An Evaluation of Post-Quantum Cryptographic Algorithms in IoT-Blockchain Systems

Abstract

As quantum computing threatens the security of traditional cryptographic algorithms used in blockchain systems, integrating post-quantum cryptography (PQC) into IoT-blockchain environments has become a critical research direction. However, the practicality of PQC in resource-constrained IoT devices remains largely unexplored. This paper presents a fully operational IoT-blockchain system that concurrently runs PQC algorithms and blockchain processes on Raspberry Pi 4 nodes using Ethereum and Proof-of-Stake consensus. We implement and evaluate three NIST-recommended PQC algorithms (i.e., Dilithium, FALCON, and SPHINCS+) and assess their impact on CPU utilization, memory and disk usage, and power consumption. The results show that SPHINCS+ introduces significant overhead due to its hash-based signature scheme, whereas Dilithium and FALCON have minimal performance impact and are more suitable for constrained environments. All PQC algorithms, however, lead to a notable increase in disk usage. This study provides the first system-level evaluation of PQC-integrated IoT-blockchain platforms and offers practical insights for secure and efficient deployment in the post-quantum era.