PQ1 vs Trezor: open-source hardware wallets compared

Last updated July 28, 2026

Trezor has the strongest open-source pedigree in hardware wallets - SatoshiLabs invented the modern hardware wallet category in 2014 with the Trezor One, and the firmware has been open source from day one. With the Safe 7, Trezor now markets “the world’s first quantum-ready hardware wallet” - a claim that is technically accurate and easy to misread, so we dissect it below. PQ1™ is built in the same open spirit and goes the step Trezor hasn’t: post-quantum signing of your actual transactions, plus a dual secure-element architecture that splits the seed across two independently-sourced chips. This page compares them.

Side-by-side

“Quantum-ready” vs quantum-secure: dissecting the Safe 7 claim

The Trezor Safe 7 advertises itself as “the world’s first quantum-ready hardware wallet.” The engineering behind that phrase is real - and it’s worth being precise about what it does and doesn’t cover, because the difference is your money.

What the Safe 7’s quantum-readiness actually protects

Three things on the Safe 7 use post-quantum cryptography today: the boot process, firmware updates, and device authentication.

• The boardloader verifies every firmware update with a hybrid signature: classical Ed25519 plus SLH-DSA-128, the hash-based scheme NIST standardized in FIPS-205. A quantum attacker cannot forge a Trezor firmware update.
• Device authentication (proving your Safe 7 is genuine) uses ML-DSA-44, the lattice scheme from FIPS-204.

This is genuinely good engineering, and we’ll say so plainly: hardening the root of trust with FIPS-205/204 signatures is the right move, and Trezor shipped it first among the incumbents.

What it does not protect: your funds

Every cryptocurrency transaction the Safe 7 signs still uses secp256k1 ECDSA or ed25519 EdDSA - the exact algorithms Shor’s algorithm breaks. Trezor’s own knowledge base defines quantum-ready as “a device which will be able to run post-quantum cryptographic updates” and states it outright: “A quantum-ready device does not protect your assets from quantum computers at this time.”

So on Q-Day, here is what the Safe 7’s quantum-readiness buys you: a quantum attacker cannot push malicious firmware onto your device. But they don’t need to. Your public key is exposed on-chain the moment you transact (and even sits in the mempool before your first transaction confirms). A cryptographically-relevant quantum computer derives the private key from that public key and moves your funds directly - no firmware, no device, no Trezor involvement required. The vault door gets a quantum-proof lock; the assets inside are keyed to a lock that quantum computers open.

Quantum-ready means the device could someday receive a post-quantum update. Quantum-secure means your assets are protected now. The Safe 7 is the former. It is not the latter, and Trezor’s documentation - to their credit - says so.

Why Trezor can’t just fix it with an update

Trezor’s stated reason is fair: “Blockchains must first upgrade to post-quantum cryptography.” For Bitcoin, that’s true - post-quantum signatures need a protocol change that hasn’t happened.

But on Ethereum and every EVM L2, it stopped being true when account abstraction shipped. ERC-4337 lets a smart-contract wallet verify any signature scheme on-chain today, no hard fork required. That is exactly the loophole PQ1™ is built on: SPHINCS+ signatures verified by an immutable on-chain Yul contract. It’s also why PQ1™ v1 is EVM-only - it’s the ecosystem where quantum-secure assets are possible right now, so that’s where we shipped them.

PQ1™ does both halves

For clarity, the same checklist applied to PQ1™:

• Quantum-secure firmware updates? Yes. PQ1™’s firmware-update path is signed with SPHINCS+ - the same FIPS-205 family the Safe 7 uses, but as the sole scheme rather than a hybrid alongside a classical signature.
• Quantum-secure assets? Yes. Every transaction is signed with SPHINCS+ and verified on-chain. There is no ECDSA anywhere - not in the wallet, not in the update path, no “just in case” classical fallback that becomes the weakest link on Q-Day.

One sentence to take away: the Safe 7 quantum-protects the device; PQ1™ quantum-protects the device and the money it guards.

