INJECTIVE · L1 · STAGE 0 UNAWARE · QRI 24 v3.1.0 methodology

In plain terms

What it is. Injective is a network built for traders, where people buy and sell financial bets all day on an open order book. The team is good at shipping big upgrades cleanly, but it has not yet pointed that skill at the threat from future quantum computers.

What we found. Because traders are active constantly, almost every account here has already exposed the math that a future quantum computer could use to forge its signature and drain it. Money also flows in and out through four separate bridges to other networks, and each one is locked with the same kind of key, so one such machine could pick all four at once.

Why it matters. A team this capable could move fast once it decides to, yet right now there is no published plan for switching to stronger keys or for protecting trader funds the day that machine arrives.

Injective's defining positive signal is upgrade muscle: a 2023 Cosmos-SDK + CometBFT bump and a 2025-11-11 Native EVM mainnet integration shipped without contested splits. The bridge surface (Peggy + Wormhole + IBC + Hyperlane to inEVM) is the largest cryptographic-exposure footprint not visible in the per-dim score: a post-Shor adversary acquires forge capability across four distinct trust models simultaneously.

inLinkedIn ↷Audit access ⇆Compare Verified 2026-05-01

Summary

Injective is a Cosmos-SDK L1 (CometBFT v1.0.x) for derivatives and on-chain finance, running on Ed25519 validator consensus with secp256k1 / ethsecp256k1 user signing, the latter expanded materially after the 2025-11-11 Native EVM mainnet brought EVM accounts alongside Cosmos-side accounts and CosmWasm. Bridge surface includes IBC, Peggy (Injective ↔ Ethereum), Wormhole (19-Guardian secp256k1 multisig), and Hyperlane to inEVM. Every primitive in active use is Shor-break or Grover-weaken; no PQC primitive is deployed. Mainnet PQC traffic 0%, no merged PQC code, no published PQ milestones, no Foundation position. Architecture-Execution Gap of 44 (Dim 4 renormalized 59 vs Dim 5 15) reflects functional upgrade muscle (Cosmos-SDK + CometBFT migration in 2023, multi-module governance proposals 2024–2025, Native EVM integration 2025-11-11) paired with zero PQ deployment. Validator-set cap of 60 (active set ~50–60) with single-client implementation (injectived). Gate 1a-Sig FAIL, Gate 1a-KEM FAIL. QRI 24, Band 3 Planning, Migration Stage 0. The band is structurally generated by Dim 4 upgrade-muscle, not by any PQ plan.

What the gates say

Gate 1a, Hybrid signature: FAIL , no documented hybrid signature composition AND or OR on any signing surface
Gate 1a, Hybrid KEM: FAIL , validator gossip and bridge transport use classical X25519/ECDH/RSA TLS; no hybrid KEM declared
Gate 1b, Commit-to-hash: COND , no OR-composition declared; Gate 1a-Sig already FAIL
Gate 2, Evidence reconstruction: PASS , every sub-score has ≥3 URLs; reachable in <48h via cited public artifacts
Gate 3, Primitive naming: PASS , Ed25519, ECDSA secp256k1, ethsecp256k1, SHA-256, Keccak-256 named with mechanism

Burn-vs-rescue policy on file

Declared option f, Undeclared. Injective Foundation has not published a position on freezing, rescuing, rate-limiting, or migrating quantum-vulnerable balances.

Seven dimensions

Each dimension scores 0–100 internally; the weighted roll-up produces the QRI.

1 Cryptographic Exposure weight 15% 30 / 100

1a · primitive inventory 12 / 20

Injective publicly identifies itself as a Cosmos-SDK chain forked at v0.50.x with CometBFT v1.0.x. Hash primitives are inherited from upstream and not separately documented in Injective's docs site.

