Quantum-Lattice (QL)
A post-quantum Layer 1 blockchain, built solo
A few months ago I set out to build something I felt genuinely needed to exist: a Layer 1 blockchain secured entirely with post-quantum cryptography, from day one — not retrofitted later.
The real problem: nearly every blockchain today (Bitcoin, Ethereum, all of them) signs transactions using elliptic-curve cryptography. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer breaks that completely, via Shor's algorithm. And it's not just a future problem — an attacker can record public chain data today and simply decrypt it later, once the hardware catches up. Anything meant to hold real value for decades needs to solve this now, not patch it in afterward.
So I built Quantum-Lattice — a real Layer 1 chain signed entirely with ML-DSA-65, the finalized NIST post-quantum standard (FIPS 204), in Rust.
What's actually live right now:
- A real node, with genuine proof-of-work mining and difficulty retargeting
- A non-custodial browser wallet — keys generated and signed entirely client-side
- A native desktop wallet (Windows, built with Tauri)
- A native Android mobile wallet — same cryptography, verified byte-for-byte identical to the reference implementation, with fingerprint unlock and QR pay
- A public mining pool, with genuine, verified network wins
- A public explorer showing live chain data, real network hashrate, and complete transaction history
- Full source code, Apache 2.0 licensed, on GitHub
Solo-built. Self-funded. No outside team, no VC money — just steady, real engineering, one piece at a time.
One of the more interesting real moments: a complete stranger found the live network over a weekend, before I'd posted about it anywhere, downloaded the miner, and just started mining on their own. Genuinely nice, unplanned proof that the whole thing actually works end to end for someone with zero context.
Currently building out a few more real features — deeper transaction transparency, and a tamper-evident record of security disclosures anchored directly on-chain.
Explorer: https://quantum-lattice.futuristicai.co.za
Pool: https://ql-pool.futuristicai.co.za
Wallet: https://qlwallet.futuristicai.co.za
Code: https://github.com/AlthaafM/Quantum-Lattice
Happy to answer anything — technical, or about the actual experience of building this solo.
4 Comments
Update since the last post — real, geographic redundancy, completed successfully:
The project now has independent, fully-synced nodes running across three continents — South Africa, Germany, and the United States. No single power grid, provider, or region can take the core network down; if one location becomes unreachable, the chain keeps running normally on the others.
Genuinely came out of a real, honest weakness a home-internet outage exposed a few days ago — rather than just patch around it, decided to build real, actual redundancy instead.
Still solo, still self-funded. One real piece at a time.
The stranger finding the network and successfully mining without any context is a genuinely useful early signal.
It’s a small event, but importantly, it happened without you manufacturing the test.
Really appreciate you picking up on that specific detail — it stuck with me too.
You're right that the "not manufactured" part is what made it genuinely meaningful. I could have run my own second machine and called it a validation test, and it would have proven basically nothing. Someone with zero context, zero instructions from me, finding the download and just... running it successfully, is a completely different kind of signal. It's the closest thing to a real user test I've gotten without deliberately asking for one.
It's also a good, honest reminder that the actual bar for "does this work for someone who isn't me" is higher than it feels from the inside of a project.
That’s helpful context. The difference between a self-run test and an unsolicited real-world signal is an interesting one.
I’d like to continue the conversation outside the thread. What’s the best email to reach you on?