Project Eleven Secures $6 Million to Safeguard Bitcoin from Quantum Threats

Project Eleven, a development firm specializing in post-quantum cryptography, has successfully raised $6 million to bolster the security of Bitcoin and other digital assets against potential threats from future quantum computing advancements. The funding round was co-led by Variant Fund, a prominent Web3 investor, and Quantonation, a quantum tech investor, marking Quantonation’s inaugural investment in the cryptocurrency space.

Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden stated that the funds will be utilized to develop the necessary tools, standards, and ecosystem to ensure the security of digital assets in a post-quantum world. According to data from Eleven Labs and YCharts, there are currently 10,095,693 Bitcoin addresses with a non-zero balance and an exposed public key, putting a total of 6,262,905 BTC — worth about $648 billion — at risk of a potential quantum attack.

The company’s first release, a cryptographic registry called Yellowpages, is designed to allow users to create a quantum-resistant proof linking their current Bitcoin addresses to new, secure ones, without relying on onchain activity. Pruden emphasized that Yellowpages will serve as a fallback in the event that quantum computers compromise existing Bitcoin keys. The registry has been audited by Cure 53, and the audit results will be posted shortly. Project Eleven has also initiated discussions with Bitcoin Core developers about potential future upgrades.

The quantum threat to Bitcoin is a topic of debate, with some viewing it as a theoretical risk that does not necessitate dedicated resources. However, many in the industry take the threat seriously. The US National Security Agency has stated its intention for all National Security Systems to be quantum-resistant by 2035, with new acquisitions requiring quantum-resistant encryption by 2027 and legacy gear being phased out by 2030–2031. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology also aims to achieve widespread post-quantum cryptography adoption by 2035.

Pruden noted that the practicality of quantum computing threats is not a matter of if, but when. A 2020 expert survey conducted by Rand estimated that the average time until a cryptography-breaking quantum computer emerges is 2033, with a range starting from 2027. This research preceded a study released by Google in May, which managed to reduce the requirement to break RSA-2048 from 20 million to about 1 million noisy qubits running for one week, still well beyond today’s capabilities.

While quantum computers can already factor small ECDSA public keys, classical computers are still capable of similar feats. In a 2022 paper, researchers shared the achievement of factoring a 48-bit semiprime number on a 10-qubit computer. Last year, D-Wave used a quantum annealing computer to factor a 50-bit semiprime number using a hybrid classical and quantum search. For context, the record on classical computers was set in 2020 on a supercomputer with about 2,700 CPU-core-years, which was able to factor an 829-bit RSA key and involved a 415-bit prime. This is equivalent to about three months on a medium HPC cluster.