Chain profile
Signs Core Space and eSpace transactions with ECDSA on secp256k1 and finalises blocks with BLS12-381 votes, and no post-quantum proposal, plan or research programme for Conflux's signatures could be found.
No. Conflux accounts sign transactions with ECDSA on the secp256k1 curve in both of its spaces: Core Space, whose base32 cfx: addresses are built from a Keccak hash of the public key, and eSpace, the EVM-compatible space added in the Hydra hard fork, which uses Ethereum's addresses and transaction formats. Blocks are ordered by proof of work on a Tree-Graph and finalised by a proof-of-stake committee whose members vote with BLS12-381 signatures and are elected with an elliptic-curve VRF on secp256k1. A sufficiently large quantum computer running Shor's algorithm would break all of them. We found no post-quantum position from the Conflux Foundation or in the Conflux Improvement Proposals: no CIP proposes a post-quantum signature, and the one that mentions post-quantum schemes, CIP-166, lists them only as a use for a new opcode. What we did find is a January 2020 post on the Conflux forum in which Dr. Yang Guang, introduced as Conflux's research director, argued that quantum computing would have very little effect on blockchain security and that chains could switch algorithms when quantum computers arrive. It names no scheme and proposes no change.
Where we are making a judgement call Two judgement calls carry this profile. The first is the tier and the migration score, which turn on the January 2020 forum post. It is a published position on quantum computing from a person the post introduces as Conflux's research director, and it says hashed addresses make a later switch to quantum-resistant signatures easy. We read it as a dismissal of the problem rather than a plan, proposal or research programme, so it does not meet the Tier 4 floor, and as treating migration as easy rather than acknowledging it as a problem, so migration stays at 2. A reader who counts it as acknowledgement would score migration 3 and add 1.5 points; no reading lifts Conflux to Tier 4, since the post proposes nothing. The second is CIP-45, a 2021 Draft that would let accounts be controlled by authorisation rules other than ECDSA on secp256k1. It is the mechanism a migration would need, but it names BLS and email-based keys as its examples, not post-quantum schemes, and every section of its specification still reads "TBD", so it earns no migration credit. A reader who credits a drafted direction would score migration 3, with the same effect on the total. CIP-45's author, Guang Yang, is the Yang Guang (杨光) whom the 2020 forum post introduces as Conflux's research director; the shared authorship does not change either reading.
ECDSA on secp256k1 for Core Space and eSpace accounts; BLS12-381 for proof-of-stake finality votes; ECVRF on secp256k1 for committee election; secp256r1 verification available to contracts
None. No post-quantum scheme has been proposed, selected or tested for Conflux.
None adopted.
Tier 5: Exposed. The signatures securing funds on mainnet today are quantum-vulnerable, and no public post-quantum plan, proposal or research programme addressing them could be found.
A role not listed is not evidenced either way. Every scheme, and which other chains share it, is in the cryptography registry.
| No. | Dimension | Score | Weight | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Signature scheme | 0 | 30% | 0.0 |
| 2 | Deployment stage | 1 | 25% | 2.5 |
| 3 | NIST alignment | 0 | 15% | 0.0 |
| 4 | Migration path | 2 | 15% | 3.0 |
| 5 | Exposure | 2 | 10% | 2.0 |
| 6 | Verification | 2 | 5% | 1.0 |
| Hardy Score | 8.5 | |||
Band 0: Classical signatures only on mainnet, with nothing post-quantum protecting live funds. Short-lived devnets and one-off benchmarks sit here: they demonstrate research rather than something a user can hold keys on.
conflux-rust signs and recovers transaction signatures with ECDSA on secp256k1 through the secp256k1 crate, for Core Space and for eSpace's Ethereum-type transactions alike. The proof-of-stake finality layer signs votes with BLS12-381. The secp256r1 precompile added in v3.1 verifies another elliptic curve. Nothing post-quantum protects CFX or any asset on Conflux today. source
Band 1: Tier 5: Exposed.
Tier 5: Exposed. The signatures that authorise spends and finalise blocks are quantum-vulnerable, and no CIP, Conflux Foundation publication, forum proposal or research programme on post-quantum signatures for Conflux was found. The 2020 forum post argues that no work is needed yet, which is a position, not a plan or a programme. source
Band 0 to 2: No post-quantum scheme named for the chain’s fund-protecting signatures, or a proprietary scheme with no public cryptanalysis.
