Trillions of dollars of digital assets, and the cryptography securing them, will soon be made obsolete by the advent of quantum computing. A fault-tolerant quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm could enable an adversary to recover a private key from a public key, breaking the fundamental security paradigm of blockchains and rendering the concept of digital ownership meaningless. This isn’t a matter of if, it’s when.
2025 was a watershed year for quantum computing. From the real-world demonstration of below-threshold quantum error correction to the largest quantum machine ever built, the technology has never been closer to cryptographic relevance. In fact, resource estimates for Shor's algorithm were reduced by a factor of 20 in 2025; an indication of the rapid pace of quantum computing development.
The digital asset industry can no longer wait for this threat to arrive. It's time to urgently and responsibly prepare.
Today, we’re thrilled to announce that Project Eleven has raised $20M in Series A funding, led by Castle Island Ventures with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Fin Capital, Variant, Quantonation, Nebular, Formation, Lattice Fund, Satstreet Ventures, Nascent Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan; and continued investment from Variant, Quantonation, Nebular, and Formation.
This fundraise marks rising awareness of the greatest threat crypto has ever faced.
We're thrilled to work with Nic Carter and the Castle Island Ventures team. Nic brings deep experience as a blockchain investor and specific expertise in quantum computing's implications for crypto. If you haven't read his personal blog post about this topic, check it out here.
Project Eleven was founded in 2024 on Bitcoin White Paper Day, October 31st. We believe digital assets can lower costs, promote human liberty, and enable a new economic paradigm. We believe that digital assets will form the bedrock of a new financial infrastructure. For this foundation to be secure, it needs to address the risk of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC).
Future-proofing. Future-building. That's what Project Eleven is all about.
What defines us is not what we say, but what we build. In 15 months since founding, we've:
- Shipped yellowpages, the only post-quantum cryptographic solution deployed in production for Bitcoin, providing a mechanism to generate post-quantum keys for thousands of wallets & facilitating future migration to a post-quantum version of the protocol
- Launched Q-Day Prize and Q-Day Clock to refine timeline estimates for Q-Day's arrival
- Created and open-sourced the most performant variants of NIST-standardized PQ algorithms in collaboration with leading cryptographers
- Built the first post-quantum testnet for a major network (Solana), implementing ML-DSA as an EdDSA replacement
- Published the Bitcoin Risq List, the definitive tracker of quantum-vulnerable Bitcoin
We're not waiting for Q-Day. We're taking action now to secure the networks and trillions of dollars in assets they protect.
What we’ve shipped so far is just the tip of the iceberg. Our next suite of products will be a quantum leap for digital assets in the post-quantum era.
Blockchain rails are transforming finance. The quantum era will bring another transformation. Project Eleven is the vanguard of this new era: future-proofing existing networks and future-building new paradigms based on quantum mechanics that will redefine how we communicate, transact, and interact for decades and centuries to come.
Despite our emphasis on post-quantum security, we’re not Luddites. We welcome the advent of quantum computing and its potential for ushering in a new era of secure communication and cryptography. We believe that quantum-enabled solutions such as distributed entanglement, certified randomness, and quantum money will ultimately define the financial rails of the future.
Our story is just beginning. We're growing aggressively to match our ambitions. If you’re excited by this mission, check out our careers page. Subscribe to our newsletter, and follow us on X for the most important news on the post-quantum era for digital assets.
Alex & Conor