Project Eleven has acquired Riva Labs, adding a team focused on post-quantum signatures, wallet security, multi-party computation and account abstraction as blockchain companies begin planning for cryptographic systems designed to withstand future quantum attacks.
The Sept. 29 announcement said the transaction transfers Riva’s technology and intellectual property related to Ethereum and other public blockchains into Project Eleven’s post-quantum cryptography and blockchain infrastructure program. The companies did not disclose financial terms of the acquisition.
Riva’s work includes hash-based post-quantum signature systems, post-quantum multi-party computation, wallet infrastructure, account-abstraction components and hardware signing tools. Project Eleven said the acquisition expands its capacity to build security products spanning signatures, key management, custody and protocol-level infrastructure rather than concentrating solely on a replacement for existing blockchain signatures.
That scope places the deal closer to a practical migration effort than a narrowly defined cryptography purchase. Digital-asset security depends on several connected layers: the signatures that authorize transactions, the wallets that hold signing credentials, recovery procedures, custody systems and the smart-contract accounts through which users increasingly interact with networks. Replacing only one component would leave migration problems elsewhere in the stack.
Riva brings hardware and wallet-focused research
Riva Labs said it has demonstrated post-quantum signing on consumer hardware, a relevant test for any system intended to move beyond laboratory prototypes. Post-quantum cryptography can require larger keys or signatures and may impose different performance demands than common elliptic-curve systems used across public blockchains today.
Hash-based signatures, one of Riva’s stated areas of work, generate authentication from cryptographic hash functions. They are among the approaches being examined for resilience against quantum computers, which could eventually undermine the mathematical assumptions behind widely used public-key cryptography. Their deployment on wallets and consumer devices raises practical questions around storage, transaction size and repeated signing behavior, making implementation work as important as the underlying cryptographic design.
The acquisition also covers multi-party computation, or MPC, a method that divides signing authority among separate parties or devices. Instead of storing a usable private key in one location, an MPC arrangement can require multiple cryptographic shares to cooperate when authorizing a transaction. Project Eleven’s move to combine MPC with post-quantum signatures suggests it is targeting custody and wallet workflows alongside base-layer cryptographic upgrades.
Account abstraction adds another component to that strategy. On Ethereum-compatible networks, account abstraction can allow wallets to use smart-contract-based rules for transaction authorization, recovery and fee payment. Those features could provide a route for changing how accounts validate transactions, although the exact implementation depends on the blockchain and wallet architecture involved.
Migration challenge extends beyond individual wallets
The companies framed the transaction around preparation for post-quantum migration across digital-asset systems. That process is unlikely to consist of a simple software update for every user. Blockchains contain long-lived addresses, institutional custody arrangements, hardware devices and application contracts that may each use different signature and authorization models.
Existing public keys can also create a long-term concern. In many blockchain designs, a public key becomes visible after an address spends funds or otherwise reveals it through a transaction. A sufficiently capable quantum computer could, in theory, use a public key to derive the corresponding private key for cryptographic schemes vulnerable to Shor’s algorithm. No such machine has been publicly demonstrated at the scale required to break commonly used blockchain keys, but systems holding assets for years face a longer planning horizon than ordinary software products.
The supplied announcement did not identify a specific public blockchain migration timetable or state that any network is currently under a quantum attack. It instead positions Project Eleven’s work around tools intended to make a transition possible before cryptographic risk becomes immediate.
Project Eleven said it recently raised $20 million in early funding, and Alex Pruden, the company’s chief executive officer and co-founder, said the financing valued the business at $120 million. The company said the capital would accelerate work on account migration tools.
One planned product is a registry designed to let users associate existing balances with new protective keys without requiring an immediate on-chain transfer, according to the announcement. Project Eleven did not provide technical specifications for the registry, including which networks it would support or how it would interact with current wallet and custody standards. The concept addresses a central migration obstacle: moving assets can itself be operationally difficult when wallets are inactive, keys are geographically distributed, or organizations require multiple approvals.
AI becomes part of cryptographic development cycle
Project Eleven and Riva also cited artificial intelligence as a factor changing cryptographic research and cryptanalysis. AI tools can speed software development, automated testing and the search for implementation weaknesses, compressing the cycle between a new cryptographic design and attempts to challenge it.
Riva said it has used AI in its research and engineering workflow. Project Eleven said those capabilities will be integrated into its work on post-quantum cryptography and “crypto-agility,” the ability to replace or update cryptographic components without rebuilding an entire system.
Crypto-agility is especially relevant for wallets and custodians, where changing an algorithm can affect device firmware, backup processes, transaction policies and recovery paths. A product designed to support multiple signature methods or staged migrations could reduce the operational burden of replacing cryptography across large asset holdings, though the security of any such system will depend on its final design and independent review.
Riva’s team will join Project Eleven’s research and product efforts covering post-quantum cryptography, digital-asset custody and blockchain security. The deal gives Project Eleven a more complete set of building blocks for a problem that public blockchains cannot solve through a single signature upgrade: protecting assets requires compatible changes in the protocols, wallets and custody controls that govern who can move them.
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