No post-quantum scheme has been named for Conflux's account or finality signatures. The 2020 forum post says only that many quantum-resistant algorithms already exist, and CIP-166 mentions post-quantum signature schemes as a use for a counting opcode without naming one. source
Placement in the band The floor of the band rather than a 1 or a 2: no scheme has been named at all, even as an example, by anyone with authority over Conflux, so there is no choice to align with a standard.
Band 0 to 2: No agreed migration path, or the proposals on the table would strand or freeze holder funds.
No migration plan exists. Conflux has a long record of coordinated hard forks through the CIP process, from Tethys and Hydra, which added proof-of-stake finality and eSpace, to v3.0, which brought EIP-7702 delegation to eSpace, and v3.1, which added a secp256r1 verification precompile. CIP-45, a Draft from 2021, would let accounts be controlled by rules other than ECDSA on secp256k1, but its specification has never been written. source
Placement in the band The top of the band rather than a 0 or a 1: the CIP and hard-fork process has repeatedly changed the transaction format and added signature-verification primitives on mainnet, which is the route a post-quantum scheme would need. Not a 3, because no one with authority has acknowledged migration as a problem to solve: the 2020 forum post treats it as easy and not yet needed.
Band 0 to 2: Public keys are exposed for effectively all accounts, or a large, measured share of total supply sits in exposed addresses.
A Core Space address is a four-bit type marker plus 156 bits of the Keccak hash of the public key, and an eSpace address is an Ethereum address, so an account that has never signed keeps its key private in either space. Every account that has sent a transaction has published its key, staking for proof of stake included, and a key reused on eSpace or any EVM chain is published there too. source
Placement in the band The top of the band rather than a 1: never-signed addresses keep their keys hidden in both spaces. Not a 3, because almost all economically active CFX sits behind a key that has signed, and no measurement of the unexposed share has been published.
Band 0 to 2: No post-quantum component exists, or the claims rest on marketing.
No post-quantum component exists for Conflux: no code, specification or testnet implementation was found in conflux-rust or the CIPs repository. conflux-rust is open source, but under v1.8 the openness of classical code earns nothing on this dimension. source
Placement in the band The top of the band rather than a 0 or a 1: there is nothing post-quantum to verify, but Conflux does not market itself as quantum-safe. The 2020 forum post plays the threat down rather than claiming protection against it.
The deployment dimension is not a separate judgement. It is Tier 5 expressed as a number. See the tier mapping.
The 9 chains Conflux sits among, out of 80 rated. The last column is the gap in Hardy points from Conflux.
| Rank | Chain | Tier | Hardy | vs CFX |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 54 | Avalanche | 5: Exposed | 8.5 | level |
| 55 | Bitcoin SV | 5: Exposed | 8.5 | level |
| 56 | Celestia | 5: Exposed | 8.5 | level |
| 57 | Chiliz Chain | 5: Exposed | 8.5 | level |
| 58 | Conflux this chain | 5: Exposed | 8.5 | |
| 59 | dYdX Chain | 5: Exposed | 8.5 | level |
| 60 | eCash | 5: Exposed | 8.5 | level |
| 61 | Filecoin | 5: Exposed | 8.5 | level |
| 62 | GateChain | 5: Exposed | 8.5 | level |
A post on the Conflux forum quotes Dr. Yang Guang, introduced as Conflux's research director, arguing that quantum computing would have very little effect on blockchain security, that hashed addresses make a later switch to quantum-resistant signatures easy, and that chains can switch algorithms when quantum computers arrive. No scheme, proposal or date is given. source
The Hydra hard fork (v2.0) activates eight CIPs, among them CIP-43, which adds proof-of-stake finality with BLS votes, and CIP-90, which adds the EVM-compatible eSpace. Accounts in both spaces sign with ECDSA on secp256k1. source
The v3.1 hard fork activates seven CIPs on mainnet, including CIP-167's secp256r1 verification precompile and CIP-166's CLZ opcode, whose text lists post-quantum signature schemes among the opcode's uses. Neither proposes a post-quantum signature for Conflux. source
No post-quantum improvement proposal, roadmap, research programme or testnet implementation for Conflux's signatures was found from the Conflux Foundation or in the CIPs repository at the time of writing. source
No stated policy
Neither the Conflux Foundation nor the CIP process has said anything about post-quantum migration, so nothing has been said about accounts that never move to post-quantum keys. The 2020 forum post discusses a future switch of algorithm but not the accounts left behind.
