New York, June 24, 2026, 08:20 EDT
- Arqit jumped 35.6% at the close Tuesday and traded higher again before the U.S. market opened Wednesday.
- Millennium and related funds went over 5% on June 16, per a Schedule 13G filed June 23, but were back under that threshold by the time they filed.
- Quantum orders signed in the U.S. on June 22 brought fresh attention to post-quantum cryptography, the encryption field Arqit targets with its products.
Arqit Quantum Inc was at $29.21 in U.S. premarket trading Wednesday, up 0.6%. The stock finished Tuesday at $29.04, up 35.6% on the day, Google Finance data show. The Nasdaq had yet to open; regular trading runs 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern. June 24 isn’t listed as a 2026 U.S. market holiday.
The stock jumped after President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on June 22 tied to quantum technology. One order warns that large-scale quantum computers could break current encryption and tells federal systems to shift to post-quantum cryptography, or PQC, encryption designed to withstand quantum attacks. The second order asks for the U.S. to speed up work on quantum computing, sensing, and networking.
Arqit (NASDAQ:ARQQ), a London-based company, offers quantum-safe encryption software, not quantum computers. This is important—the immediate takeaway from these orders isn’t about building quantum machines, it’s about upgrading encryption before quantum tech can crack current systems.
ICS Opportunities Ltd, Millennium Management LLC, Millennium Group Management LLC and Israel A. Englander filed a Schedule 13G on June 23, naming themselves as reporting persons. They said they picked up more than 5% of Arqit’s ordinary shares on June 16, but dropped below the 5% line before the filing date. A Schedule 13G is typically filed by passive investors when they hit the reporting threshold.
The filing showed ICS Opportunities has shared voting and dispositive power over 7,800 shares. Millennium Management, Millennium Group Management and Englander have it for 58,621 shares. The signatories said they didn’t get the shares to change or influence control of Arqit.
Arqit’s footprint remains small. Revenue in the first half of fiscal 2026 came in at $623,000, up from $67,000 a year ago. The company said the revenue was tied to 11 contracts. Cash and equivalents totaled $35.9 million as of May 20. CEO Andy Leaver said last month, “The threat to cybersecurity is real and the time to begin addressing it is now.” Arqit Quantum Inc.
Arqit said its product line features Encryption Intelligence, aimed at finding crypto exposure and mapping weaknesses, along with NetworkSecure, designed to protect data in transit with post-quantum cryptography. Target markets for Arqit are telecoms, government, and defence.
Larger quantum stocks got a push too. Reuters said the new orders call for a strong quantum computer by 2028 and moving key government systems to post-quantum cryptography around 2030 or 2031. “It’s possible to meet these types of timelines,” Infleqtion CEO Matthew Kinsella told Reuters. IBM and D-Wave Quantum are mainly on the computing side; Arqit is more on encryption. Reuters
Legal risk for Arqit eased this month after the company said in a June 17 filing that the Eastern District of New York approved a $7 million settlement on June 1 in a putative class action. Arqit added that all U.S. putative class actions against the company in federal and state courts are now resolved.
The rally doesn’t leave much space for a drawn-out contract cycle. Arqit’s most recent annual filing describes it as early stage, with a track record of losses, saying market uptake for its product isn’t fully proven yet, and its technology needs to work inside clients’ current networks. Delays in PQC budgets or quicker moves from bigger security players could erase some of the gains the shares have picked up on policy news.
