PQVM

PQVM is the Post-Quantum Virtual Machine for Shell-Chain.

The project is a clean Rust implementation modeled on revm's architecture without being a fork of revm. It keeps EVM-familiar non-cryptographic semantics and tooling patterns--stack execution, 256-bit words, gas metering, database abstraction, and deterministic receipts--while replacing the classical cryptographic surface with Shell-Chain's PQ-native design.

Design targets

• Native 32-byte PQAddress: BLAKE3(algo_id || public_key)[0:32], rendered as 0x{64 hex}.
• No ECDSA account rule and no ecrecover.
• No BN256 or other classical Ethereum crypto precompiles.
• Native account abstraction: account validity is code-defined.
• PQ-native opcodes: PQVERIFY, PQHASH, PQADDR.
• PQ precompile suite for ML-DSA-65, SLH-DSA-SHA2-256f, BLAKE3, and address derivation.
• Revm-inspired execution architecture, with differential tests only for retained EVM-identical semantics.

Current status

The core PQ execution layer is implemented: crate topology, PQ primitives, gas constants, state and precompile traits, the PQ precompile suite (ML-DSA-65 verify / SLH-DSA verify / ML-DSA-65 batch / BLAKE3-256 / BLAKE3-512 / PQAddr derive), and the execute_transaction_db API. The PQVM-1 spec is locked.

Native opcode interpreter dispatch for PQVERIFY, PQHASH, and PQADDR is being completed; that boundary is called out explicitly where relevant.

Specification

• docs/PQVM-1.md is the current executable specification draft.

Development checks

Run the workspace checks before submitting changes:

cargo fmt --check
cargo clippy --workspace -- -D warnings
cargo test --workspace

Conformance fixtures

The first PQVM-1 golden vectors live under tests/fixtures/ and are exercised by the facade crate integration tests:

• pqaddress_vectors.txt: PQAddress derivation and precompile address vectors.
• pqtx_vectors.txt: PQTx signing-payload vector.

These fixtures are intentionally small and stable; expand them whenever a specification rule becomes executable.