Overview
- Project Eleven published a prototype zero-knowledge proof that it says can prove ownership of coins by showing knowledge of hardened hierarchical wallet keys rather than revealing private keys.
- Benchmarks reported by the developer show proof generation in about 243 milliseconds and verification in about 40 milliseconds on an M5 MacBook Air using roughly 2 GB of memory and no GPU.
- The method relies on hardened BIP-32-style key derivation and the relative quantum resistance of hashing, which resists Grover-style attacks far better than elliptic-curve signatures do against Shor-style attacks.
- Significant limits remain: the prototype is unaudited, does not support Taproot addresses, roots proofs at the coin-type key rather than the wallet seed, and cannot recover pre-2012 pay-to-public-key outputs including Satoshi-era coins.
- Turning the proof into live recoveries would require independent audits, expanded address support, and contentious consensus changes to Bitcoin rules, and owners who still hold seed phrases would be the primary beneficiaries while older key formats remain exposed.