Welcome,
To defend a system, you have to know how it can be broken.
As any student of cryptography knows, codes break. Enigma by Turing, DES and the EFF, Vigenère ciphers by Babbage and Kasiski. For decades, however, public-key cryptography has made secure encryption and signatures available to all. This is a golden age.
A fall awaits, heralded by quantum computers. RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography will be undone. Whether quantum computers are widespread or held by a few powerful actors, these protocols will no longer be trusted to secure cyberspace. The next chapter of cryptography will begin.
The transition will not be easy. There are replacements for what will be broken - lattice-based and hash-based cryptography - but surgery on cyberspace will entail unforeseen tradeoffs and unintended consequences.
Project Eleven is an applied quantum computing and cryptography group.
We will propose, develop and ship solutions to maintain trust in humanity’s digital systems. The transition to a quantum native world will be perilous. Our work will enable and accelerate a safe transition.
Our driving belief is that to secure systems, you must understand how they can be broken.
Where do we start? You may have found some hints on our website. We are concerned with Bitcoin and preparing the world’s foremost cryptocurrency for a post-quantum world. We start with Bitcoin as it is uniquely vulnerable to quantum computing, for both technical and human reasons.
We believe in Bitcoin. The might of hash power has translated digital trust and mathematics into something worth fighting for. It has captured imaginations and lined pockets, and allowed the expression and enforcement of old values and ideas in a new form. With effort, it will adapt and survive.
We must have made our mark by Q-Day: When a quantum computer first forges a 256-bit ECDSA signature.
Unexpectedly, our work will also unlock a near-term business model for quantum computing. Today, this does not exist, but understanding the threat to Bitcoin and building confidence in the solutions available will require deep engagement with the quantum computing world - To secure systems, you must understand how they can be broken.
This effort is not something to happen in the secrecy of government or in the backrooms of large institutions. Our work will be open and we encourage anyone interested in a quantum future to reach out.
Currently seen as nemeses, quantum computing and crypto will be mutually strengthening forces. As quantum computing motivates the evolution of crypto, crypto motivates the evolution of quantum computing. There is a poetry to this and a curious path lies ahead.
We’ll detail our journey in these missives & highlight our research and product work fortnightly, starting today.
Bitcoin at Risk - We found that approximately one third of Bitcoin in circulation is held in addresses with their public key exposed. If a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer existed, these addresses would be vulnerable to an attack. A quantum computer with 1 million qubits would be required to perform an attack. The largest computers today contain 1000 qubits, and Google’s Willow chip has 105 qubits.
The Risk of Quantum to Classical Cryptography - We cover which specific cryptographic schemes are threatened by quantum computing and the systems built upon those schemes - web traffic, VPNs, cryptocurrencies and others. We try to give some perspective on progress in quantum computing and routes to post quantum security.
As Expensive as a Plane Flight - Legendary cryptographer Daniel Bernstein addresses some common objections to quantum computing.
— Project Eleven