What it is. Secret Network keeps app data private by locking it inside sealed processor chips instead of using privacy math, and it has stayed quiet about quantum security rather than making any claim.
What we found. The privacy chips it depends on have been broken into by researchers several times, and each time the team patched fast and cleanly, but they have done nothing to prepare for the day a quantum computer can crack the everyday locks underneath.
Why it matters. Anyone copying its private traffic today could store it and read it once that day arrives, so holders and builders relying on its secrecy are trusting a chain that has no plan for when that secrecy fails.
Cosmos-SDK L1 (mainnet secret-4) whose privacy property is delivered by Intel SGX TEEs rather than zero-knowledge cryptography. CometBFT consensus signs Ed25519, accounts use Cosmos secp256k1, encrypted CosmWasm contract state is sealed inside SGX enclave under AES-128-SIV with curve25519 ECDH-derived keys. Multiple SGX vulnerability disclosures (xAPIC 2022, WireTap/Battering RAM/TEE.Fail 2025) handled cleanly but no PQ posture.
Summary
Secret Network is a Cosmos-SDK L1 with TEE-based (Intel SGX) confidential smart contracts. CometBFT consensus signs blocks with Ed25519, accounts use secp256k1, inter-node consensus_seed exchange uses x25519 ECDH wrapping AES-128-SIV under HKDF-SHA256-derived keys, and contract state is sealed inside SGX enclaves under AES-flavour seal keys. Migration Stage: 1 (Acknowledged borderline), no public foundation PQ statement, no PQ spec, no PQ testnet, but a 24-version mainnet upgrade history and demonstrated coordinated response to SGX-disclosure incidents (xAPIC 2022, WireTap / Battering RAM 2025, TEE.Fail 2025). Raw QRI: 25. After-cap QRI: 25 (no cap binds below the calculated value; Mainnet-Traffic, Gate 1a-Sig, Gate 1a-KEM, Architecture-Execution Gap, and Milestone-Discipline caps all sit above). Band: 3, Planning (at the borderline of Band 2). Confidence interval: plus-minus 7. Key uncertainties: (i) the precise share of staked SCRT supply at never-spent vs. spent addresses; (ii) the long-term hardware-supply-chain trajectory under continuing TEE-vulnerability research; (iii) whether the 2026 SGX-decoupling and AMD SEV-SNP / Intel TDX migration creates a window for parallel PQC migration discussion that the current roadmap does not contain.
What the gates say
- Gate 1a, Hybrid signature: FAIL , no documented hybrid signature composition AND or OR; validator consensus signing is pure Ed25519, account signing pure secp256k1
- Gate 1a, Hybrid KEM: FAIL , inter-node consensus_seed exchange uses pure x25519 ECDH with AES-128-SIV; no hybrid PQ KEM declared
- Gate 1b, Commit-to-hash: COND , no OR-composition exists
- Gate 2, Evidence reconstruction: PASS , every live sub-score carries ≥3 public URLs
- Gate 3, Primitive naming: PASS , every sub-score names exact primitives: Ed25519, secp256k1, curve25519, x25519, AES-128-SIV, HKDF-SHA256, SHA-256, Intel SGX-SPS, EPID, DCAP
Burn-vs-rescue policy on file
Declared option f, Undeclared. Secret Network has not published a policy on what happens to legacy private records or sealed contract state once Shor enables retroactive decryption of harvested transaction streams. The Bitcoin freeze/rescue framing maps imperfectly to a TEE-privacy chain, analogue is what to do about every harvested transaction stream that becomes decryptable on Q-day. SCRT Labs' published response mode for confidentiality breakage is post-incident (forced-eject + re-attest + seed rotate, as demonstrated in xAPIC 2022) rather than pre-emptive.
Seven dimensions
Each dimension scores 0–100 internally; the weighted roll-up produces the QRI.
