Frequently Asked Questions

Max Supply:
The maximum number of quantum coins that will ever exist.

Total Supply:
Total number of coins currently mined, minus any burnt coins.

Circulating Supply:
Total number of coins in circulation currently. This will be lesser than or equal to Total Supply.

Burnt Coins:
Number of coins that have been burnt. This is the balance of the zero address.

Block Rewards:
Number of coins issued as block rewards to block proposers (validators), excluding transaction fee rewards.

Txn Fee Rewards:
Number of coins given to block proposers (validators) as a precentage of the transaction fees. 50% of transaction fees of each block are given to block proposers.

Burnt Txn Fee:
Number of coins burnt as a precentage of the transaction fees. 50% of transaction fees of each block are burnt (sent to the zero address).

Slashed Coins:
Number of coins slashed (penalty / fine) for offline and misbehaving validators. These coins are burnt (sent to the zero address).

Yes, Quantum Coin uses the finalized NIST standardized post-quantum cryptographic algorithms in hybrid mode.

For digital signatures, Quantum Coin implements:

• ML-DSA (FIPS 204) - Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm (formerly CRYSTALS-Dilithium)
• SLH-DSA (FIPS 205) - Stateless Hash-Based Digital Signature Algorithm (formerly SPHINCS+)
• Ed25519 (FIPS 186-5) - Classical EdDSA signature for hybrid security

For node-to-node key establishment:

• ML-KEM (FIPS 203) - Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism (formerly CRYSTALS-Kyber)

Verification requires all component signatures (ML-DSA, SLH-DSA, and Ed25519) to be valid, providing protection against both classical and quantum-computer-based attacks. These algorithms are the finalized standards from NIST's Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization project. See the Quantum Resistance documentation and the open-source implementation at the Quantum Coin Go node repository.

Hybrid cryptography combines post-quantum algorithms with classical algorithms to provide a defense-in-depth security model.

Quantum Coin uses hybrid mode because:

• Algorithmic Agility: It maintains security even if one of the component algorithms is found to have a vulnerability.
• Transition Best Practices: Global security agencies (NIST, ANSSI, BSI) recommend hybrid constructions during the transition from classical to post-quantum cryptography.
• Legacy Protection: It ensures compatibility and security against classical attackers using established elliptic curve schemes while adding quantum-resistant layers.

In Quantum Coin's hybrid signature scheme, verification requires ML-DSA (FIPS 204), SLH-DSA (FIPS 205), and Ed25519 (FIPS 186-5) signatures to all be valid for a transaction to be accepted by the network.

The implementation is fully open source and can be audited at:

• Repository: github.com/quantumcoinproject/quantum-coin-go
• Cryptography code: See the /crypto directory for finalized FIPS 203, 204, and 205 implementations.
• P2P handshake with ML-KEM: See the /p2p/rlpx directory for the hybrid key exchange logic.

The codebase follows the finalized NIST specifications for ML-DSA (FIPS 204), SLH-DSA (FIPS 205), and ML-KEM (FIPS 203).

While quantum coin is based on Ethereum's geth codebase, there are major differences in Quantum Coin compared to Ethereum.

• Quantum Coin uses NIST standardized post-quantum cryptography in hybrid mode (ML-DSA, SLH-DSA, ML-KEM with ed25519) compared to Ethereum which uses non-quantum resistant algorithms. See Quantum Resistance whitepaper.
• Quantum Coin has 32 byte addresses (66 characters in hex including 0x) compared to 20 bytes for Ethereum. This gives Quantum Coin additional security against hash collisions.
• Quantum Coin has no priority fee for transactions unlike Ethereum and makes transaction ordering fair.
• Quantum Coin uses a customized variant of pBFT consensus while Ethereum uses Gasper. Both use proof-of-stake consensus.
• Quantum Coin has block time, gas per block, TPS, block rewards compared to Ethereum. Please see other questions in this FAQ for details.
• Validators are selected per block in Quantum Coin, instead of on a slot basis in Ethereum.