Primitives: Ed25519 (CometBFT validator consensus signing; pubkey type /cosmos.crypto.ed25519.PubKey) · secp256k1 ECDSA (Cosmos-SDK transaction signing) · ethsecp256k1 (Injective EVM accounts post-2025-11-11; EIP-712 typed data) · SHA-256 (Cosmos-side state hashing) · Keccak-256 (EVM-side hashing)

1b · shor grover pq tag 10 / 20

Tags:

Ed25519 → Shor-break-via-DL-without-pairings
ECDSA secp256k1 → Shor-break-via-DL-without-pairings
ethsecp256k1 (EIP-191/EIP-712 personal-sign) → Shor-break-via-DL-without-pairings
SHA-256 → Grover-weaken-128bit
Keccak-256 → Grover-weaken-128bit

1c · family diversity 0 / 20

Zero PQ-safe families deployed. All active cryptography is classical elliptic-curve plus SHA-2/Keccak.

1d · nist security category 0 / 20

VOID (0 by Gate 3 logic). No NIST PQC primitives (ML-DSA, ML-KEM, SLH-DSA, FN-DSA) in the codebase.

1e · implementation quality 8 / 20

Standard Cosmos-SDK and go-ethereum libraries. Library provenance: InjectiveLabs forks of cosmos-sdk v0.50.14, cometbft v1.0.1, go-ethereum v1.16.3 (all classical, no liboqs/PQCA dependency). Stateless across stack. Cryptanalytic tier 1.

2 Quantum Recovery Exposure weight 10% 20 / 100

Forge subtotal: 15/75 Decrypt subtotal: 5/25

2a · active key exposure 4 / 25

Cosmos-side accounts and Injective EVM accounts both reveal user public keys on first outgoing transaction. Injective's exchange module is order-book based with continuous derivatives activity, meaning effectively every active address has a revealed pubkey. INJ market cap and on-chain TVL across spot, perpetuals, and DeFi modules sit on Shor-break primitives.

2b · cold key exposure 5 / 25

Injective mainnet went live 2021-11-08. Long-dormant balances (validator self-stake, foundation treasury, early INJ holders, vesting wallets) have ~4.5 years of accumulation under classical signatures. INJ is a staking-required asset, so cold-key opacity is partial at best.

2c · sig long term validity 6 / 25

Derivatives orders settle quickly and become historical, but settlement records (and the signatures that authorized them) live on chain forever. Withdrawal and bridge-out signatures (Peggy MsgSendToEth, Wormhole VAA initiator signatures) are particularly sensitive because a forged historical signature could be replayed against the bridge module's state.

2d · encryption confidentiality hndl 5 / 25

Validator-to-validator gossip in CometBFT uses authenticated encryption over X25519 / Ed25519 handshake (Noise-style protocol via tendermint/p2p); RPC and JSON-RPC endpoints to indexers, archive nodes use standard TLS with classical ECDHE + ECDSA/RSA certificates. Bridge relayer traffic (Peggo orchestrator, Wormhole guardian gossip) likewise uses classical TLS.

3 Metadata, Anonymity & Confidentiality weight 13% 23 / 100

3a · tx graph visibility 6 / 20

Injective is pseudonymous and transparent. Spot, derivatives, and exchange-module orders are visible on chain (FBA conceals orders within the auction interval but published once the auction clears). No native shielding or hidden-tx scheme.

3b · rpc mempool concentration 7 / 20

Top-3 RPC concentration: Injective Labs RPC, validator-operated public endpoints (Polkachu, NodesHub, Imperator). Mempool gossip observability: standard CometBFT mempool, fully observable. Validator metadata retention policy: undeclared by Injective Foundation.

3c · cross chain bridge correlation 4 / 20

Injective routes value across IBC (to/from Cosmos chains), Peggy (to/from Ethereum, lock-and-mint with INJ-side burn), Wormhole (to/from Solana, EVM L1s, L2s, Aptos, Algorand, BNB Chain). Hyperlane bridge to inEVM adds a fourth cross-domain link. High correlation surface.

3d · retroactive de anonymization 6 / 20

Pseudonymous chain, low marginal retroactive privacy risk from Shor, but bridge-traffic correlation across IBC + Wormhole + Peggy lets a post-Shor adversary tie historical Injective addresses to counterparties on other chains by recovering keys from any side.

