01
Measured before modeled
PQC Arena records cryptographic operations and composed protocol behavior on identified hardware. Coldproof models use that evidence as an input; they do not replace it with a vendor claim.
Methodology
Evidence first. Assumptions in the open.
Coldproof connects public post-quantum measurements to the systems, migration work and financial assumptions that determine cost. The measurement layer and the commercial model have different jobs, and we keep that boundary visible.
02
Every number keeps its provenance
Published measurements carry their run date, software environment, host context and source commit. Missing measurements stay missing rather than being silently estimated or zero-filled.
03
Estate assumptions remain explicit
A migration model combines measured evidence with estate scope, sequencing, labour, infrastructure and operating assumptions. Those assumptions are shown separately so security and finance can challenge them.
PQC Arena
What the public measurement layer does.
The benchmark harness measures NIST-standardized algorithms and composed TLS and SSH behavior. Runs capture timing distributions, throughput, artifact sizes and the environment that produced them. Results and source code remain public.
These measurements describe the observed environment. They do not claim to be a universal performance forecast, a vendor rating, or a customer cost estimate.
Migration economics
What a Coldproof model adds.
Technical evidence becomes decision-useful only when it is mapped to an organization’s cryptographic estate and migration plan. The model separates one-time work, recurring infrastructure effects, migration phases, parallel operation and uncertainty into low, base and high cases. Illustrative website figures are never presented as customer estimates.
Audit the evidence