A startup has raised $6 million in a seed round to protect Bitcoin from quantum computing. 

Project 11, which focuses on quantum computing's hypothetical threat to the leading crypto network, announced the raise Thursday, which was co-led by Variant and Quantonation, and included participation from venture capital firms Castle Island Ventures, Nebular, and Formation. 

The firm said that quantum computing is a threat to Bitcoin so "every wallet, every account holder, every smart contract key—all of it—must upgrade to new, quantum-safe cryptography."

"A cryptographically relevant quantum computer will break the foundational security assumptions of Bitcoin and nearly every digital asset," Project 11 said in a statement.

"With rapid progress from companies like IBM and Google, that future is no longer hypothetical. It’s coming fast and there isn’t long to prepare."

Quantum computing is a new type of technology that uses quantum physics to process far larger amounts of information than classical machines.

Such computers aren't available to the public yet and top tech companies like Google and IBM are working on developing them. 

But some in the crypto space have raised concerns that as tech giants make bigger strides to releasing a quantum computer, Bitcoin's cryptography could be cracked. 

The Bitcoin network is currently the world’s most secure computing network—and has never been hacked. 

In order to crack the network's cryptography, a bad actor would have to take control of more than 50% of the Bitcoin network, which would require a huge amount of computing power. 



Hardcore Bitcoiners like Strategy co-founder and chairman Michael Saylor have shrugged off concerns about quantum computing, saying that when such a threat exists, other computing networks—used by the likes of banking giants or the U.S. military—will face a bigger risk. 

"I don't worry about it," he said. "Microsoft and Google market their quantum projects, but they would never sell a quantum computer that cracked cryptography, because it would destroy their own companies."

Bitcoin was recently trading at about $104,250, roughly flat over the past 24 hours. 

Edited by James Rubin

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