What it is. Fetch.ai runs an economy of autonomous software agents that pay each other and build reputations, and today none of that signing uses quantum-safe protection.
What we found. The quantum-safe talk you may have heard belongs to a separate chain Fetch plans to launch later, while the chain actually running now has no such work, not even a dated plan to start.
Why it matters. If you hold the coin or build agents on it, a future quantum computer could forge old signatures and rewrite the payment and reputation history that agents trust, and nobody has said what would protect your funds when that day comes.
Fetch.ai is a Cosmos-SDK / Tendermint L1 (chain-id fetchhub-4) using Ed25519 at validator consensus and secp256k1 ECDSA at the account layer, with no published PQC roadmap on the Fetch L1 itself. The ASI Alliance's planned ASI:Chain (separate future L1, testnet 2026, mainnet late 2026 / early 2027) has been described as having a modular cryptography layer that could plug in lattice or hash-based primitives, but that is a different chain and not yet in production. uAgent / Agentverse / DeltaV agent-identity signing relies on the same classical primitives and inherits their quantum vulnerability.
Summary
Fetch.ai scores QRI 22, Band 3 Planning, Migration Stage 0. The L1 (fetchhub-4) is a Cosmos-SDK fork with Tendermint consensus: Ed25519 validator signing, secp256k1 ECDSA account signatures, SHA-256 hashing, X25519/Ed25519 for the Tendermint p2p secret-connection handshake, classical TLS for RPC/REST. Fetch's differentiators (Distributed Random Beacon integration with Tendermint via cosmos-consensus, uAgents framework, Agentverse, DeltaV, AI-Engine, CosmPy) all build on the same classical primitive base. The active validator set was raised to 60 (governance proposal), smaller than Cosmos Hub's ~180. No PQC ADR, no PQC governance proposal, no PQC milestone on Fetch.ai L1; recent governance attention sits on the ASI token-merge ($FET + $AGIX + $OCEAN → $ASI) and ecosystem expansion. ASI Alliance discussion of post-quantum primitives (lattice + hash-based) targets the future ASI:Chain, not the Fetch L1, and remains a roadmap statement rather than shipped code. mainnet-traffic cap binds at 5a=0%. Architecture-Execution Gap cap also binds (Dim 4 ≫ Dim 5). No agent-platform-specific PQC attestation flow declared.
What the gates say
- Gate 1a, Hybrid signature: FAIL , no documented hybrid signature composition AND or OR on Fetch.ai L1; no FIP, no roadmap, no spec for hybrid Ed25519+PQ or secp256k1+PQ
- Gate 1a, Hybrid KEM: FAIL , Tendermint secret-connection X25519, RPC TLS classical X25519/RSA; no hybrid PQ KEM deployed; uAgent message channels classical
- Gate 1b, Commit-to-hash: COND , only relevant if 1a-Sig passes via OR-composition
- Gate 2, Evidence reconstruction: PASS , every sub-score reconstructible from public artifacts within 48 hours
- Gate 3, Primitive naming: PASS , primitives named at every sub-score
Burn-vs-rescue policy on file
Declared option f, Undeclared. No published Fetch.ai policy on what happens to FET / ASI at quantum-vulnerable accounts post-CRQC. No freeze/burn proposal, no STARK rescue scheme, no rate-limit canary, no client-layer hybrid migration framework. Agent-wallet posture also undeclared.
Seven dimensions
Each dimension scores 0–100 internally; the weighted roll-up produces the QRI.
1 Cryptographic Exposure weight 15% 26 / 100
Inventory clear and reconstructible from fetchai GitHub (fetchd, cosmos-sdk fork, cosmos-consensus). uAgents identity reuses Cosmos account-key primitives.
