Acting editor-in-chief
Gary McFarlane
Acting editor-in-chief
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If the record sell-out of the qONE token presale is anything to go by, the interest in Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) solutions is off the charts right now.
qONE token lists today at around 2pm UTC. To claim tokens, presale contributors are recommended to use the Hyperliquid-compliant Rabby Wallet. More details about the token generation event can be found at the official qLABS website.
qLabs is the company behind a new token that has just raised $950,000 from contributors in a public sale that sold out in 24 hours. Two percent of the total token supply was available to contributors.
qONE is the first quantum-resistant token on Hyperliquid. It is an ERC-20-focused PQC solution developed in partnership with publicly listed Canadian quantum-resilience-focused cybersecurity company 01 Quantum.
In what has been an unusually strong presale, given the bearish backdrop that has descended on crypto markets, the project may have made a wise choice in going for what it describes as a ‘limited’ presale.
qONE Team Says ‘Speculators Beware’
qLABS says that the relatively small allocation was designed to reduce early speculative volatility, preserve long-term alignment, and ensure sufficient treasury and ecosystem funding.
Arguably, the crypto industry is belatedly waking up to the threat it poses.
Although tech notables such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang think that useful quantum computers will not be with us for 15-30 years, others believe it could be more like 5-10 years.
Either way, companies need to start planning now, in crypto and beyond, wherever public-key cryptography is being used.
qLabs believes that companies and other custodians of crypto assets are now taking the reality of preparing for Q-Day (when the quantum computers can derive private keys from public keys by cracking the encryption) seriously.
qLABS technology May Have a Significant First-Mover Advantage
Be it RSA (widely used for internet and banking services), or Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) for generating keys and SHA-256 for hashing (encrypting transactions), or in the case of ERC-20 assets, Keccak-256 used for hashing and ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) for signing – the need for workable solutions is now concentrating minds.
We asked the team at qLabs about how their solution fits in. They see the competitive landscape falling into three distinct groups:
- Post-quantum research and migration projects (e.g., Project Eleven), which focus primarily on identifying vulnerable keys and facilitating long-term migration paths, particularly for Bitcoin and legacy assets.
- Chain-level solutions, where Layer-1s or Layer-2s explore future cryptographic upgrades. These tend to be slow, consensus-heavy, and not backward-compatible with existing assets.
- Wallet and custody providers are experimenting with stronger key management, but not full NIST-aligned post-quantum cryptography.
As such, Ada Jonuse, Executive Director says, “qONE’s competition is not a single product, but the combination of inaction, delayed chain upgrades, and partial security solutions that do not protect assets today.”
So how does qONE’s quantum-resistant technology differ from competitors like Project Eleven, which is backed, among others, by Coinbase Ventures?
“qLABS technology makes quantum-resistant cryptography compatible with the existing chains. Uniting proprietary zero-knowledge proof engine with NIST-approved post-quantum algorithms, qLABS enables faster and cheaper migration for Layer 1 chains as well as superior level chain performance. And this despite the fact that PQC-based private and public keys are more than 20x bigger than the standard ones,” Jonuse, explains.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the US standards agency. 01 Quantum’s IronCAP technology is the foundation of the qONE post-quantum cryptography solution.
According to the team, the qLABS solution will land in Q1 2026 “to protect major crypto assets from quantum attacks today with a wallet technology solution.”
qLABS is well-positioned to start reaping the benefits of first-mover advantage. “To our knowledge, no viable solutions exist to solve this problem so early,” says Jonuse.
Ethereum Assets Will Be First to Benefit
qLABS has decided to roll out its solution to ERC-20 first, to be followed by Solana and then other Layer 1 solutions, including Bitcoin.
“We strongly believe that the first step towards fighting the quantum threat is to protect the crypto holders’ assets today, and every chain should start from that safe environment. We have it ready.
“This approach is, by the way, similar to what Project Eleven is communicating about with their next technological milestone to be a safety solution on the wallet side.”
The Quantum-Sig product is the core technology behind the solution, which can be thought of as a security protocol, rather than a replacement wallet that takes ownership of funds.
The product will be available for both end users and businesses. Market participants may be pleasantly surprised to see such strong use-case tokens emerging after a period when literally useless meme coins seemed to rule the roost.
qLABS estimates the total addressable market for ERC-20 assets is $1 trillion, of which qONE aims to provide quantum-resistant security for 2% ($20 billion).
According to the project, value accrual comes from transaction and service fees; staking rewards funded by protocol usage and deflationary mechanics (burns or buybacks)
In a measured tone, Jonuse concludes: “Exact projections are speculative, but the model is designed so that token value scales with secured asset volume, not mere speculation.”
