The cryptocurrency industry is preparing for potential quantum computing threats, but institutions face significantly greater challenges than individual holders, according to industry experts.
While debate continues over whether individual crypto holders should move funds to protect against quantum advances or AI threats, banks and custodians confront a separate problem: upgrading their systems before an emergency migration becomes necessary.
Different Standards Across Blockchains
A core challenge for institutional custody is that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other networks are unlikely to adopt the same post-quantum cryptographic standards. Banks holding multiple assets may need to accommodate several new forms of cryptography while maintaining existing controls over transaction approval, signing, and auditing.
Project Eleven and the privacy-focused blockchain Quantus are targeting the first quarter of 2027 to integrate Quantus with Project Eleven's institutional custody platform. The integration would enable organizations to manage keys and approve transactions through hardware security modules, internal policies, and audit systems.
Fiduciary Responsibility
Industry leaders emphasize that institutions should begin preparing migration plans now to avoid emergency transitions. Christopher Smith, Quantus' co-founder and CEO, described a surprise quantum attack as a portfolio risk and a matter of fiduciary responsibility.
Project Eleven's Strongpoint custody platform is designed to separate the institutional control layer from the signature scheme used by underlying blockchains, allowing custodians to maintain their approval processes and audit trails even as chains adopt different cryptography.
Quantus uses ML-DSA, a post-quantum signature standard selected by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, for key generation and transaction signatures.
The timing of quantum computers capable of attacking current cryptocurrency systems remains uncertain. However, researchers and companies are treating the coming years as a critical window to prepare migration paths rather than wait for a quantum threat to emerge.