1 Cryptographic Exposure weight 12% 23 / 100
SGX-internal key seal-key derivation (AES-flavour) is not separately specified in the public encryption-specs.
x25519 ECDH (inter-node consensus_seed exchange) · AES-128-SIV (transaction input/output encryption and consensus-seed sealing) · HKDF-SHA256 (derivation of consensus_seed_exchange_privkey and consensus_io_exchange_privkey) · SHA-256 (signer_id / additional-authenticated-data construction) · curve25519 (consensus_callback_secret and registration_privkey generated inside enclave) · Ed25519 (CometBFT validator consensus signing) · secp256k1 (Cosmos-SDK account signing) · Intel SGX attestation (EPID, then SGX-DCAP ECDSA quotes) Ed25519 (validator consensus signing)→ Shor-break-via-DL-without-pairingssecp256k1 (Cosmos accounts)→ Shor-break-via-DL-without-pairingsx25519 ECDH (inter-node consensus_seed exchange)→ Shor-break-via-DL-without-pairingscurve25519 callback signatures and registration→ Shor-break-via-DL-without-pairingsSGX-DCAP attestation ECDSA Quoting Enclave key→ Shor-break-via-DL-without-pairingsAES-128-SIV (CMAC-based, AES-128 core)→ Grover-weakened (effective security falls from 128 to ~64 bit, below NIST-recommended floor)HKDF-SHA256 / SHA-256→ Grover-weakened (256→128-bit)
0 PQ families on mainnet (curve25519/secp256k1/Ed25519 are pre-quantum DL families; AES and SHA-2 are symmetric primitives, not a PQ family). No lattice, hash-based signature, code-based, or isogeny PQ primitive deployed.
No primitive in active use maps to NIST PQC categories 1-5. AES-128 ~128-bit classical (Grover-weakened to ~64-bit, below cat 1). No ML-KEM, ML-DSA, SLH-DSA, or FN-DSA deployment.
AES-128-SIV is RFC 5297-standardized (IV-misuse-resistant choice). HKDF-SHA256 is RFC 5869. CometBFT Ed25519 path inherits ed25519-consensus / ed25519-zebra hardening. SCRT Labs has run public bug bounty since 2020 and engaged Trail of Bits and Informal Systems on consensus-layer audits. Constant-time engineering for SGX-internal HKDF/AES-SIV path not separately documented. No formal verification.
2 Quantum Recovery Exposure weight 10% 22 / 100
Cosmos-SDK secp256k1 account public keys revealed at first transaction. CometBFT Ed25519 validator pubkeys published in validator set and signed in every block. ~50-80 active validators. Mitigating: SGX seal keys (which protect contract state) are AES-flavour symmetric and NOT directly Shor-broken, Forge of SGX-DCAP attestation ECDSA key allows attacker to forge attestations and onboard malicious enclave.
SCRT cold/dormant balances at standard Cosmos-SDK addresses derived as bech32(ripemd160(sha256(secp256k1-pubkey))). Pubkey not visible until first spend (Bitcoin-P2PKH-style). After first spend it is published. No published quantification of share of SCRT supply at never-spent vs spent addresses.
Every CometBFT pre-vote and pre-commit since mainnet launch (2020-09-15 secret-2 → 2021-04-26 secret-4) is verifiable post-Shor against forged Ed25519 version, breaking historical non-repudiation of consensus. Validator long-term keys persistent across many epochs.
Validator-to-validator gossip in CometBFT 0.38.x runs over secret-handshake/p2p protocol authenticating with Ed25519 node keys and deriving session key via x25519 ECDH (no published hybrid PQ KEM). RPC endpoints terminate classical TLS. By inference and foundation silence on transport PQC, entire validator-mesh and RPC layer uses classical X25519 KEM and is HNDL-vulnerable.
Encrypted contract state is sealed inside SGX enclave under SGX seal keys (AES-flavour symmetric primitives, Grover-weakened but NOT Shor-broken). On-chain ciphertext for Secret transaction's input/output uses AES-128-SIV under key derived via HKDF-SHA256 from consensus_io_exchange_privkey (curve25519) ECDH'd with user's transaction key. Two HNDL surfaces: (i) curve25519 ECDH establishing per-transaction symmetric key is Shor-broken; (ii) AES-128-SIV ciphertext opens with no further work once symmetric key recovered. Sealed STATE of Secret contract lives inside enclave seal-key envelope not transmitted on-chain at all. Recovering state requires combining Shor on curve25519 ECDH with replaying historical transactions OR compromising enclave hardware.
3 Metadata, Anonymity & Confidentiality weight 25% 33 / 100
Secret's privacy is contract-state-level, not transaction-graph-level. CometBFT layer publishes sender address, gas fee, validator set, and block timing. CosmWasm contract calls visible at consensus layer (function name, calling contract, gas) although input/output payloads encrypted under AES-128-SIV. SNIP-20/SNIP-25 hide balances and amounts inside contract state but call itself is on-chain. Closer to Zcash transparent-with-shielded-pool than to Monero.
