Benchmarked, Not Marketed
The numbers, as measured.
Every figure on this page comes from a dated benchmark run on hardware we can name. Nothing extrapolated, nothing aggregated across cores without saying so. When a new run supersedes an old number, the page changes, not before.
Measurement basis
Every cryptographic figure is the statistical mean of 100 timed samples per operation, compiled with full optimizations, on a single core of a commodity AMD Ryzen 9 9950X workstation. Signature, key-exchange, and key-hierarchy figures measured 2026-07-27; hashing and symmetric encryption 2026-05-07. Mesh and edge-node figures come from an instrumented live circuit, not a simulation, measured 2026-04-02.
Standing qualifier: every per-second figure is a single-core, per-operation cost, not system capacity. Multiply by cores for aggregate throughput, and say so when you do.
Digital Signatures · NIST FIPS 204
ML-DSA-65
The algorithm that signs every agent credential, tool invocation, and delegation approval in the Aethyr stack. Verification is the hot path (it runs on every credential check) and at 9,671 verifications per second per core, the crypto is never the bottleneck.
| Operation | Mean time | Throughput (per core) |
|---|---|---|
| Key generation | 164.60 µs | 6,075 /sec |
| Sign | 451.58 µs | 2,214 /sec |
| Verify | 103.40 µs | 9,671 /sec |
Measured 2026-07-27 · single core
Key sizes: 1,952 B public key · 3,309 B signature · 32 B seed.
Key Exchange · NIST FIPS 203
ML-KEM-768
Establishes encrypted sessions between nodes without trusting a third party. The full exchange (keygen, encapsulate, decapsulate) completes in 90.93 microseconds: the total cost of a quantum-resistant channel between two agents.
| Operation | Mean time | Throughput (per core) |
|---|---|---|
| Key generation | 23.66 µs | 42,261 /sec |
| Encapsulate | 22.66 µs | 44,139 /sec |
| Decapsulate | 44.61 µs | 22,418 /sec |
| Full key exchange | 90.93 µs | n/a |
Measured 2026-07-27 · single core
Hashing & Key Derivation
BLAKE3 and the key hierarchy
Every agent DID is BLAKE3 of the ML-DSA-65 verifying key, and every derived key in the hierarchy uses BLAKE3-KDF. At millions of derivations per second, the identity layer adds no perceptible overhead.
| Operation | Mean time | Throughput (per core) |
|---|---|---|
| BLAKE3 hash (1 KiB) | 0.98 µs | 1,016,356 /sec |
| BLAKE3 hash (4 KiB) | 1.08 µs | 923,127 /sec |
| Derive identity key | 0.16 µs | 6,257,128 /sec |
| Derive session key | 1.12 µs | 893,062 /sec |
Symmetric Encryption
XChaCha20-Poly1305
Payload encryption for the AethyrWire Protocol and credential backup. Block size determines throughput: small frames pay fixed per-operation overhead, bulk encryption runs at memory-bandwidth-class speed.
| Operation | Mean time | Throughput (per core) |
|---|---|---|
| Encrypt 1 KiB | 1.63 µs | 614,653 /sec |
| Encrypt 16 KiB | 10.57 µs | 94,578 /sec |
| Decrypt 16 KiB | 10.49 µs | 95,340 /sec |
| Encrypt 1 MiB | 638.17 µs | 1.64 GB/s |
Measured 2026-05-07 · single core
Live Mesh Circuit
Agent teleportation
One agent, moved around a full three-hop circuit across two CPU architectures, with every hop ML-DSA-65 signed and verified. Migration bundle is roughly 5–10 KB, and the agent's memory, personality, and skills travel with it.
| Hop | Route | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ws → jetson | 140.8 ms |
| 2 | jetson → core | 221.1 ms |
| 3 | core → ws | 54.7 ms |
| Full circuit | 416.6 ms | |
| Average per hop | 138.9 ms | |
Instrumented live circuit · 2026-04-02 · agent registered and verified at every hop
Edge Node · ESP32-S3
Cold boot to post-quantum session: 2.1 seconds
A $5 microcontroller goes from power-on to an ML-KEM-768-secured session in 2.1 seconds, in an 820 KB firmware. This is the one benchmark you can reproduce without asking us anything: the firmware is open source.
| Milestone | Elapsed |
|---|---|
| CPU start | 273 ms |
| ML-KEM-768 keypair generated | 442 ms |
| WiFi connected (direct AP) | 774 ms |
| TCP connected to upstream node | 1,887 ms |
| Session key derived | 2,116 ms |
| First encrypted frame | 2,121 ms |
Instrumented boot · 2026-04-02 · direct AP topology, no router in the path
Flash it yourself: github.com/aethyrai/esp32-awp-edgePerspective
The "too slow" myth
Post-quantum crypto is three to four orders of magnitude faster than the LLM call it protects. The overhead argument was valid for early PQC implementations; it is not valid for optimized implementations on modern hardware.
| Operation | Time |
|---|---|
| LLM inference (4B model, simple query) | 500–2,000 ms |
| HTTP round-trip to external API | 50–500 ms |
| ML-DSA-65 verify (credential check) | 0.10 ms |
| ML-KEM-768 full key exchange | 0.09 ms |
Provenance
Methodology, standards, and what's open
The post-quantum primitives come from audited, optimized open-source implementations of the NIST standards. We didn't reinvent the math, and won't claim to have. What Aethyr built on top is the part that makes them usable for agents: hierarchical key derivation, session management, memory that zeroes itself when keys are dropped, and cross-implementation verification so every platform derives identical keys from identical seeds.
| Standard | Status |
|---|---|
| NIST FIPS 204 (ML-DSA-65) | Implemented |
| NIST FIPS 203 (ML-KEM-768) | Implemented |
| CNSA 2.0 | Aligned (ML-KEM / ML-DSA); CMVP validation not yet obtained |
| W3C DID v1.0 | Implemented |
| W3C VC 2.0 | Implemented |
Server crypto
100 timed samples per operation, fully optimized builds, single core. Run dates shown on every table.
Edge node
Open source firmware. Flash an ESP32-S3 and reproduce the boot timeline independently.
Mesh circuit
Instrumented live three-node circuit, every hop signed and verified. Not a simulation.
Prefer the narrative version? Read the benchmark write-up.
Numbers you can hold us to.
CNSA 2.0 sets a January 2027 procurement deadline for post-quantum cryptography. The measurements above are what running it today actually costs.