system, this caps confidence at Medium but does not reduce the QRI score per QRI Section 8.2.
- The Falcon-512 implementation uses the PQClean library. The tide-fn-dsa repository notes that the TidecoinLegacyFalcon512 profile reuses nonces across retries for node compatibility, though fresh nonce regeneration is preferred for provable security. This is not known to be practically exploitable.
- No formal performance or resource-impact analysis exists for Falcon-512 operations, though the chain has operated for 5+ years with ~2.38M blocks produced and zero security incidents.
- FN-DSA (FIPS 206) is still in draft status. The current production system uses Falcon-512 per the original specification. Future FN-DSA finalization may require a consensus upgrade but does not affect current quantum readiness.
- A Wrapped Tidecoin (wTDC) BEP-20 token exists on BSC (contract 0x0e182bd5c8703632c4c1761e0496c66c2b5d3385, launched 2021-06-07, 20,000 supply). No bridge contract on the Tidecoin side was identified. The two-way flow capability and restrictions are unverified. The value at risk is small (~$8,465 market cap) but the relationship to the native chain is unclear.
- No formal quantum-specific incident-response playbook identified. A SECURITY.md with responsible disclosure instructions exists in the tidecoin/tidecoin repository.
- The tide-fn-dsa codebase aims for constant-time behavior to the extent realistically achievable for Falcon-family algorithms, but this is a best-effort implementation without independent verification.
Non-Scoring Caveats
- Audit absence: No independent cryptographic or implementation audit exists. This is an assurance-only caveat for a verifiable PQ-native system; it caps confidence at Medium but does not reduce the QRI score.
- Future upgrade uncertainty: The transition from legacy Falcon-512 to final FN-DSA (FIPS 206) when the standard is finalized is not a current quantum vulnerability. The current production system is PQ-secure with Falcon-512.
- wTDC on BSC: A Wrapped Tidecoin (wTDC) token exists on BNB Smart Chain (0x0e182bd5c8703632c4c1761e0496c66c2b5d3385, launched 2021-06-07, 20,000 supply, ~$8,465 market cap). No bridge contract on the Tidecoin side was identified, and the two-way flow capability is unverified. The token has zero 24h trading volume. Manual review recommended to determine if this represents an active quantum-vulnerable pathway.
- FN-DSA draft status: Falcon-512 is a NIST-selected algorithm undergoing standardization. The current implementation is based on the original Falcon specification and PQClean.
- Exchange and custody attestations: Missing but not score-reducing since the native protocol makes classical custody impossible by design.
- Limited exchange support (XeggeX, NonKyc.io, Dex-Trade) and low market cap (~$1.5M). Not score-reducing as this is an adoption concern, not a quantum-security concern.
- The separate BSC token 'Tidecoin (TDC)' at contract 0xA171E3efCF260efdCB8BBed625607cE79f56Ab2d (deployed 2025-08-26, 100B supply) appears unrelated to native Tidecoin and is not scored.
Evidence record
Claims and Caveats
Security Assessment
Public cryptographic inventory
Claim: Tidecoin has published a cryptographic inventory covering signatures (Falcon-512), PoW consensus (YespowerTIDE), and wallet derivation in its whitepaper and repository README.
Coverage basis: PQ-native design; complete cryptographic inventory is inherent to the project's founding documentation.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Assurance: PQ-native assets receive full preparedness credit per Section 7.1.
Security Assessment
Public evidence record
Claim: Evidence record includes whitepaper, public GitHub repositories (C and Rust Falcon implementations), mainnet explorer, and Bitcointalk announcement.
Coverage basis: PQ-native; evidence supports the PQ-native claim.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Production Cryptographic Protection
Spend authorization / transaction signatures
Claim: All transaction signatures use Falcon-512 (NIST Draft FIPS 206 / FN-DSA) since genesis (December 2020). No ECDSA code path exists in the protocol.
Coverage basis: PQ-native; Falcon-512 is the only signature scheme for native asset spend authorization.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Assurance: Code available but not independently audited. The falcon-lib uses PQClean API. Confidence capped at Medium due to audit absence.
Production Cryptographic Protection
Account, address, public-key exposure
Claim: All addresses and public keys on the chain use Falcon-512. Bare P2PK outputs expose Falcon public keys, but Falcon is quantum-resistant. No ECDSA key exposure path exists.
Coverage basis: PQ-native; the prevblock explorer confirms all keys since genesis coinbase are Falcon-512.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Assurance: Public key exposure is not a concern when exposed keys are PQ-secure. The long-exposure attack window is mitigated by design.
