e23, a venture and technology company building financial infrastructure for institutional markets, has announced a strategic partnership and investment with Virtuals Protocol, an economic operating system enabling AI agents to transact, raise funds, and coordinate work autonomously, at a $20 million company valuation.
The investment will accelerate e23’s development of its Layer-1 sovereign blockchain with post- quantum cryptography embedded at the base protocol level, positioning the company at the forefront of Malaysia’s national strategy to mandate quantum resilient infrastructure across critical sectors by 2030.
Malaysia is entering a defining phase of its digital finance evolution. The Securities Commission’s Capital Market Masterplan 2026 – 2030 sets out a RM20 trillion framework that names digital assets as national priorities. e23 Protocol, a sovereign Layer-1 blockchain secured with post-quantum cryptography from the ground up, is purposefully built to serve these objectives.
Building at the foundational protocol level lets e23 define its own settlement logic, compliance architecture and cryptographic standards. The post-quantum cryptographic layer is embedded at the base protocol, producing settlement, custody and compliance logic resilient to the computational threats that regulators and institutions are already legislating against.
“Global financial systems are moving toward programmable, AI-driven infrastructure and the cryptographic foundations beneath them have to outlast the quantum threats,”
said Wui Yang, Founder and CEO of e23.
“The systems underpinning that future cannot rely on cryptographic assumptions designed for a pre-quantum world. Crypto agility is the
foundational requirement for a robust, long-term financial infrastructure, and building a sovereign Layer-1 blockchain gives us the ability to embed those standards directly at the protocol level, before those threats materialise. Malaysia has the opportunity to shape the next generation of institutional digital finance infrastructure for the region, and our partnership with Virtuals Protocol accelerates that trajectory.”
The partnership with Virtuals Protocol is an expression of a deeper strategic alignment. It reflects a shared conviction that AI is emerging as a defining force in the next phase of financial infrastructure. The convergence of traditional finance and decentralised finance creates the conditions for agentic finance to operate across every layer of the financial system. As AI agents require financial rails to transact, settle and operate, compliant and cryptographically resilient base-layer infrastructure becomes the foundation that defines the reach of agentic finance.
“The next evolution of global commerce will be driven by autonomous AI agents, but the true scale of agentic finance can only be realized on infrastructure that is inherently secure, compliant, and future-proof,”
said Jansen, Co-Founder of Virtuals Protocol.
“e23 is building that essential foundation. By embedding post-quantum cryptography at the base layer, they ensure that as AI agents begin to transact and settle massive institutional volumes, they are doing so on rails resilient to both legacy and quantum-era threats. Our investment reflects a shared conviction that the convergence of AI and secured digital infrastructure is where the future of finance will be won”.
e23 Protocol testnet is currently in development, with institutional participants and ecosystem partners expected to engage in early access ahead of mainnet. The testnet will enable developers, institutions and regulated entities to deploy, test and build on the blockchain. Institutions and partners interested in participating in e23 Protocol testnet can register their interest on our Contact Page.
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Featured image credit: Based on an image by e23
