The infrastructure beneath institutional cryptocurrency custody rarely makes headlines until something breaks. Project Eleven is betting that the next threat won't come from a phishing scam or rogue employee, but from quantum computers that could eventually crack the cryptographic foundations holding billions in digital assets.
Last fall, the startup unveiled Strongpoint, a custody platform engineered to survive what cryptographers call the "post-quantum transition"—the shift to signature algorithms that even quantum computers can't forge. Unlike existing platforms retrofitted with quantum-resistant features, Strongpoint treats cryptographic change as inevitable, according to a company press release. The Zcash Foundation signed on as the first development partner, with production deployment targeted for Q4 2026.
"Institutional digital asset custody was built for a world where the cryptography underneath it rarely changed," CEO Alex Pruden said in the release. "Strongpoint is built around crypto-agility."
That premise sets Project Eleven on a collision course with incumbents moving at different speeds. Coinbase outlined plans for automated post-quantum signing infrastructure. BitGo and Silence Laboratories ran what they called the first post-quantum multi-party computation transaction by a regulated custodian, using the NIST-standardized lattice signature ML-DSA. Fireblocks has discussed crypto-agility in partnership with hardware vendor Thales. Anchorage Digital published a preparedness roadmap covering quantum-resistant transport layers and hash-based Bitcoin address hygiene.
Nathan McCauley, co-founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital, framed the challenge plainly: "Security isn't static. The systems that survive are the ones designed to evolve."
Project Eleven's approach separates cryptographic signing from authentication, policy enforcement, and key management through a modular architecture, the company said. Every transaction carries hybrid signatures that blend classical schemes like ECDSA with post-quantum algorithms—ML-DSA and XMSS, a hash-based stateful signature. Operators can swap signature algorithms through configuration rather than rewriting code, and each signing operation embeds a policy snapshot directly into the signature so that verification doesn't hinge on whatever rules happen to be active later.
Long-lived keys sit inside FIPS 140-3 Level 3 hardware security modules. All operations route through an m-of-n quorum approval layer and a policy engine that, according to the product documentation, cannot be bypassed. The platform maintains tamper-evident audit logs.
The partnership with the Zcash Foundation brings an added wrinkle: custody for shielded ZEC tokens, which rely on privacy-preserving cryptography more complex than standard cryptocurrency holdings. "Institutions holding shielded ZEC need custody infrastructure that respects Zcash's privacy model today and can adapt as cryptographic standards change," Alex Bornstein, executive director of the Zcash Foundation, said in the release.
A day after the Strongpoint announcement, Project Eleven disclosed that Quantus joined as a development partner, with support for the Quantus Network expected in early 2027. Quantus already uses ML-DSA for layer-one protocol security, making it an early testbed for post-quantum transaction flows.
Pruden and cryptographer Conor Deegan founded Project Eleven in late 2024, according to a company blog post. Pruden came from Andreessen Horowitz's crypto fund and previously served as COO and later CEO of Aleo, a privacy-focused blockchain that drew funding from a16z in 2021. The startup has raised capital in two rounds—seed funding followed by a Series A led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and other investors. Axios Pro and The Block reported a post-money valuation around $120 million at the Series A close in January 2026.
In September, Project Eleven acquired Riva Labs to expand its post-quantum signature, wallet, and multi-party computation capabilities. J. Ayo Akinyele, head of engineering at RippleX, said on the Strongpoint product page that the collaboration helps Ripple "move faster and more rigorously as we test and implement post-quantum approaches across the stack."
Whether the quantum threat arrives in five years or fifteen remains uncertain. What's clearer is that the custody platforms institutional investors trust today weren't designed to change their cryptographic foundations on the fly. Project Eleven is gambling that flexibility will matter more than early-mover advantage when the transition finally comes.