Ed25519 (Tendermint validator consensus signing, default in fetchai/fetchd and fetchai/cosmos-consensus) · secp256k1 ECDSA (Cosmos SDK account signatures via fetchai/cosmos-sdk fork, R||S lower-S form, SHA-256 message digest) · SHA-256 (block hashing, IBC commitment hashing) · X25519/Ed25519 (Tendermint p2p secret-connection handshake) · Standard TLS for RPC/REST endpoints · DRB threshold/pairing primitives (Distributed Random Beacon integrated via fetchai/cosmos-consensus) No PQ-safe primitive in active use on Fetch.ai L1.
Ed25519→ Shor-break-via-DL-without-pairingssecp256k1 ECDSA→ Shor-break-via-DL-without-pairingsSHA-256→ Grover-weaken (256→128-bit)DRB pairing/threshold primitives→ Shor-break-via-pairings (where pairing-based) or Shor-break-via-DL (threshold over EC)
0 PQ families. Two classical families on the signing path (Edwards-curve EdDSA, Weierstrass-curve ECDSA), neither PQ-safe.
Ed25519 ≈ 128-bit classical / 0-bit post-Shor; secp256k1 ECDSA ≈ 128-bit classical / 0-bit post-Shor; SHA-256 ≈ 128-bit post-Grover. No NIST PQC primitive in scope.
Tendermint consensus has TLA+ specification work (upstream); Fetch's cosmos-consensus DRB integration adds custom logic without machine-checked PQ-relevant proofs. Standard Go crypto/ed25519 (constant-time); secp256k1 via btcec. Tier 1 (mature classical EC + SHA-2). No PQ implementation, no formal verification of the DRB at the level of Formosa-Crypto / XMSS proofs.
2 Quantum Recovery Exposure weight 10% 19 / 100
fetch1… accounts derive from secp256k1 pubkey hash (Cosmos SDK pattern). Pubkey is published on-chain on first outbound tx; any account that has ever signed has its pubkey publicly recorded, Shor-forgeable post-CRQC. uAgent wallets follow the same pattern and broadcast pubkeys when paying in FET / ASI.
Accounts that have never signed retain pubkey-hash protection; accounts that signed once retain exposed pubkeys indefinitely. fetchhub mainnet has been live since 2019 (fetchhub-1 → fetchhub-4 lineage), so a non-trivial fraction of cold supply has revealed pubkeys at some point. No public quantification.
Every historical Ed25519 validator vote and secp256k1 account signature is forgeable after CRQC. Agent-economic provenance (uAgent reputations, AI-Engine / DeltaV service-agreement signatures) is signed under the same classical keys and is therefore retroactively forgeable. IBC light-client trust on Fetch's IBC channels extends this to counterparties.
Tendermint p2p secret connection uses X25519 ECDH for transport encryption between validators (Shor-vulnerable). RPC/REST endpoints use standard TLS (classical X25519 / RSA / ECDH). uAgent message channels rely on the same classical KEMs. No hybrid PQ KEM deployed on Fetch.ai L1 or in the agent stack.
3 Metadata, Anonymity & Confidentiality weight 13% 19 / 100
Fully transparent ledger; fetch1… addresses pseudonymous; agent-to-agent payment flows on-chain are linkable. Agentverse-hosted agents add an off-chain metadata surface (mailbox, message queue) that is not on-chain but is observable to the platform operator.
Public RPC endpoints concentrated among Fetch.ai-operated infrastructure plus a handful of community providers (AviaOne, Lavender.Five, Polkachu). Smaller validator set (~60 cap) plus Fetch-foundation hosted endpoints means greater concentration than larger Cosmos chains. No validator-metadata-retention policy declared.
Fetch is IBC-connected; flows between fetchhub and other Cosmos zones are directly linkable. ASI Alliance token-merger cross-chain mechanics (FET + AGIX on Ethereum + OCEAN on Ethereum → ASI) introduce additional EVM-side correlation.
Fetch.ai L1 does not publish encrypted payload data, ZK-shielded transactions, or DL-based ring signatures at the protocol level. Some agent-to-agent message payloads may carry confidential commercial content protected by classical PK schemes, these would be HNDL-decryptable post-CRQC, but they are an off-chain layer and not part of the consensus surface.
