Hardy Index Quantum readiness benchmark

Chain profile

MemeCore

M Exposed

An Ethereum-compatible layer 1 whose node is a go-ethereum fork, signing with ECDSA on secp256k1, with no published post-quantum position of any kind.

Is MemeCore quantum-safe?

No. MemeCore is an Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible layer 1, and the node its foundation publishes is a go-ethereum fork, so accounts and transactions are secured by ECDSA on secp256k1, the same scheme Shor's algorithm breaks on Ethereum and every other EVM chain. Consensus is Proof of Meme, described at launch as combining Proof of Authority and delegated Proof of Stake, with validator roles rotating every ten blocks and validators required to self-stake seven million M tokens. Nothing in that design is post-quantum, and we found no roadmap, improvement proposal, research programme or testnet implementation addressing the question. MemeCore appears in this index because it is inside the twenty-five largest layer 1s by market capitalisation, which is one of the three published tests for coverage. Size decides who gets assessed here and never how they score, and a chain of this size with nothing published on the threat is a row worth having precisely because the absence is the finding.

Where we are making a judgement call Our finding is that we could not locate a published post-quantum position, not that we have confirmed none exists. Tier 5 records quantum-vulnerable signatures alongside the absence of a plan we could find, and it is a statement about disclosed readiness rather than about the network or what it is for. One thing to watch: the published node repository has been quiet since February 2026, so a scheme change made outside it would not be visible to us, and a long gap there is worth re-reading rather than trusting.

At a glance

On mainnet today

ECDSA on secp256k1, inherited from Ethereum Virtual Machine compatibility

Post-quantum scheme

None. No scheme has been named or proposed.

NIST standard

None adopted and none named as a candidate.

Readiness tier

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.

Score breakdown

Each dimension scored 0 to 10. The weight beside it is its share of the total score.
Signature scheme 0 30% Deployment stage 1 25% NIST alignment 0 15% Migration path 1 15% Exposure 2 10% Verification 5 5%
Show the weighted arithmetic and the sourced note for each dimension
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 1 15% 1.5
5 Exposure 2 10% 2.0
6 Verification 5 5% 2.5
Hardy Score 8.5

1 Signature scheme 0/10, weighted 30%

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.

The node the foundation publishes is a go-ethereum fork, so accounts and transaction signing are Ethereum's: ECDSA on secp256k1, broken by Shor's algorithm. The signature scheme is therefore whatever upstream go-ethereum does until this chain diverges from it, and nothing in the fork diverges towards anything post-quantum. source

2 Deployment stage 1/10, weighted 25%

Band 1: Tier 5: Exposed.

Tier 5: Exposed. The signatures securing mainnet balances are quantum-vulnerable and we found no roadmap, improvement proposal, research programme or testnet implementation. See the caveat below on what that finding does and does not establish. source

3 NIST alignment 0/10, weighted 15%

Band 0 to 2: No named post-quantum scheme, or a proprietary scheme with no public cryptanalysis.

No post-quantum scheme has been named or selected, so there is nothing to assess against a NIST standard. source

Placement in the band The floor of the band rather than a 1 or a 2, because no candidate has been named at any point. Naming an algorithm and then setting it aside would rank above this.

4 Migration path 1/10, weighted 15%

Band 0 to 2: No agreed migration path, or the proposals on the table would strand or freeze holder funds.

No migration plan, mechanism or published position was found. The consensus does make a coordinated change cheaper than most: Proof of Meme is described at launch as combining Proof of Authority with delegated Proof of Stake, with validator roles rotating every ten blocks and a seven million token self-stake required to be one, which points to a small and identifiable set of parties who would have to agree on a new signature scheme. source

Placement in the band A 1 rather than a 0, because an authority-flavoured consensus with a high self-stake floor is a materially lower coordination barrier than a chain with thousands of independent operators and no upgrade mechanism. It cannot reach a 3, because that requires the problem to be acknowledged in public and MemeCore has not acknowledged it. The concentration this relies on is a centralisation question, which this index does not score.

5 Exposure 2/10, weighted 10%

Band 0 to 2: Public keys are exposed for effectively all accounts, or a large, measured share of total supply sits in exposed addresses.

Addresses follow the Ethereum model and are hashes of public keys, so an account that has received funds and never signed keeps its key off-chain. On a network built explicitly around meme-coin trading and continuous staking participation, almost every account of consequence signs repeatedly, so in practice the key protecting live value is already recorded. source

Placement in the band At the top of the band rather than a 1 or a 0, because the hashed address genuinely protects a never-signed account, unlike chains whose address is the key. It stays in this band because the network's whole purpose is frequent trading and staking, so the unexposed share is small and nobody has measured it.

6 Verification 5/10, weighted 5%

Band 3 to 5: Some independent verification exists, but the headline quantum-safety claim itself is not verified.