Bare P2PK outputs expose public keys at rest, but Falcon-512 lattice security holds against quantum attacks.
Production Cryptographic Protection
Consensus-critical authentication
Claim: Tidecoin uses Proof-of-Work (YespowerTIDE). There are no validator signatures, BLS threshold signatures, VRFs, or finality signatures.
Coverage basis: N/A - PoW chain has no validator authentication layer.
Implementation score: 0 · Evidence confidence: High
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Production Cryptographic Protection
State-integrity and data-availability mechanisms
Claim: Bitcoin-style UTXO model with SHA-256 block hashing and SHA-512 witness script hashing. No KZG/pairing commitments. Grover's algorithm would require ~2^128 operations against SHA-256.
Coverage basis: Hash-based integrity; no pairing or KZG-based commitments exist.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Assurance: SHA-256 and SHA-512 are well-understood hash functions. Grover's algorithm provides only a quadratic speedup, making practical attacks infeasible for 256-bit hash output.
Production Cryptographic Protection
Privacy and proof layers
Claim: Tidecoin has no privacy layer, shielded pool, ZK proofs, or confidential transactions.
Coverage basis: N/A - no privacy layer exists.
Implementation score: 0 · Evidence confidence: High
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Production Cryptographic Protection
P2P transport, node identity, peer authentication
Claim: Bitcoin Core fork P2P layer. Node identity is not consensus or custody-critical. The yarsawyer/tidecoin README claims ML-KEM-512 for P2P transport but this was not independently verified in source code.
Coverage basis: Satisfied by design for PoW chain where P2P identity is not spend or consensus-critical.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Assurance: The ML-KEM-512 P2P claim appears only in the README and was not independently verified in source code. Regardless, P2P is satisfied by design for a PoW chain.
Production Cryptographic Protection
Critical wallet, custody, HSM workflows
Claim: Tidecoin-qt desktop wallet and CLI tools exist. Since the chain only supports Falcon-512, any wallet interacting with the chain inherently uses PQ signatures.
Coverage basis: PQ-native chain makes all wallet interactions PQ by necessity. No classical custody path exists.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Assurance: No HSM, hardware wallet, or institutional custody documentation exists, but the PQ-native design means any working wallet inherently uses Falcon-512.
Migration Status & Value-at-Risk
Percentage of economically relevant value-at-risk protected
Claim: 100% of native TDC value is PQ-native since genesis. The ~18.8M TDC circulating supply has always used Falcon-512 signatures. No classical native ownership namespace exists.
Coverage basis: PQ-native with no classical native ownership space. Migration complete by design per Section 9.3.1.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Full 20/20 points awarded.
Migration Status & Value-at-Risk
Critical wallets migrated, protected, or inherently PQ-native
Claim: All on-chain wallets holding native TDC are inherently PQ-native since Falcon-512 is the only signature scheme.
Coverage basis: PQ-native; all native TDC wallets are PQ-protected by protocol design.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Assurance: Exchange custody attestations are absent but not required for PQ-native scoring per Section 7.1.
Migration Status & Value-at-Risk
Legacy vulnerable pools identified, measurable, deprecated, or proven not to exist
Claim: No legacy quantum-vulnerable pools exist on the native Tidecoin chain. All balances since genesis use Falcon-512.
Coverage basis: PQ-native; no classical ownership namespace means no legacy vulnerable pools.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Migration Mechanism, Governance & Ecosystem Coordination
Public migration or protection roadmap
Claim: Tidecoin is PQ-native; no ECC-to-PQC migration is needed. The README describes future PQ-to-PQ upgrades including Falcon-1024 and ML-DSA variants.
Coverage basis: Satisfied by design for PQ-native native asset.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Migration Mechanism, Governance & Ecosystem Coordination
Migration accessibility and defaults
Claim: All account creation uses Falcon-512 by default since genesis. Wallet tooling all uses Falcon-512. No migration prompts needed.
Coverage basis: PQ-native; all paths are Falcon-512 by default and mandatory.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Migration Mechanism, Governance & Ecosystem Coordination
Migration enforcement and coordination
Claim: The protocol prevents creation of classical ownership paths by design. No legacy signing, no unsafe fallback, no classical address format exists.
Coverage basis: Satisfied by design for native asset.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: Medium
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Migration Mechanism, Governance & Ecosystem Coordination
Emergency disclosure, incident-response, or governance process
Claim: A SECURITY.md file with responsible disclosure instructions exists in the tidecoin/tidecoin repository. No formal quantum-specific incident-response playbook identified.
Coverage basis: Basic security disclosure process exists.