As of 22 October 2026. source Published beside the score, not in it. Every chain's stance is compared on the commitments page.
Exposure measures how much of the chain's value already sits behind a public key that an attacker can record today and break later. This is the part of the threat that a future upgrade cannot undo.
Conflux hides keys behind hashes in both of its spaces. A Core Space user address is the type marker 0x1 followed by the rightmost 156 bits of the Keccak hash of the public key, written in base32 with a cfx: prefix under CIP-37, and an eSpace address is an ordinary Ethereum address. An account that has received CFX but never signed has not published its key, and the first signature publishes it permanently. Holders who stake for proof of stake, vote in the on-chain DAO or move funds between spaces have all signed. Because eSpace accepts the same keys and addresses as Ethereum, a key that has signed on Ethereum or any other EVM chain is also published for the matching eSpace address, and the same private key can control a Core Space and an eSpace address, so a holder who uses one key in both spaces exposes it in both with a single signature. The BLS and VRF keys of proof-of-stake nodes are registered on chain by design.
What this rating means for you
Conflux runs quantum-vulnerable signatures with no published post-quantum plan that we could find. Nothing here is urgent today, and there is also nothing scheduled to change it.
Editorial guidance from the Hardy Index.
We will email you the day this rating moves, with the changelog note that explains why. Nothing else, and nothing in between.
No. Conflux accounts sign with ECDSA on secp256k1 in both Core Space and eSpace, the proof-of-stake finality layer signs with BLS12-381, and committee election uses an elliptic-curve VRF. A sufficiently large quantum computer would break all of them, and no post-quantum plan for Conflux has been published.
The position we found is a January 2020 post on the Conflux forum, in Chinese, quoting Dr. Yang Guang, introduced as Conflux's research director. It argues that a quantum computer would make ECDSA unsafe but that the overall effect on blockchain security is small, that hashed addresses make a later switch easy, and that chains can change algorithms when quantum computers arrive. It names no scheme and sets no date.
It adds to it. Since the Hydra hard fork, a proof-of-stake committee finalises the blocks that proof of work orders, and its members sign votes with BLS12-381 keys and are elected with a VRF on secp256k1. Both are elliptic-curve schemes that Shor's algorithm breaks, and a forger of finality votes could override the chain's finality, which is why v1.8 counts finalising signatures among those it scores.
No. CIP-7702 lets an eSpace account delegate to contract code, and CIP-167 lets contracts verify P-256 passkey signatures, but the account is still controlled by its secp256k1 key and P-256 is another elliptic curve. Both show that Conflux can add signature-related features through a CIP and a hard fork, which is the route a post-quantum scheme would need.
A CIP or a public research programme on post-quantum signatures for Conflux's accounts or finality votes would meet the Tier 4 floor. A plan from the Conflux Foundation or an adopted CIP naming the scheme to be used would meet Tier 3. Writing CIP-45's specification around a post-quantum scheme would also lift the migration score.
A rating is only true as of the day an editor last reviewed it, so both forms below carry that date and the methodology version, with the date its cited sources were last checked. If you are quoting the score, quote those too.
The Hardy Index (2026). Conflux: quantum readiness assessment. Hardy Score 8.5 of 100, Tier 5: Exposed. Methodology v1.8. Last reviewed 22 October 2026; sources checked 13 November 2026. https://hardyindex.com/chains/conflux
@misc{hardyindex_conflux_2026,
author = {{The Hardy Index}},
title = {Conflux: quantum readiness assessment},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://hardyindex.com/chains/conflux}},
note = {Hardy Score 8.5 of 100, Tier 5: Exposed. Methodology v1.8},
urldate = {2026-11-13}
} The whole dataset is reusable under the terms on the about page. A machine-readable version of this page is at /chains/conflux.md.
This is a security-readiness assessment, not investment advice.