Scalability Bottlenecks in Quantum-Resilient Distributed Ledgers: A Comparative Analysis of Post-Quantum Blockchain Implementations

Abstract

Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) form critical infrastructure for decentralized applications, yet their security relies heavily on classical asymmetric cryptographic primitives that are vulnerable to quantum attacks. Post-quantum cryptography (PQC) provides candidate algorithms designed to resist such threats, but integrating these schemes into operational blockchain systems introduces significant architectural and performance trade-offs.