Countdown to Q-Day with Project 11

November 5, 2025·1 hr 2 min·5 clips

Alex Pruden and Conor Deegan explain why quantum computers could break major blockchains and what users must do to protect their funds.

The conversation starts with the quantum threat. Anna Rose sets it up across cryptographic systems and major blockchains, then asks where the danger actually lives in the stack. The timing is still fuzzy. Project 11's argument is that waiting for certainty could burn the easier migration window before quantum capability shows up. The hard part is ownership. A network upgrade does not automatically make old funds safe if address owners still have to move assets on their own. That turns a cryptography problem into a very human UX problem. A post-quantum transfer flow has to make the move clear without creating the exact phishing setup scammers love: users being told to click through and move money. Anna presses on that directly, comparing the risk to 2017-era ICO scams, fake pages, and attacks that hit at the click moment. The guests do not hand-wave it away. They talk about Yellow Pages, a Project 11 product already shipped for people interested in this problem, and the discussion keeps bouncing between stack-level risk and the practical shape of a migration tool. Protocol changes are one thing. Getting individual users to take the right action is another. Post-quantum chains come up too. Some projects may start from protocol design, including new chains, but Project 11 sounds more focused here on helping people secure existing assets. The episode keeps the useful tension intact: nobody knows the date, but some defensive moves only help before it arrives.

As heard by us

A clear look at the quantum problem and the awkward migration it could force.

The episode treats the quantum threat to blockchains as an engineering and migration problem, not a distant thought experiment. It stays on the practical questions: which cryptographic systems are exposed, why network upgrades alone will not solve it, and what holders would have…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want the quantum threat explained as a migration problem, not a headline.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Zero Knowledge Podcast