Hedera made three unfashionable choices in 2019 that read as PQC-ready in 2026: SHA-384 over SHA-256, account IDs decoupled from public keys, and a 31-member Council that can actually coordinate an upgrade. The SEALSQ QS7001 HSM partnership is the only PQC supply-chain tile in this batch.
Summary
Hedera has three structural advantages rare in this batch: (1) SHA-384 hashing gives 192-bit quantum security vs 128-bit for Keccak/SHA-256 chains, (2) account IDs decouple address from pubkey, so keys are exposed only when signing, (3) SEALSQ QS7001 PQC chip partnership (Dec 2024) gives an HSM supply-chain path. WECAN grant funds PQC research. Council governance enables fast coordination. Still no mainnet PQC code — Stage 2 (Planning).
What the gates say
- Hybrid: PASS. Hybrid-PQ design present.
- Evidence: PASS. Sources reconstructable by third party.
- Primitive naming: PASS. Named primitives at every scored sub-level.
Burn-vs-rescue policy on file
undeclared (Council governance makes rescue coordination feasible; no formal policy)
Seven dimensions
Each dimension scores 0-100 internally; the weighted roll-up produces the QRI on the left. Open a row to read the sub-score detail.
1 Cryptographic Exposure 48 / 100
Complete inventory. Notable: SHA-384 instead of SHA-256/Keccak-256.
Ed25519 (default account signatures) · ECDSA secp256k1 (EVM compatibility) · SHA-384 (hashing — unique, 192-bit quantum security) · TSS / threshold signatures (HIP roadmap)No PQC family deployed; signature families classical.
2 HNDL Exposure 42 / 100
Hedera account IDs (0.0.x) are NOT derived from public keys — a rare PQC-compatible account model. Pubkey only exposed when signed, not at address level. Major structural advantage.
73 months mainnet age; moderate cold exposure. Governing Council allocation concentrated.
All Ed25519/ECDSA historical sigs forgeable post-Shor.
Hedera Consensus Service private messaging optional; gRPC TLS standard. SHA-384 bonus elevates Grover resistance.
3 Metadata & Privacy Exposure 38 / 100
Transparent but account-ID addressing decouples from keys, harder to cluster by pubkey.
Mirror Node + JSON-RPC Relay; council-run infra.
HashPort, Stargate bridge; moderate correlation surface.
Lower than most due to account-ID abstraction + SHA-384 hashing.
4 Migration Architecture 58 / 100
Account-ID model decoupled from signature scheme. New key types addable via HIP without breaking existing accounts.
Native key rotation per account. Accounts can update to different key types. Threshold keys supported.
Smooth HIP cadence, council-governed upgrades, no contested forks.
Architectural readiness high via account-ID decoupling. SEALSQ QS7001 PQC chip partnership (Dec 2024). No mainnet hybrid signature yet; WECAN grant funds PQC research.
5 Deployment Execution 15 / 100
Zero PQC on mainnet. Mosca cap applies.
No PQC code in Hiero/Hedera services. Research phase via SEALSQ chip and WECAN grant.
31-member Council nodes run Ed25519. No PQC.
(1) SEALSQ QS7001 partnership Dec 2024, (2) WECAN grant for quantum-safe research, (3) Hedera PQC blog series.
Moderate announcement overhang: SEALSQ press + blog posts vs no mainnet code.
6 Supply Chain Vendor Readiness 20 / 100
7 Governance & Coordination 70 / 100
31-member permissioned Governing Council (Google, IBM, Boeing, FedEx, LG, etc.). Low Nakamoto but institutional.
Consistent HIP upgrades. Council-enforced coordination smooth.
Named: Leemon Baird (co-founder, hashgraph inventor), Mance Harmon, Governing Council members. SEALSQ CEO Carlos Moreira named PQC partner.
Council structure designed for coordinated decision-making. Strong precedent for governance action.
The X + Y vs Z inequality
X (data shelf life): 5-15 (pubkey exposed only when signing; account-ID decoupling reduces)
Y (migration time): 3-6 (Council coordination + HIP process)
Z10 (10% CRQC year): 2036 · Z50 (50%): 2041
Verdict: X+Y < Z (safe).
Four-scenario grid
| Scenario | Value preserved | Privacy preserved |
|---|---|---|
| quantum never | 100% | 100% |
| arrives suddenly pre migration | 40% | 25% |
| arrives slowly post migration | 85% | 70% |
| arrives slowly mid migration | 65% | 40% |
Peers in the L1 profile
Order-book view of the 9 chains closest to Hedera by QRI.
Public artifacts used for this scorecard
Each entry below is a sub-score citation. Clicking the link takes you to the public source. A third party should be able to reconstruct every number on this page from these URLs in 48 hours.
Complete inventory. Notable: SHA-384 instead of SHA-256/Keccak-256.
SHA-384 is rare differentiator vs most chains.
Supply chain snapshot
A chain's supply chain cannot migrate faster than its slowest dependency. Zero PQC roadmaps in any of the four categories is a structural blocker, not a lagging indicator.
Analyst notes on the scoring
Unique profile: account-ID model is the most PQC-ready account abstraction in batch without being called AA. SHA-384 differentiator absent from 23 of 25 chains scored. QRI held to 30 by Mosca cap (5a=0) and no shipped code. Highest 6d (rpc_hsm) score in batch thanks to SEALSQ.
Scorecard metadata
- Profile: L1
- Scored: 2026-04-18 by
layerqu-v2-scoring-agent-2 - v1 reference:
chainscreen-v1-archive - QRI raw: 30 · after caps: 30
- Confidence interval: ±5
- PQC washing ratio: 2.2x
- Burn-vs-rescue: undeclared (Council governance makes rescue coordination feasible; no formal policy)
Caps triggered
- mosca_cap_60 (5a=0, below threshold)
- sutor_cap_50 (5d=8, 3 milestones, below 5 threshold — partial trigger)
- casado_cap (top vendors lack PQC roadmaps — partial, SEALSQ partnership offsets)