None at protocol level. Agent-to-agent traffic in Agentverse / Mailroom is not a cryptographic mixnet.
4 Migration Architecture weight 10% 49 / 100
Inherits Cosmos SDK / CometBFT modularity (--key-type flag, modular crypto/keys package). Fetch's cosmos-consensus repo demonstrates capability to fork and modify the Tendermint crypto path (DRB integration). However, no production instance of a validator-consensus-key-type swap on fetchhub mainnet within 5 years; agility is architectural, not demonstrated.
Cosmos SDK ADR-016 consensus-key-rotation inherited at the SDK level; whether Fetch's older SDK fork has merged the v0.52 Olympus x/accounts module is unverified. x/authz and x/feegrant available via SDK fork. No native account abstraction comparable to ERC-4337 / EIP-7702. uAgents provides agent-level identity but is an application-layer construct, not a chain-level AA primitive. No documented client-layer PQ migration path.
fetchhub-1 → fetchhub-2 → fetchhub-3 → fetchhub-4 chain-id transitions executed via coordinated upgrades. Validator-set governance proposal (50 → 60 active validators) ratified. ASI token-merge ($FET + $AGIX + $OCEAN → $ASI) executed via on-chain governance. Cadence acceptable but slower / less frequent than Cosmos Hub.
Architecturally, the Cosmos SDK + Tendermint base permits hybrid validator-key constructions; Fetch's existing cosmos-consensus fork shows willingness to modify the consensus crypto path. No spec proposal or FIP for a hybrid Ed25519+PQ scheme on Fetch.ai L1. ASI Alliance commentary about modular PQ primitives is scoped to the future ASI:Chain, not fetchhub.
N/A by default, no stateful hash scheme in scope; stateless schemes score full per v3.1 rubric.
N/A. Tendermint / CometBFT (Fetch fork) uses Ed25519 non-aggregating signatures at consensus. BLS aggregation is not in the Fetch.ai consensus path; the cosmos-consensus DRB uses pairing-based threshold cryptography in a separate role (randomness beacon), not for vote aggregation. Per v3.1 rubric, 4f is N/A for non-aggregating-signature consensus and weight redistributes.
5 Deployment Execution weight 22% 11 / 100
0% of validator votes or account signatures on fetchhub-4 mainnet under a PQC primitive.
No PQC scheme merged into fetchai/fetchd, fetchai/cosmos-sdk fork, or fetchai/cosmos-consensus main. No PQ research fork comparable to DoraFactory's tendermint-pqc has been published from Fetch.ai engineering.
All ~60 active fetchhub-4 validators use Ed25519 consensus keys per Tendermint default. No validator has registered a PQC consensus key.
VOIDED to 0 per v3.1 rule (5a = 0). No dated, enforcement-mechanism-backed PQC milestones published for Fetch.ai L1. ASI:Chain testnet/mainnet dates are for a separate future chain, not the live Fetch L1, and are not protocol-enforced milestones for fetchhub.
Announced PQC trailing-12-mo: ASI Alliance public commentary referencing modular quantum-safe primitives for the future ASI:Chain (not Fetch.ai L1). Shipped PQC: 0. Low-volume narrative; not aggressive washing but creates scope confusion between Fetch.ai L1 (current chain, no PQ work) and ASI:Chain (future chain, PQ statements). 3-point deduction reflects the conflation risk.
No PQ deployment, no published bytes-per-block analysis under any PQ scheme for Fetch.ai. Undisclosed.
6 Supply Chain Vendor Readiness weight 22% 7 / 100
Top wallets supporting FET / ASI: ASI Alliance Wallet (Fetch native), Keplr, Leap, Ledger HW, MetaMask (for ERC-20 ASI). None publish a PQC roadmap. Ledger has internal PQC research at Ledger Donjon but no shipped PQ-signing for FET / ASI accounts.
Top bridges: IBC (light-client, Ed25519 verification), Axelar, Gravity Bridge or equivalent for FET ↔ Ethereum (relevant given ASI is also an ERC-20 on Ethereum). None publish a PQC roadmap. The ASI token-merge cross-chain swap mechanics rely on classical signatures.