Top-3 RPC providers are Figment, Ankr, and Lavender.Five Nodes / Keplr-hosted, with concentration concerns typical of Cosmos chains. Mempool gossip observable to all CometBFT validators by design. Validator metadata retention policy: undeclared by foundation as of 2026-05-01.
Secret integrates with Cosmos ecosystem via IBC and with Ethereum/EVM chains via Axelar's General Message Passing. IBC packets carry sender/receiver addresses across chain boundaries. Privacy property of Secret applies to contract-state side; bridge transit itself is public on both endpoints.
Two retroactive-decryption surfaces: (i) Shor on curve25519 enables recovery of every per-transaction tx_encryption_key, allows post-Shor decryption of every historical Secret transaction's input/output payload that adversary has harvested; (ii) sealed contract state inside SGX enclave protected by SGX seal keys (AES-flavour, Grover-weakened to ~64-bit if AES-128 / ~128-bit if AES-256), NOT decryptable purely from on-chain harvested bytes, recovering it requires either Shor-then-replay against transaction stream OR SGX hardware compromise.
Secret Network does not run mix-network or cryptographic shuffle protocol at protocol layer.
No Secret Network Foundation, SCRT Labs, or community proposal announces post-quantum migration of AES-128-SIV/curve25519 ECDH transaction-encryption layer or SGX-enclave sealed-state path. Published 2026 roadmap addresses TEE-hardware diversification, with no PQ KEM, no hybrid encryption testnet.
4 Migration Architecture weight 12% 49 / 100
Cosmos-SDK module architecture allows protocol extensions via on-chain governance-coordinated upgrades, Secret has shipped 24 mainnet versions (current v1.24.x as of Q1 2026) including v1.22 (Sep 2025, governance-driven permissioned-mode tightening post-WireTap), v1.21 (on-demand network seed rotation). However, no algorithm-switch event in cryptographic primitives themselves has occurred, Ed25519 / secp256k1 / curve25519 / AES-128-SIV / HKDF-SHA256 stack is unchanged since secret-4 launch in 2021.
Cosmos-SDK accounts use BIP-39 / BIP-44 / secp256k1 with no native account-abstraction primitive comparable to ERC-4337 or EIP-7702. Validator key rotation supported but not protocol-mandated and rare in operational practice. On-demand network seed rotation in v1.21.6 is network-level (not account-level) primitive.
Secret has shipped at least 24 mainnet versions with on-chain governance coordination and CometBFT validator coordination. xAPIC patch in November 2022 was successful coordinated forced-eject + re-attest of entire active validator set, completed within 30-day window from disclosure (Oct 3) to patch (Nov 2). v1.22 (Sep 2025) governance-driven permissioned-mode change executed cleanly.
No public hybrid PQ design exists at any layer. 2026 roadmap addresses TEE-hardware diversification (AMD + Intel + cloud) but not cryptographic-primitive diversification. Architecturally, Cosmos-SDK module pattern would permit parallel ML-DSA validator-signing module but no spec/no testnet/no foundation statement.
Secret Network does not use stateful hash-based signature schemes. CometBFT Ed25519 and Cosmos secp256k1 are stateless. Default credit.
N/A, CometBFT validator pre-vote and pre-commit signatures are Ed25519 (one signature per validator per round, aggregated only via 2f+1 vote-counting, not BLS-aggregated cryptographically). The Ethereum-class concern about BLS-aggregation PQ replacement does not apply.
5 Deployment Execution weight 18% 15 / 100
0% of consensus signing (Ed25519), account signing (secp256k1), inter-node consensus-seed exchange (curve25519 ECDH), or transaction input/output encryption (AES-128-SIV under curve25519-ECDH-derived key) runs on a PQC primitive as of 2026-05-01.
scrtlabs/SecretNetwork and its scrtlabs/tendermint (CometBFT) fork contain no merged PQC primitive (no ML-DSA, no SLH-DSA, no ML-KEM, no FRI proof system) as of 2026-05-01.
0 of ~50-80 active validators run PQC consensus keys.
VOIDED to 0 per v3.1 rule (5a = 0). No dated, enforcement-mechanism-backed PQ milestone exists in SCRT Labs 2026 roadmap, on-chain governance proposals, or GitHub release plan. Roadmap milestones target SGX decoupling, AMD SEV-SNP support (Q1 2026 CPU-only, Q2 2026 expansion), Azure attestation (v1.23), and SecretVM cloud expansion, none PQ-related.