3e · mixnet shuffle 0 / 20

No mixnet, no shuffle, no commit-reveal anonymity primitive at chain level. FBA conceals orders but is a market-design feature, not a metadata-anonymity feature.

4 Migration Architecture weight 10% 59 / 100

4a · crypto agility 9 / 15

Cosmos-SDK chains have governance-driven hard-fork upgrade paths and modular keepers. Injective has demonstrated this: Cosmos-SDK upgrade from v0.45.x to v0.47.x in v1.11 (June 2023), continued through v0.50.x by 2025, plus a CometBFT v0.37 → v1.0.1 jump. The Native EVM mainnet integration (2025-11-11) added a second VM via on-chain governance and a binary upgrade. No documented in-place algorithm hot-swap.

4b · aa key rotation 8 / 20

CosmWasm allows app-level custom signature verification; Injective EVM supports ERC-4337 account abstraction patterns inherited from the EVM stack. Cosmos accounts support pubkey rotation via key replacement messages. No native protocol-level AA spec equivalent to EIP-7702 is documented for Injective. PQC client-layer migration path is architecturally possible but not deployed.

4c · hard fork track record 11 / 15

Multiple coordinated mainnet upgrades since 2021, including v1.11 (Cosmos-SDK + CometBFT major upgrade, June 2023), the December 2025 hard fork that enhanced EVM support, and the Native EVM mainnet on 2025-11-11. No contested forks observed.

4d · hybrid deployment readiness 4 / 15

Architecturally, a CosmWasm contract or a custom AnteHandler could enforce a hybrid signature path; nothing about this is announced or specified by Injective Labs / Injective Foundation. No hybrid composition declared for any signing surface.

4e · stateful hash state management 15 / 15

Not applicable. No stateful-hash signature scheme in active use. Default 15 per scorecard rule for chains using stateless schemes.

4f · bft aggregation path 0 / 0

N/A, Injective uses CometBFT's default Ed25519 validator signing (single, non-aggregating signatures per validator per vote). No BLS aggregation path in the consensus signing layer. Per scorecard rule, 4f is N/A for chains using non-aggregating signatures at consensus.

5 Deployment Execution weight 22% 15 / 100

5a · mainnet pqc traffic pct 0 / 25

0% of Injective mainnet signing traffic is post-quantum. No PQC primitive is in active use on the chain.

5b · pqc code in consensus client 0 / 15

Zero LOC of PQC primitive code merged in injective-core or in the InjectiveLabs forks of cosmos-sdk and cometbft. Dependency tree contains no liboqs / PQCA / OQS Go bindings.

5c · validator pqc key adoption 0 / 15

0% of Injective's active validator set (~50–60 validators per mainnet parameter cap) uses any PQC consensus key. Validator pubkey type is /cosmos.crypto.ed25519.PubKey.

5d · published dated milestones 0 / 10

VOIDED to 0 per v3.1 rule because 5a = 0. No public Injective Foundation post-quantum roadmap, no dated PQ milestones, no governance proposal addressing PQ migration.

5e · pqc washing delta 15 / 15

Zero announced PQC, zero shipped PQC. Ratio 0/0 → no washing tag. The chain is silent on PQ rather than overstated.

5f · signature footprint multiplier 0 / 20

Undisclosed (no PQ scheme selected, no on-chain footprint analysis from Injective Foundation). Per rubric, undisclosed = 0.

6 Supply Chain Vendor Readiness weight 22% 10 / 100

6a · wallet 3 / 25

Top-3 Injective wallets: Keplr (Cosmos-native, dominant), Leap (Cosmos-native), MetaMask (used after Native EVM launch for Injective EVM accounts). Ledger and Trezor as hardware. None has a published PQC roadmap covering Injective signing surfaces; Ledger's PQ work focuses on its OS roadmap, not deployed in production.