Where Trezor wins

• Track record. Trezor has shipped continuously since 2014. Its firmware has been audited by hundreds of independent researchers, with every CVE published and fixed in the open. PQ1™ is new - the firmware is open and reproducible, but the multi-year track record doesn’t yet exist.
• Multi-chain coverage. Trezor signs Bitcoin, Cardano, and dozens of others. PQ1™ v1 supports Ethereum and every EVM L2 only.
• Trezor Suite ecosystem. Mature companion app with strong privacy features (Tor, coin control, CoinJoin via Wasabi integration). PQ1™ ships with ERC-4337 wallet support but Trezor Suite is broader for Bitcoin-first holders.
• Polish and convenience. The Safe 7 has a 2.5“ color touchscreen, Bluetooth, and Qi2 wireless charging; the Model T and Safe 5 have touchscreens too. PQ1™ uses two physical buttons (short-press to page through the transaction, long-press to confirm or cancel), wired directly to the MCU with no touch-controller IC in the path, and is USB-C only - deliberately minimal attack surface, less polished interaction.
• Price at the low end. Trezor Safe 3 is $79 and Trezor Model One is $69 (the Safe 7, at $249, is $70 more than PQ1™). All quantum-vulnerable where it counts.

Where PQ1™ wins

Post-quantum signing of transactions

Every Trezor device signs transactions only with secp256k1 ECDSA and ed25519 EdDSA. Both fall to Shor’s algorithm. The Safe 7 is the first Trezor to ship post-quantum cryptography at all, but only in the firmware-update and authentication path - no shipping Trezor product produces a post-quantum signature over a transaction as of 2026.

PQ1™ signs every transaction with SPHINCS+ - the hash-based signature family NIST standardized as SLH-DSA in FIPS-205. There is no ECDSA fallback anywhere in the firmware or smart wallet. After Q-Day, PQ1™’s assets remain secure while every ECDSA-controlled address - including those managed by a quantum-ready Safe 7 - is spendable by any sufficiently-equipped adversary. See our SPHINCS+C10 signature walkthrough.

Secure-element architecture

Trezor was famously without a secure element on the Model One and Model T - running the seed in MCU memory, with no hardware boundary between the seed and any code that ran on the device. The Safe 3 and Safe 5 added an Infineon OPTIGA chip, but only for PIN protection - the seed and signing operations still run in MCU flash. The Safe 7 adds a second secure element (TROPIC01, alongside the OPTIGA) for PIN protection, attestation, and randomness - but the seed still lives encrypted in MCU flash and signing still runs on the MCU.

PQ1™ splits the BIP-39 entropy across two CC EAL6+ secure elements from two different vendors (Infineon OPTIGA Trust M V3 and NXP SE050) with the seed never present on a single chip. PIN gating runs in silicon on both SEs, with a three-way lockstep counter. Read more on the dual secure-element architecture.

Account abstraction

Trezor produces classical Ethereum signatures and depends on standard EOA accounts. PQ1™ produces SPHINCS+ signatures consumed by ERC-4337 v0.6 smart wallets that verify the post-quantum signature on-chain via an immutable Yul verifier contract. See how PQ1™’s compressed SPHINCS+ signatures verify on-chain.

The open-source story, told carefully

Both companies make legitimate open-source claims:

• Trezor: open firmware, reproducible builds. Seed lives in MCU flash on every model; the OPTIGA secure element on the Safe 3/5/7 is closed-source. The Safe 7’s TROPIC01 deserves genuine credit - it’s the first secure element with a fully published, auditable design, a real step toward open silicon (though it doesn’t yet carry an EAL6+ certification).
• PQ1™: open firmware, reproducible builds, open smart-wallet contracts, and an open Yul post-quantum verifier. Seed is XOR-split across two closed but CC EAL6+ secure elements from independent vendors.

Neither stack is open all the way down to certified silicon; no chip today combines an EAL6+ certificate with public RTL. PQ1™’s bet is that the vendor-diverse XOR-split beats any single chip’s guarantees, and that pure post-quantum signing on the MCU is the right place to put the cryptography you can actually audit.

Bottom line

Trezor is the right choice if:

• You value the longest-running open-source hardware wallet track record.
• You need Bitcoin, Solana, or another non-EVM chain.
• You’re a Bitcoin-first user who depends on Trezor Suite’s coin control and CoinJoin features.
• $69–$79 is meaningful budget pressure.

PQ1™ is the right choice if:

• You want your assets quantum-secure today - not just your firmware updates - with no ECDSA fallback that breaks on Q-Day.
• Your holdings are on Ethereum and EVM L2s, and you want the seed split across two vendors rather than trusting any single secure element.
• You prefer an ERC-4337-native experience for the EVM ecosystem.

Reserve PQ1™ for $179.