The foundation publishes a node implementation and it is a go-ethereum fork, so a reader can check the signature scheme against running code rather than inferring it from a compatibility claim. The repository has been quiet since February 2026. There is no post-quantum claim to verify and no published position to hold against future statements. source

Placement in the band At the top of the band rather than a 4 or a 3, because the deployed scheme is inspectable in a public client and inherited from one of the most reviewed codebases in the industry. It cannot reach the band above, which credits independent verification of a post-quantum claim, and MemeCore has made none.

The deployment dimension is not a separate judgement. It is Tier 5 expressed as a number. See the tier mapping.

How it compares

All 31 rated chains on the 0 to 100 scale. MemeCore is marked. Select any point to open that profile.
MemeCore 8.5

Nearest chains in the ranking

The 9 chains MemeCore sits among, out of 31 rated. The last column is the gap in Hardy points from MemeCore.

Rank Chain Tier Hardy vs M
23 Internet Computer 5: Exposed 14.5 +6.0
24 TON 5: Exposed 13.0 +4.5
25 Litecoin 5: Exposed 12.5 +4.0
26 Bittensor 5: Exposed 11.0 +2.5
27 Dogecoin 5: Exposed 11.0 +2.5
28 Avalanche 5: Exposed 10.5 +2.0
29 Cronos 5: Exposed 8.5 level
30 MemeCore this chain 5: Exposed 8.5
31 Hyperliquid 5: Exposed 7.0 -1.5

Roadmap

  1. 9 September 2025 shipped

    MemeCore launches as an EVM-compatible layer 1 with Proof of Meme consensus. The launch materials name no cryptographic roadmap. source

  2. No published position proposed

    No post-quantum roadmap, improvement proposal, research programme or testnet implementation was found at the time of writing. source

Exposure

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.

MemeCore's exposure follows the Ethereum pattern, and the pattern's one protection does very little here. Addresses are hashes of public keys, so a funded address that has never signed does not publish the key that guards it, and those coins are not harvestable today. That protection is lost at the first outbound transaction, and this is a network designed around meme-coin trading, staking and continuous participation, which means signing constantly is the intended behaviour rather than the exception. Validators self-stake and delegators stake to participate, and each of those actions reveals a key. No measurement of exposed supply has been published for this chain, so the score reflects the address model rather than a count. The realistic reading is that the unexposed share is small and shrinking by design.

What this rating means for you

If you hold MemeCore

MemeCore 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.

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From the newsroom

What we have published about this chain

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Questions

Is MemeCore quantum-safe?

No. MemeCore is an Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible network, so it signs with ECDSA on secp256k1, which Shor's algorithm breaks. No post-quantum scheme has been named or proposed, and we found no roadmap, improvement proposal or research programme addressing the threat.

Why is a meme-coin chain in a quantum readiness index?

Because coverage follows a published rule rather than a judgement about which chains deserve attention. One of the three tests is scale: a chain inside the twenty-five largest layer 1s by market capitalisation gets assessed whether or not it has published anything. Market value decides who is assessed and never how they score. MemeCore is rated here on exactly the same six dimensions as Bitcoin.

What is Proof of Meme and does it affect quantum readiness?

Proof of Meme is MemeCore's consensus, described at launch as combining Proof of Authority and delegated Proof of Stake, with validator roles rotating every ten blocks and validators required to self-stake seven million M tokens. It does not change the signature scheme, so it has no direct effect on quantum readiness. It does imply a small and identifiable set of parties who would need to agree to change that scheme, which is the one reason the migration dimension scores above zero.

What would move MemeCore up this index?

The cheapest move is publishing a position: an improvement proposal or a research programme addressing the chain's own signatures would lift it off the bottom rung, because the Debating rung asks for documented work rather than shipped work. Beyond that, the same things that would move any chain: naming a NIST-standardised scheme, describing a route for existing holders to reach new keys, and eventually running a post-quantum signature on mainnet.

Sources

  1. What is MemeCore? MemeCore documentation · primary · checked 17 August 2026
  2. Go-MemeCore, the MemeCore node implementation MemeCore Foundation · primary · checked 17 August 2026
  3. MemeCore Launches Layer 1 Blockchain to Structure the Meme Coin Economy MemeCore, via CryptoSlate press releases · primary · checked 17 August 2026
  4. FIPS 204: Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Standard NIST · primary · checked 17 August 2026
Cite this rating

A rating is only true as of the day it was reviewed, so both forms below carry the review date and the methodology version. If you are quoting the score, quote those too.

Plain text

The Hardy Index (2026). MemeCore: quantum readiness assessment. Hardy Score 8.5 of 100, Tier 5: Exposed. Methodology v1.4. Reviewed 2 October 2026. https://hardyindex.com/chains/memecore

BibTeX 
@misc{hardyindex_memecore_2026,
  author       = {{The Hardy Index}},
  title        = {MemeCore: quantum readiness assessment},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://hardyindex.com/chains/memecore}},
  note         = {Hardy Score 8.5 of 100, Tier 5: Exposed. Methodology v1.4},
  urldate      = {2026-10-02}
}

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This is a security-readiness assessment, not investment advice.