Project Eleven, a firm singularly focused on the burgeoning field of post-quantum cryptography, has successfully secured $6 million in funding. This substantial investment is earmarked for the critical mission of safeguarding Bitcoin and other prevalent digital assets from the looming threat posed by advanced quantum computing capabilities. The funding round, announced on a recent Thursday, saw co-leadership from two prominent investors: Variant Fund, a leading entity in Web3 investments, and Quantonation, a venture capital firm specializing in quantum technologies. Notably, this marks Quantonation’s inaugural foray into the cryptocurrency sector, underscoring the growing recognition of quantum risk within the digital finance sphere.
Alex Pruden, the Chief Executive Officer of Project Eleven, articulated the strategic importance of this funding. He stated that the capital infusion would empower the company to “build the tools, standards and ecosystem required to ensure digital assets remain secure in a post-quantum world.” This proactive approach is essential given the potential for quantum computers to render current cryptographic methods obsolete, thereby jeopardizing the security of digital currencies like Bitcoin. Project Eleven’s internal analysis, corroborated by data from Eleven Labs and YCharts, paints a stark picture of the potential vulnerability. According to their findings, an estimated 10,095,693 Bitcoin addresses, possessing a non-zero balance and an exposed public key, are currently at risk. This substantial number of addresses collectively holds approximately 6,262,905 BTC, a staggering sum valued at around $648 billion, which could be susceptible to a quantum attack.
In response to this pressing concern, Project Eleven has already introduced its inaugural offering: Yellowpages. This innovative cryptographic registry is meticulously designed to allow users to establish a quantum-resistant proof. This proof serves as a secure link between their existing Bitcoin addresses and newly generated, more secure addresses, crucially without necessitating any on-chain transactional activity. Pruden emphasized the role of Yellowpages as a vital contingency mechanism, stating that it “will act as a fallback in the event that quantum computers compromise existing Bitcoin keys.” To ensure the robustness and reliability of Yellowpages, Project Eleven commissioned an audit by Cure 53, a renowned security auditing firm. The results of this audit are anticipated to be made public in the near future. Furthermore, in a collaborative effort to fortify Bitcoin’s core infrastructure, Project Eleven has initiated discussions with Bitcoin Core developers regarding potential future upgrades to enhance the network’s quantum resistance.
The debate surrounding the quantum threat to Bitcoin remains a nuanced and occasionally controversial topic. While some in the community view it as a largely theoretical risk that does not warrant significant dedicated resources, a growing number of experts and institutions are taking the threat with utmost seriousness. For instance, the United States National Security Agency (NSA) has publicly declared its intention for “all National Security Systems to be quantum-resistant by 2035.” This ambitious timeline includes specific milestones: new acquisitions will mandate quantum-resistant encryption by 2027, and legacy equipment is slated for phased retirement between 2030 and 2031. Similarly, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) echoed this sentiment in late 2024, stating its overarching goal of “achieving widespread [post-quantum cryptography] adoption by 2035.” Pruden underscored the evolving nature of this threat, remarking, “It’s not a question of whether or not it’s theoretical, it’s at what point it becomes practical.”
To better understand the timeline for the emergence of cryptography-breaking quantum computers, the Rand Corporation, a prominent US nonprofit think tank, conducted an expert survey in 2020. Their comprehensive report estimated that, on average, such a quantum computer could emerge by 2033. However, the report also acknowledged a significant range of possibilities, indicating that “earlier and much later development are possible,” with the earliest potential appearance starting from 2027. This research by Rand preceded a notable study released by Google in May, which revealed a significant reduction in the computational requirements to break RSA-2048 encryption. The study demonstrated that it could now be achieved with approximately 1 million noisy qubits operating for one week, a substantial improvement from the previous estimate of 20 million noisy qubits. Despite this advancement, it is crucial to note that even 1 million noisy qubits remain well beyond the capabilities of current quantum computers, which typically feature only a few hundred stable qubits.
While the quantum threat is undeniably advancing, classical computers still hold the advantage in certain cryptographic tasks. Pruden acknowledged that “Quantum computers can already factor small ECDSA public keys.” However, he also pointed out that classical computers are capable of the same. Illustrating this point, a 2022 research paper detailed the successful factoring of a 48-bit semiprime number, 261,980,999,226,229, using a 10-qubit quantum computer. More recently, in 2024, D-Wave utilized a quantum annealing computer to factor a 50-bit semiprime number through a hybrid approach combining classical and quantum search methods. For perspective, the current record for classical computers was established in 2020, when a supercomputer, leveraging approximately 2,700 CPU-core-years, successfully factored an 829-bit RSA key, which involved a 415-bit prime. This monumental classical computation is roughly equivalent to three months of continuous operation on a medium-sized High-Performance Computing (HPC) cluster. These comparisons highlight that while quantum computing is making impressive strides, classical computing remains a formidable force in the realm of cryptographic challenges, underscoring the ongoing race between advancing computational power and the need for robust, future-proof cryptographic solutions for digital assets like Bitcoin.
