Quantum-Ready Blockchains Compared, Part 1: What "Quantum-Ready" Actually Means

Disclosure: I hold CKB. This series presents information, not recommendations, and nothing in it is investment advice. Our earlier four-part series looked at one blockchain, Nervos Network, and asked what a quantum computer would really mean for it. This series widens the lens. In 2026 almost every major network published something about quantum computing, and "quantum-ready" became a phrase you could find in a press release from nearly any of them. The phrase does not mean one thing. One chain has protected every account with quantum-safe signatures since 2018. Another has the code written, tested and merged, and switched off. A third has a roadmap with a target year and nothing a holder can use today. All three have been called quantum-ready. This first installment builds the measuring stick. Before comparing nine chains, we need to agree on what is being attacked, what "ready" would have to mean, and how to tell a shipped feature from an announced one. Parts 2 through 4 then go chain by chain, and Part 5 puts them side by side. The short version: quantum readiness is a ladder, not a label, and only one small chain stands on the top rung. The threat, in three paragraphs Readers of the Nervos series can skim this section. For everyone else, here is the whole threat in brief. Two quantum algorithms matter to blockchains. The first was published in 1994 by Peter Shor , a mathematician then at Bell Laboratories. Shor's algorithm lets a large enough quantum computer work backward from a public key to the private key behind it. That breaks ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography) , the math behind the signatures that protect coins on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Nervos and nearly every other chain in this series. It is not a faster lockpick. It is a way of calculating the combination from the shape of the dial. The second algorithm, published in 1996 by Lov Grover , also at Bell Laboratories, is far milder. Grover's algorithm speeds up brute-force searching, which in practice…