Keeping digital assets safe starts with controlling the keys that move them. For institutions holding crypto, that means protecting those keys, deciding who can approve transactions and keeping a reliable record of what happened.
Quantum computing could eventually force changes to the mathematics behind those keys. The challenge is making that transition while financial services continue to operate.
Project Eleven introduced Strongpoint this week, a custody platform designed to help institutions manage digital assets as cryptographic standards change. The Zcash Foundation is joining as an initial development partner, bringing experience in privacy and blockchain engineering.
The announcement comes during TOKEN2049 Singapore, where the October 7 agenda included a Strongpoint presentation by Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden.
For institutions, the practical question is how to upgrade security without rebuilding the entire operation around it.
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Changing The Locks Without Rebuilding The Vault
Strongpoint’s central idea is crypto-agility: the ability to change the cryptography protecting an asset while keeping the controls around it consistent.
A company holding assets across several blockchains might otherwise face a different migration process for each network. Changes to signatures or account structures could affect how it stores keys, approves transfers and records transactions for auditors.
Strongpoint is being designed to maintain a common set of institutional controls through those changes. Project Eleven describes hardware-based key protection, policies governing transactions and approvals that require agreement from multiple authorized parties.
Think of a treasury team that requires three people to approve a transfer. A change in the underlying cryptography should not mean starting from scratch on who those people are, what they can authorize or how their decisions are documented.
That is the operational problem behind the announcement. Stronger mathematics must fit into a system people can run.
The need for dependable custody also ran through Blockster’s coverage of Puffer’s partnership with Anchorage Digital. Puffer is bringing an institutional custodian into UniFi ahead of launch as it develops stablecoin and automated-payment services. Strongpoint addresses how custody controls can remain dependable when the cryptography beneath them changes. Both stories put the systems responsible for safeguarding assets at the center of institutional adoption.
Why Quantum Computing Changes The Calculation
Many digital assets rely on mathematical problems that conventional computers cannot practically solve at the required scale. A sufficiently capable quantum computer could undermine some of those protections, including widely used digital signatures.
That does not mean today’s quantum computers can suddenly empty everyone’s wallet. It means the industry needs a migration plan before the threat becomes practical.
Post-quantum cryptography uses algorithms designed to withstand attacks from both conventional and quantum computers. These protections can run on ordinary computing hardware; using them does not require owning a quantum computer.
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has already finalized standards that organizations can implement and is encouraging migration work now.
For crypto businesses, choosing an algorithm is only part of the job. They also need to work out how existing accounts move, how keys are replaced and how customers retain access to their assets throughout the transition.
Blockster explored the wider infrastructure question in its interview with Naoris Protocol’s Youssef El Maddarsi, which discussed post-quantum security and trust between connected devices. Strongpoint brings that preparation into the narrower task of holding and managing institutional digital assets.
Zcash Brings Privacy Into The Design
Zcash adds another requirement: protecting assets while preserving the privacy features users chose in the first place.
The Zcash Foundation’s role is to help shape Strongpoint’s custody architecture, including the requirements of institutions holding shielded ZEC. Those holdings introduce particular demands around key management and transaction handling.
The partnership therefore gives Project Eleven a concrete development setting. Its custody system must accommodate a network’s specific requirements while maintaining consistent institutional controls.
This is a custody development partnership. It does not establish that the Zcash network has completed a post-quantum transition or that every part of its cryptography is already quantum-resistant.
For an institution, both levels matter: the security of the blockchain itself and the systems used to hold and move assets on it.
Tezos Is Testing The Other Side Of The Problem
While Strongpoint focuses on institutional custody, other teams are testing changes inside blockchain networks.
As Blockster recently covered, Tezos has launched Quantumnet, an experimental network for testing post-quantum approaches to transaction signatures, consensus and data availability.
Nomadic Labs describes it as a place to discover engineering and operational problems early. It is an experimental testnet, and its design should not be treated as a finished upgrade for Tezos mainnet.
That distinction helps explain why the transition takes time. New cryptography can change memory requirements, performance and the frequency with which certain keys need replacing.
Custody providers will need to accommodate those differences as networks develop their own approaches.
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The Work Starts Before The Deadline Is Clear
The preparation extends beyond crypto.
Google has set a 2029 target for its post-quantum cryptography migration. That is a security planning target, not a prediction that quantum computers will break existing systems in that year.
Large organizations need time to identify vulnerable systems, test replacements and coordinate changes across products and suppliers. Blockchain businesses face similar work, with the additional challenge of moving assets and accounts across networks that may follow different upgrade paths.
Project Eleven is targeting production deployment of Strongpoint in Q4 2026, working with a limited group of development partners ahead of general availability. The announcement marks a development milestone; it does not mean the platform is already broadly deployed.
The next test is practical: whether institutions can adopt stronger cryptography while retaining dependable access, approvals and audit records.
Changing the locks is only useful if the people responsible for the vault can still operate it.
Reporting by Lidia Yadlos
