Project Eleven and Relm will study whether custody security and post-quantum readiness can inform digital asset insurance underwriting.

Project Eleven and Relm Explore Quantum Security in Crypto Insurance

For institutions holding digital assets, preparing for quantum threats may eventually matter to insurers as well as security teams. Project Eleven and Relm Insurance have begun examining whether post-quantum readiness could become part of how digital asset coverage is assessed. The companies announced the development partnership on Tuesday.

The work centers on Strongpoint, Project Eleven’s custody product for institutions. The partners describe it as the first effort to examine post-quantum security as a factor in digital asset insurance pricing, but the project remains exploratory. They haven’t announced a premium change, policy offering or schedule, and any underwriting impact would depend on further evaluation and Relm’s own process. For now, the partnership sets up a question rather than an insurance product: can a company’s technical preparation be translated into evidence an underwriter can use?

What insurers may want to see

The review will cover institutions’ exposure through their cryptographic keys, transaction signing and approval practices, migration readiness, and reliance on outside vendors. These areas connect technical design to operational risk: keys protect access, signing practices govern how transactions are authorized, and vendor dependencies can shape how quickly an organization responds to a change. Relm will also advise on Strongpoint’s security controls and auditability, including what evidence a client could provide to show it’s preparing for post-quantum cryptography.

That evidence question matters because an insurer can’t assess readiness from a general statement of intent alone. A useful review would need to distinguish plans from controls that are in place and from processes that can be checked. The announcement doesn’t specify a framework or scorecard, so the study’s practical value will depend partly on how clearly it defines what institutions should document and how that information could inform underwriting.

Relm founder and CEO Joseph Ziolkowski said in the announcement that emerging threats such as quantum computing should influence present-day risk assessment. The partnership, he said, will consider how institutions identify exposure, show that controls work and prepare for a transition to post-quantum security. That emphasis puts governance alongside cryptography: even a sound technical plan needs clear ownership, approval and records if an institution expects others to evaluate it.

Project Eleven CEO and co-founder Alex Pruden made the potential insurance connection more directly in an appearance on Unchained on Monday. He said adopting “crypto agility” and post-quantum security could lower insurance costs by addressing known and unknown risks that might otherwise push premiums higher. That possibility is a rationale for the study, not a pricing commitment from Relm. Insurance pricing also depends on an insurer’s assessment of the full risk being covered, so readiness alone shouldn’t be read as a promise of a lower premium.

Founded in 2019 and domiciled in Bermuda, Relm is a specialty insurer serving companies in digital assets, AI and other emerging sectors. Its participation gives the project a direct connection to underwriting, but the announcement doesn’t establish how Relm will weigh post-quantum readiness against other factors. That’s what the work is meant to examine.

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Why custody is part of the quantum discussion

A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could, in theory, derive a private key from a visible public key, putting the funds it controls at risk. The concern is about how cryptographic systems may hold up as computing capabilities change, not a claim that such an attack is happening now. For institutions, the question is whether their custody arrangements can adapt before a threat becomes urgent.

Strongpoint is designed to let institutions prepare for changes in cryptography without rebuilding their governance processes. Launched on Oct. 7 with the Zcash Foundation as its first development partner, the platform runs classical and post-quantum signatures in parallel while keeping approval rules and audit records separate from the signing algorithm. That separation addresses a practical constraint: institutions may need to change the cryptographic method while retaining the authorization procedures and records that govern custody.

It’s a meaningful design goal, though parallel operation doesn’t by itself settle every migration question. Institutions still need to understand which systems and vendors depend on existing cryptography, how a transition would be tested, and how approvals would work during the change. (And this is the part most people overlook.) A migration plan is only useful if it can be carried out across the wider custody operation, not just within one product.

“The open question is whether that transition happens on the institution’s schedule or under pressure,” Pruden said in Tuesday’s announcement. The distinction frames the broader case for preparation: planning in advance can give an organization more room to evaluate options, while an urgent response may leave less time to coordinate changes across systems and processes.

What the insurance study could change

The custody question is drawing attention across the industry. Coinbase, which estimates it holds about 5% of all bitcoin, told Bitcoin developers last week that any quantum-resistant upgrade must work for large custodians. Earlier this month, Europol urged wallet providers to begin testing post-quantum upgrades.

Those examples point to a shared implementation problem: security changes have to work at the scale and within the procedures of organizations that hold assets for others. A technical upgrade may be sound in isolation and still prove difficult to deploy across custody systems, approval chains and third-party services. If you’re working in this space, the practical task is to map those dependencies early enough to understand what a transition would require.

The insurance study adds a practical question to that technical work: whether institutions can demonstrate readiness in a form underwriters can assess. This is more significant than it looks. If insurers can identify meaningful evidence of preparation, post-quantum planning could become part of how institutions explain and manage risk; if they can’t, the work may remain a security exercise with no clear underwriting consequence. The partnership hasn’t answered that question yet.

For now, Relm and Project Eleven are exploring whether readiness can be assessed, with no announced change to coverage or pricing. The next useful signal will be whether the study produces clear criteria institutions can act on and insurers can evaluate. A study, for now.