6b · bridge 2 / 25

Injective's three primary bridge tiles: Peggy (INJ ↔ Ethereum, validator-orchestrated multisig with secp256k1 ECDSA on the Ethereum side), Wormhole (19-Guardian secp256k1 multisig, 13-of-19 quorum, classical), IBC (light-client verification, Tendermint/CometBFT proofs). Hyperlane operates the inEVM warp routes with ECDSA validator signatures. Zero PQC roadmap published by any of these top-3 bridges.

6c · custodian 2 / 25

Top institutional custodians for INJ include a tier-1 US custodian, BitGo, Fireblocks. None has a deployed MPC-PQ product covering INJ as of evidence cutoff; Fireblocks has discussed PQC research, not deployed.

6d · rpc hsm tee infra 3 / 25

Top-3 RPC providers for Injective: Injective Labs RPC, Polkachu, NodesHub (plus Imperator, Allnodes for validator infra). HSMs in Injective validator stack: Horcrux (CometBFT remote signer), Ledger HSM-class devices, AWS KMS for cloud-hosted validators, none with deployed PQ key types for Ed25519-replacement. TEE attestation chains not specifically documented for Injective validator operation.

7 Governance & Coordination weight 8% 36 / 100

7a · validator stake distribution 8 / 20

Validator-set cap of 60 (some sources cite an active set of ~50). Stake distribution moderately concentrated; staking-explorer listings show Zellic and similar validators with multi-million INJ self-stake plus delegations. Single-client diversity: Injective runs injectived, a single canonical client.

7b · upgrade cadence under pressure 14 / 20

Track record of coordinated mainnet upgrades. v1.11 Cosmos-SDK + CometBFT migration in 2023, multi-module governance proposals in 2024–2025, 2025-11-11 Native EVM mainnet (the largest architecture change), December 2025 follow-up hard fork. Coordination across ~50–60 validators has been demonstrated repeatedly without contested forks.

7c · named coordination lead 6 / 20

Injective Labs is the named technical lead (Eric Chen, Albert Chon as co-founders). Injective Foundation operates governance, treasury, and validator coordination. No named PQC working group, no published PQC mandate, no named lead for a post-quantum migration.

7d · adversarial coordination precedent 8 / 20

Injective has executed coordinated upgrades, parameter changes (token supply parameter governance proposal #472 in January 2025), and burn-auction adjustments. No precedent for coordinating a cryptographic migration under adversarial pressure.

7e · canary tripwire mechanism 0 / 20

No consensus-embedded canary, no rate-limited spending rule, no honeypot, no automated post-Shor response mechanism.

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?

X, signature shelf life

5–12 years (short-lived derivative orders narrow lower bound; long-held INJ staking, treasury, and bridge-out signatures whose recoverable value extends across the chain's full operating life)

Y, migration time

8–13 years (Cosmos-SDK + CometBFT upstream PQ effort is research-stage; Injective inherits whatever upstream ships, then must coordinate an EVM-side hybrid plus bridge migrations across IBC, Peggy, Wormhole, Hyperlane)

Z10 (10% CRQC year)

2030

Z25 (25% CRQC year)

2035

Verdict

X+Y range 13–25 years (2039–2051), Crisis Zone (vs Z10 2030); Outside risk window (vs Z25 2035)

Z-compliance

Outside compliance window for both 2030 and 2035 NIST IR 8547 milestones

Source-disagreement disclosure

v3.1 requires every chain card to publish material divergences among authoritative sources, plus the delta-QRI under alternative weighting.

Validator-set cap

Sources diverge between an 'active set of 50' and a 'limit of 60 validators'. Most likely: a 60-validator parameter cap with the active set fluctuating around 50–60. Disclosed; does not affect any sub-score.

Pseudo-PQC adjacency

'MEV-resistant' and 'FBA' are sometimes conflated with confidentiality in third-party explainers. They are economic-design features of the exchange module, not cryptographic confidentiality features. The scorecard treats them as such.

Delta-QRI under alternative weighting

Under a profile that double-weights Dim 6 (vendor concentration) and halves Dim 4 (architecture credit), Injective's QRI would fall by ~3 points (≈21). Migration Stage and band tier do not change.