Project Eleven has raised $20 million to build defenses against the existential threat that quantum computing poses to cryptocurrency. The funding round values the startup at $120 million. The company is backed by prominent investors from its June 2025 seed round, including crypto-native venture capital firm Variant Fund and quantum technology specialist Quantonation.
Project Eleven is preparing for what it calls “Q-Day”—the theoretical moment when quantum computers become powerful enough to break the encryption securing the internet and financial systems. Major blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum rely on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) to generate public and private keys. However, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer running Shor’s Algorithm could theoretically reverse this process.
This capability would allow an attacker to empty any wallet where the public key has been exposed. According to estimates from Project Eleven, roughly $718 billion worth of Bitcoin is currently at risk as it sits in vulnerable wallets.
To address this threat, Project Eleven is developing “post-quantum” infrastructure for existing blockchains. Their flagship product, called “Yellowpages,” functions as a cryptographic registry. It enables users to sign a message proving ownership of a vulnerable Bitcoin address and link it to a quantum-secure identity. This creates a “fallback” record of ownership that could be used to recover funds if the main network were compromised.
But is the quantum threat overhyped? As of today, the consensus among cryptographers, government agencies, and market analysts is that the immediate danger of quantum computers breaking Bitcoin is exaggerated. Most authoritative voices agree that a “Q-Day” event is not imminent—if it happens at all—in the near future.
https://bitcoinethereumnews.com/bitcoin/718-billion-bitcoin-quantum-threat-to-be-addressed-by-new-startup/