Implementation score: 0 · Evidence confidence: Low
Issue classification: assurance-only caveat · Score treatment: confidence-only
Assurance: Per Section 8.2: 'No formal quantum-specific incident-response playbook' does not create a Readiness & Risk Cap. This is a note-only caveat. Scored at 0.00 because no formal quantum-specific process documentation was found, though a basic SECURITY.md exists.
The SECURITY.md provides basic responsible disclosure instructions but no quantum-specific incident-response process.
Algorithm & Implementation Assurance
Uses NIST-standardized or broadly reviewed PQC algorithms
Claim: Falcon-512 is a NIST-selected algorithm being standardized as FN-DSA under Draft FIPS 206. The algorithm has been publicly reviewed since the 2017 NIST PQC competition.
Coverage basis: Falcon-512 is NIST-selected for standardization.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Assurance: Falcon-512 was selected by NIST in the 8-year PQC standardization process. Falcon has received less third-party cryptanalytic attention than ML-DSA (FIPS 204).
Algorithm & Implementation Assurance
Independent cryptographic and implementation audit
Claim: No public evidence of any formal independent cryptographic or implementation audit of the Falcon-512 integration into the Bitcoin Core codebase.
Coverage basis: No audit exists.
Implementation score: 0 · Evidence confidence: High
Issue classification: assurance-only caveat · Score treatment: confidence-only
Assurance: Per Section 8.2: 'No recent independent audit for an otherwise verifiable PQ-native or PQ-secure production system' does not create a Readiness & Risk Cap by itself. Confidence capped at Medium. The Implementation Score for this subfactor is 0.00 because no audit exists.
The subfactor score is 0.00 because no audit exists. The QRI score impact is limited by the spec's treatment of audit absence for verifiable PQ-native systems.
Algorithm & Implementation Assurance
Open-source, reproducible implementation
Claim: All critical code is open-source on GitHub under MIT license. Build instructions are documented. The Falcon-512 implementation uses the PQClean library.
Coverage basis: Public GitHub repositories with build documentation.
Implementation score: 1 · Evidence confidence: High
Issue classification: none · Score treatment: not applicable
Assurance: Code is publicly available and buildable. Multiple repositories exist with some fragmentation.
Algorithm & Implementation Assurance
Parameter agility and future upgrade path
Claim: The README documents multi-scheme cryptographic agility with 5 NIST-standardized signature schemes (Falcon-512, Falcon-1024, ML-DSA-44/65/87). The tide-fn-dsa repository shows active FN-DSA compatibility work.
Coverage basis: Documented agility and future upgrade path.
Implementation score: 0.5 · Evidence confidence: Low
Issue classification: assurance-only caveat · Score treatment: confidence-only
Assurance: Multi-scheme claims are documented in the README but activation criteria, consensus upgrade process, and mainnet readiness for alternative schemes are not specified. The tide-fn-dsa repository warns that backward compatibility will not be maintained until FN-DSA finalization.
Scored at 0.50 rather than 0.75 because the upgrade path is documented but not yet formalized with activation criteria or governance process.
Algorithm & Implementation Assurance
Stateful-signature safety, side-channel, fault-injection, state-management risks
Claim: Falcon-512 is a stateless signature scheme, eliminating state-management concerns. The tide-fn-dsa implementation aims for constant-time behavior to the extent realistically achievable.
Coverage basis: Stateless scheme with documented constant-time aims.
Implementation score: 0.5 · Evidence confidence: Low
Issue classification: assurance-only caveat · Score treatment: confidence-only
Assurance: Falcon is stateless, so state-management concerns are minimal. The tide-fn-dsa codebase aims for constant-time behavior but acknowledges it as best-effort. No side-channel audit exists.
Scored at 0.50: stateless design eliminates stateful concerns, and constant-time aims provide some assurance, but no independent verification exists.
Algorithm & Implementation Assurance
Performance and resource-impact analysis
Claim: No formal performance benchmark or resource-impact analysis identified. The chain has operated for 5+ years with ~2.38M blocks.
Coverage basis: De facto operational evidence only.
Implementation score: 0.5 · Evidence confidence: Low
Issue classification: assurance-only caveat · Score treatment: confidence-only
Assurance: Per Section 8.2: 'No formal performance/resource benchmark' does not create a Readiness & Risk Cap by itself. The chain has operated for 5+ years with ~2.38M blocks, providing de facto evidence that Falcon-512 signature costs do not prevent safe deployment.
Scored at 0.50 for informal discussion without formal benchmark. The 5+ years of mainnet operation provides practical evidence of acceptable performance.
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