'Bunker mode' crypto shift forces custodians to rethink multi-chain key management

Such a transition could prove an impediment to institutional adoption of cryptocurrency, Alex Pruden, Project Eleven’s co-founder and CEO, told CoinDesk via LinkedIn.

“Institutions are already preparing the post-quantum transition outside of blockchains,” he added.

Christopher Smith, Quantus’ co-founder and CEO believes AI is "accelerating everything, including both quantum hardware and quantum software."

"The tail risk of a surprise quantum attack needs to be factored into all portfolio decisions. It is a matter of fiduciary responsibility," he told CoinDesk

Smith’s and Pruden’s concern comes as developers work on plans to protect bitcoin and ether from a future computer capable of breaking today’s public key cryptography. Researchers and companies are increasingly treating the next few years as a window to prepare migration paths, rather than wait for a quantum attack.

Project Eleven's custody platform Strongpoint is designed to separate the institutional control layer from the signature scheme used by an underlying blockchain. In plain terms, a custodian could keep its approval process, hardware-based key storage and audit trail intact even if the chain adopts different cryptography.

“Strongpoint isn’t a replacement for protocol-level adoption of post-quantum cryptography,” Pruden said. “But the decoupled architecture allows us to support protocols in an agile manner.”