Crypto VC will prioritize quantum-ready infrastructure heading into 2027, Moon Pursuit founder says

Moon Pursuit Capital founder Utkarsh Ahuja has said crypto venture investors will prioritize quantum-ready infrastructure heading into 2027 as global VC investment reached $227.4 billion in the second quarter.
Summary

• Global VC investment reached $227.4 billion across 8,440 deals during Q2 2026.
• Ahuja expects post-quantum security and blockchain migration tools to attract more capital.
• Moon Pursuit co-led AmericanFortress' $8 million seed round with SAVA and 0G Labs.
• NIST and major blockchain developers have already started preparing for quantum-resistant systems.

KPMG's latest Venture Pulse report found that global venture funding recorded its second-highest quarterly total in Q2, although much of the capital went to large companies working in AI and other advanced technologies.

VC-backed companies raised $227.4 billion across 8,440 deals, down from the record $332.9 billion invested during Q1. OpenAI's $122 billion round had lifted the first-quarter total, while Anthropic's $65 billion financing provided the largest contribution in Q2.

US companies received $144.9 billion across 3,644 deals, accounting for nearly 64% of global investment. Other major US transactions included a $12 billion round for AI modeling company Project Prometheus and a $5 billion raise by defense technology company Anduril Industries.

Within the quantum-computing sector, investment slowed from the record pace recorded in 2025 but remained active, according to KPMG. Netherlands-based QuantWare raised $178 million, Germany's eleQtron secured $66 million, and Quantinuum raised $1.6 billion through a Nasdaq listing that valued the company at $17.6 billion.
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Crypto VC could fund quantum preparation before the threat arrives

Ahuja told crypto.news that investors will need to consider quantum risks well before a computer capable of breaking current blockchain security becomes available.

"I think quantum is going to force crypto investors to think much further ahead than they traditionally have," Ahuja said.

No one can reliably predict when quantum hardware will be able to break the cryptography used to secure digital assets, according to Ahuja. However, he argued that the uncertain timetable does not remove the investment case because upgrading blockchains, wallets, and user infrastructure could take several years.

"If upgrading a blockchain, moving billions of dollars in assets, changing wallet infrastructure, and coordinating users across a decentralized network could take years, then quantum readiness becomes relevant well before the technology reaches that threshold."

Ahuja expects the issue to send more venture funding toward post-quantum security, cryptographic migration, and infrastructure designed to accept future security upgrades. When assessing companies, he said Moon Pursuit will examine how easily their products can adapt when cryptographic requirements change.

Under that approach, resilience depends partly on whether a network or security provider can move users and assets to new systems without causing extensive disruption. Such migration work may carry particular weight for public blockchains, where developers cannot order every wallet owner, custodian, and validator to upgrade at the same time.

AmericanFortress gives Moon Pursuit a practical migration bet

Moon Pursuit co-led AmericanFortress' $8 million seed round alongside SAVA Digital Asset Fund and 0G Labs. The company has developed a proposed security system for existing blockchain wallets and filed a patent covering quantum-resistant transaction signing.

Ahuja said the investment was based partly on the product's planned compatibility with infrastructure already used by crypto networks.

"We were interested in the practicality of migration and the fact that the technology is designed to work with infrastructure that already exists," he said.

AmericanFortress has proposed a system known as ZK-PoSP that would allow wallets to prove control of their original seed without exposing it. As crypto.news previously reported, the proposed quantum-safe wallet scheme would cover addresses on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana without requiring holders to move their funds or rotate their keys.

The design remains a proposal and would require upgrades at the node level before a blockchain could enforce it. AmericanFortress' technical paper also describes its post-quantum protection as conjectural rather than proven against a working quantum attack.

Ahuja said the apparent simplicity of the migration process could hide the complexity of the underlying work. Moon Pursuit considered the company's intellectual property and patent development when assessing whether its technology could be easily copied, he added.

Instead of betting on a precise date for a major quantum breakthrough, Ahuja said venture firms should determine whether a company is solving a problem that already produces commercial demand. Security, cryptography, and infrastructure provide possible markets, but companies still need an adoption plan that does not depend entirely on rapid progress in quantum hardware, he said.

"Separating scientific progress from an investable business model is going to be increasingly important."

Selective crypto funding favors products with existing demand

According to Galaxy Research, venture firms invested about $4 billion across 355 crypto and blockchain deals in Q1 2026. Funding fell 50% from the previous quarter, while the deal count declined 16%, mainly because the quarter had fewer large later-stage financings.

Trading, exchanges, investing, and lending companies collected approximately $2.6 billion, or close to three-fifths of the quarterly total. Infrastructure ranked second by deal count with 56 transactions, while privacy and security companies completed 22 deals.

Fundraising for crypto-focused venture firms remained difficult. Eight new funds raised about $1.1 billion during Q1, the lowest quarterly fund count since Q3 2020, according to Galaxy. The research firm said AI, spot crypto exchange-traded products, and digital asset treasury companies were also competing for institutional allocations.

US startups received 70.2% of all crypto VC capital and accounted for 43.5% of completed deals during the quarter. Galaxy also found that the median crypto investment exceeded $4.5 million, although it cautioned that available valuation data covered only 12% of the deals and leaned toward later-stage companies.

For Ahuja, investment categories once treated separately are starting to overlap as crypto companies use technology developed in AI, cybersecurity, and quantum research.

"We have spent years treating digital assets, AI, cybersecurity and quantum as fairly distinct investment categories, but some of the most interesting opportunities now sit between them," he said.

Protocols and applications will continue to receive funding, according to Ahuja, although he expects more capital to reach the underlying systems required for institutions to use digital assets securely. Quantum protection fits within that category because companies can sell preparation and migration tools before quantum hardware reaches the level required to attack blockchains, he added.

US standards and blockchain projects have started preparing

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology finalized its first three post-quantum cryptography standards in August 2024. NIST encouraged system administrators to begin adopting the standards immediately rather than wait for a quantum computer capable of breaking current encryption.

NIST's timetable calls for quantum-vulnerable algorithms to be deprecated by 2030 and removed from its standards by 2035, with high-risk systems expected to move earlier. The deadline applies to federal cryptographic standards rather than imposing a direct upgrade requirement on decentralized blockchain networks.

Institutional Bitcoin companies have also committed funding to the issue. In July, Strategy, BlackRock, Coinbase, and six other companies created a Bitcoin security consortium whose members pledged a combined $15 million over three years.

Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, Block, Blockstream, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Galaxy joined the group. Members will choose which developers, researchers, and organizations receive their funding, while the consortium will not direct Bitcoin development or support a specific protocol change.

Ethereum developers have taken a separate route through network research and testing. Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake said on Aug. 13 that Ethereum's future layer-1 design will move away from the Poseidon hash function and use established functions such as SHA-2 or BLAKE2s.

The Ethereum roadmap change followed advances in proof systems that made traditional hash functions more practical for zero-knowledge technology. A production version of leanVM is scheduled for 2027, followed by planned protocol deployments in 2028.

At the custody level, BitGo and Silence Laboratories completed a post-quantum signing test in May using BitGo's institutional platform and Silence Laboratories' multi-party computation system. The simulation used ML-DSA, a digital signature algorithm included in NIST's FIPS 204 standard, while retaining distributed key control, policy checks, and separate responsibilities across institutional teams.
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