Announced PQC = 0 in trailing 12 months. Shipped PQC = 0. Ratio undefined; not deduction-eligible. Chain scores full 15. SCRT Labs is honest about current posture by silence on PQ.
Undisclosed. With no announced PQ scheme, bytes-per-block footprint under PQ is unknown. ML-DSA-65 substitution at validator consensus signing (~3,300 byte sigs vs 64-byte Ed25519) across ~50 validators per pre-commit round would produce ~50× consensus-signature footprint inflation.
6 Supply Chain Vendor Readiness weight 18% 16 / 100
Top wallets are Keplr (Cosmos-default, de-facto wallet for Secret), Leap Wallet (Cosmos-broad), and Fina (Secret-specific mobile). None has published PQC roadmap. Hardware wallet support: Ledger app for SCRT signs secp256k1, no PQC roadmap from Ledger.
Cross-chain via IBC (no PQC roadmap from Cosmos IBC working group as of 2026-05-01) and via Axelar General Message Passing. Wormhole and LayerZero are not currently primary Secret bridges.
Coinbase Custody and BitGo referenced as institutional custody options for SCRT. No top-tier custodian has published PQC roadmap covering Cosmos secp256k1/Ed25519 keys. Fireblocks supports Cosmos-broad, MPC-PQ readiness not announced.
RPC providers (Figment, Ankr, Lavender.Five Nodes, Keplr-hosted), no PQC roadmap. HSMs: standard Ledger Nano X / Nano S+. TEE: Secret's supply chain most distinctive, validator hardware path REQUIRES Intel SGX (mandatory until SGX decoupling ships) with transition planned to AMD SEV-SNP and Intel TDX in 2026. TEE supply chain has been the source of every confidentiality incident.
7 Governance & Coordination weight 5% 46 / 100
~50 active validators per Secret Network Wiki, with protocol cap of 80 active validator slots. Single-client diversity (scrtlabs/SecretNetwork is the reference). Stake distribution skews to small set of professional Cosmos validators. SGX-capable hardware requirement adds centralizing pressure.
xAPIC response (Oct 3 2022 disclosure → Nov 2 2022 patched, with forced-eject of all unpatched nodes and rotated consensus seeds) is the cleanest documented Cosmos-stack adversarial-coordinated upgrade. v1.22 (Sep 2025) governance-driven shift to permissioned mode in response to WireTap/Battering RAM was similarly fast and clean.
SCRT Labs (the core development entity, named CEO) and Secret Network Foundation. Public governance via on-chain governance proposals and Secret Network forum. SCRT Labs publishes annual roadmaps. No named PQ migration WG or PQ-lead role.
xAPIC incident (2022) and WireTap/Battering RAM/TEE.Fail family (2025) provide track record of coordinated cryptographic-/hardware-security-related upgrades under live external researcher pressure. Foundation's published position: funds were never at risk because Secret intentionally does not rely on SGX for correctness, only privacy.
No community honeypot, no rate-limited spending rule, no cryptographic tripwire embedded in consensus, no automated-response mechanism for Shor/curve25519-ECDH breakage published. On-demand network seed rotation (v1.21.6) is manual-governance primitive, not automated tripwire.
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 reaches 2032-2038, Outside risk window for upper-bound trajectory; Crisis Zone (vs Z10 2030)
Z-compliance
Outside compliance window, NIST 2030 deprecation (112-bit), 2035 disallowance
Source-disagreement disclosure
v3.1 requires every chain card to publish material divergences among authoritative sources, plus the delta-QRI under alternative weighting.
Alternative-weighting view that increases the 3-Confidentiality bucket from 10% to 15% yields a measurably lower QRI. Foundation framing of TEE-privacy threat model differs from PQC-focused reading. SCRT Labs emphasizes that Secret intentionally does not rely on SGX for correctness, only privacy. LayerQu treats consensus-layer Shor exposure and TEE confidentiality exposure as independently scorable surfaces.
Mainstream public-blockchain analyst coverage (Messari quarterly, Cosmos-ecosystem reports) does not yet treat post-quantum risk as a material chain-rating factor for Secret Network.
Delta-QRI under alternative weighting
Alternative weighting (3-Confidentiality from 10% to 15%, Dim 6 from 18% to 13%): QRI moves from 25 to ~24, delta of -1.
Announcement-to-shipped ratio
Announced: 0. Shipped: 0. Ratio: 0.
Tag: none, Secret Network is honest about its current pre-PQC posture by silence on PQ
Peers in the privacy-focused chain profile
9 chains closest to Secret Network by Stage then QRI.