# Units: Shor, Quanta and Planck

> The units QRL amounts are measured in, and how the two chains' base units line up so they can be compared.

Cryptocurrency amounts are stored in tiny base units and displayed in friendlier ones — just as dollars are stored as cents. QRL has a few unit names worth knowing, especially because the **two chains use different smallest units**.

## The display unit

The "whole coin" unit a person thinks in is the **[Quanta](/learn/glossary#quanta)** — and it is the same unit on **both** chains, [QRL Legacy](/learn/glossary#qrl-legacy) as well as [QRL 2.0](/learn/glossary#qrl2). *QRL* is the coin's ticker (and the name of the project); the unit you actually count balances in is the Quanta.

## The base units

Underneath, balances are stored as integers in much smaller units (this avoids rounding errors that fractions would cause):

- **[Shor](/learn/glossary#shor-unit)** — the base accounting unit on **both** chains. **1e9 Shor = 1 Quanta**.
- **[Planck](/learn/glossary#planck)** — the **smallest** unit of QRL 2.0 only. **1e18 Planck = 1 Quanta**, so **1 Shor = 1e9 Planck**.

Putting it together for QRL 2.0:

```
1 Quanta  =  1e9 Shor  =  1e18 Planck
```

So Planck is the finest grain on QRL 2.0 (like Ethereum's "wei"), Shor is the shared mid-level unit, and Quanta is the human-facing unit. QRL Legacy uses the same Quanta and Shor, but has no unit finer than Shor.

## Why normalisation matters

Because the two chains use different smallest units internally — QRL 2.0 goes all the way down to Planck, while QRL Legacy's smallest unit is Shor — combining them naively would compare apples to oranges. So before this explorer shows any **cross-chain** figure, it **normalises** both chains to a common base (Shor).

That's what lets a single chart or table mix QRL and QRL 2.0 honestly — for example the cross-chain [richlist](/learn/understanding-the-richlist), which ranks holders across both chains, and the [supply](/learn/qrl-tokenomics-and-supply) view. Without normalisation, a QRL 2.0 balance would look a billion times larger than an equivalent QRL Legacy balance, purely because of the unit it's stored in.

## What you need to remember

- Whole coins are counted in **Quanta** on both chains; QRL Legacy is commonly labelled with its **QRL** ticker on screen.
- **Shor** and **Planck** are the small units underneath; they matter when you look at raw values.
- Cross-chain numbers are normalised, so they're directly comparable.

## Where to go next

- [QRL tokenomics and supply](/learn/qrl-tokenomics-and-supply) — the amounts these units measure.
- [Understanding the richlist](/learn/understanding-the-richlist) — units in a cross-chain ranking.
- [Gas and fees explained](/learn/gas-and-fees-explained) — fees in these units.