Crypto VCs are already planning for a post-quantum future — and that shift will accelerate into 2027, Moon Pursuit Capital founder Utkarsh Ahuja tells crypto.news. Why quantum is suddenly on investors’ radars - KPMG’s latest Venture Pulse shows global VC hit $227.4 billion in Q2 across 8,440 deals — the second-highest quarterly total on record. Much of that money went to AI and other advanced tech leaders, while the US captured roughly 64% of the flow ($144.9 billion). - Even though quantum-computing investment slowed from its 2025 peak, it remains active: examples include QuantWare ($178M), eleQtron ($66M) and Quantinuum, which raised $1.6B in a Nasdaq listing valuing it at $17.6B. Ahuja’s point: timing isn’t the only risk - Ahuja argues VCs must plan for quantum risks well before a working quantum computer can break today’s blockchain cryptography. “Quantum is going to force crypto investors to think much further ahead than they traditionally have,” he said. - His logic: migrating blockchains, moving billions in assets, and coordinating upgrades across wallets, custodians and validators can take years. That makes “quantum readiness” a near-term infrastructure challenge rather than a speculative distant threat. Where VC dollars are likely to go Ahuja expects more venture capital to target: - post-quantum security tools, - cryptographic migration solutions, - infrastructure built to accept future security upgrades. Investors will be judging companies on how easily their products can adapt when cryptographic requirements change — especially public chains, where upgrades require broad coordination and can’t be forced on every participant simultaneously. A concrete bet: AmericanFortress - Moon Pursuit co-led an $8M seed round into AmericanFortress alongside SAVA Digital Asset Fund and 0G Labs. - The startup has filed a patent for quantum-resistant transaction signing and proposed a scheme called ZK-PoSP, which would let wallets prove control of their original seed without revealing it. The proposed design aims to support Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana addresses without forcing holders to move funds or rotate keys. - Important caveats: ZK-PoSP is still a proposal that would require node-level upgrades to be enforceable on chain, and the team describes its post-quantum protections as conjectural rather than proven against a live quantum attack. Practical investors, not quantum-timers - Moon Pursuit weighed AmericanFortress’s IP and patent position when deciding whether the approach could be copied easily — a reminder that defensibility matters as much as technical novelty. - Ahuja says VCs should focus on companies solving problems that already have commercial demand (security, cryptography, infrastructure) and on adoption roadmaps that don’t hinge on a sudden quantum breakthrough. “Separating scientific progress from an investable business model is going to be increasingly important,” he said. Crypto VC market snapshot and competing priorities - Galaxy Research reports Q1 2026 crypto VC was about $4B across 355 deals — a 50% fall from the previous quarter, with a drop in later-stage financings. Trading, exchanges and lending captured nearly $2.6B (around 60% of the quarter). - Fundraising for crypto-focused VCs remains tough: only eight new funds raised roughly $1.1B in Q1 — the lowest quarterly count since Q3 2020. Institutional allocations are being competed for by AI, spot-crypto ETFs and digital-asset treasury players. - US startups received 70.2% of crypto VC capital and 43.5% of deals in the quarter. Median crypto investment exceeded $4.5M, although valuation data was limited. Standards, consortiums and network moves - NIST finalized three post-quantum cryptography standards in August 2024 and urged administrators to begin adopting them now. Its timeline calls for deprecating quantum-vulnerable algorithms by 2030 and removing them by 2035, with high-risk systems expected to move earlier — a federal timetable that nevertheless sets a general industry direction. - Institutional action is emerging: in July, a Bitcoin security consortium including Strategy, BlackRock, Coinbase and others pledged a combined $15M over three years to fund research and development (participating organizations include Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, Block, Blockstream, Fidelity Digital Assets and Galaxy). - Ethereum is taking its own path: researcher Justin Drake said the future Layer-1 design will move from the Poseidon hash to established functions like SHA-2 or BLAKE2s. A production leanVM is targeted for 2027 with protocol deployments planned for 2028. - Custodial testing is also underway: BitGo and Silence Laboratories ran a post-quantum signing test in May using ML-DSA (part of NIST’s FIPS 204), keeping multi-party computation and institutional controls intact. Bottom line Quantum cryptography isn’t just a theoretical risk anymore — the crypto industry is treating it as an operational problem that requires planning, migration tooling and standards-aligned solutions. VCs are beginning to fund that infrastructure now because upgrading blockchains and user ecosystems is slow and complex. Expect more capital to flow into companies that can prove migration practicality, interoperability with existing stacks, and defensible IP while offering paths to real-world adoption before quantum hardware becomes a direct threat. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news