Institutional custody for FET / ASI: a tier-1 US custodian, Kiln (staking), BitGo, Anchorage exposure varies. None publish a Fetch-specific PQC roadmap. None have MPC-PQ in production for FET / ASI signing. ATOM ecosystem MPC-PQ work would need to be ported.
RPC providers: Fetch.ai-hosted endpoints (browse-fetchhub.fetch.ai, explore-fetchhub.fetch.ai), AviaOne, Lavender.Five, Polkachu, community validators. None publish PQ-enabled RPC TLS. HSMs used by validators: standard YubiHSM2 / Ledger / Thales / cloud KMS, no PQ signing for Ed25519/secp256k1 in production. TEE attestation chains not declared in the Fetch validator stack at protocol level. Agentverse cloud infrastructure attestation flow not mapped to PQC.
7 Governance & Coordination weight 8% 38 / 100
~60 active validators (raised from 50 via on-chain proposal). Smaller set than Cosmos Hub (~180). Concentration metrics published less frequently; Nakamoto coefficient estimated in low single digits historically. Client diversity weak, single Tendermint/CometBFT-derived consensus client (fetchd / cosmos-consensus).
fetchhub-1 → fetchhub-2 → fetchhub-3 → fetchhub-4 chain-id transitions completed; ASI token-merge governance executed. No clear public record of an emergency security upgrade under attacker pressure comparable to Cosmos Hub v19.2.
Fetch.ai Foundation / Fetch.ai Ltd. (Cambridge), plus ASI Alliance (Fetch.ai + SingularityNET + Ocean Protocol, post-merger). Clear named ownership at the chain level. No named PQC migration lead for Fetch.ai L1; ASI Alliance public PQ commentary scoped to ASI:Chain.
Successful execution of contested governance items (validator-set increase, ASI token-merge proposal). No precedent of a coordinated cryptographic-primitive change under attacker pressure.
No canary, honeypot, rate-limited spending rule, or cryptographic tripwire on Fetch.ai L1 or in the agent stack.
X + Y vs Z, when does the math turn against you?
v3.1 demotes the X+Y vs Z timing test to a secondary signal, the headline output is Migration Stage. The timing test still answers the question: can this chain finish migrating before the threat lands?
Verdict
X+Y > 2035, Outside risk window vs Z25; X+Y > 2030, Crisis Zone vs Z10
Z-compliance
Outside compliance window, FET / ASI faces the 2035 disallowance for any classical PK still in active validator-key or account-signing scope
Source-disagreement disclosure
v3.1 requires every chain card to publish material divergences among authoritative sources, plus the delta-QRI under alternative weighting.
Public ASI Alliance commentary about modular post-quantum primitives (lattice + hash-based) refers to ASI:Chain, a separate future L1 with MeTTa smart-contract language, planned testnet 2026 / mainnet late 2026–early 2027. Card scores Fetch.ai L1 (fetchhub-4) as currently operational, not ASI:Chain claims about a future chain.
Post-merger, FET trades as ASI; chain-level governance is shared with SingularityNET and Ocean stakeholders within the ASI Alliance. A coordinated PQC migration on Fetch.ai L1 must therefore navigate alliance-level coordination on top of chain-level validator coordination.
Fetch.ai integrates a Distributed Random Beacon (DRB) with Tendermint via the fetchai/cosmos-consensus repo. The DRB itself uses classical pairing-based / threshold cryptography and would inherit quantum vulnerability under any post-CRQC analysis.
Delta-QRI under alternative weighting
Under a profile that weighted Dim 5 at 30% and Dim 6 at 30%, QRI would fall to ≈ 18 and Band would remain 2-3.
Announcement-to-shipped ratio
Announced: 1. Shipped: 0. Ratio: 0.
Tag: low-volume-narrative
Peers in the L1 profile
9 chains closest to Fetch.ai by Stage then QRI.