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SAN DIEGO, CA — The Southern California startup QCel has announced a $14 million investment from the Department of Defense to modernize critical infrastructure aboard US Navy vessels using blockchain technology. QCel’s cloud-based platform will meet a primary objective to rapidly upgrade afloat software and communications systems’ record-keeping capabilities.

The entrepreneurs behind QCel (QMOW (Quartermaster of the Watch)-Controlled Electronic Ledger), Denis Palaniuk and Tim Strawser, founded their company after both serving as lieutenants on warships themselves. “A ship’s deck log is the single most important document aboard,” chief executive Palaniuk told Boredroom News, “and we were shocked by how vulnerable it is and, frankly, how much physical paper needs to be stored on board throughout a deployment.”

Throughout the lifetime of the nearly 500 commissioned and non-commissioned support vessels, everything of significance is recorded – on paper by hand – to create and maintain the official legal history of the ship. “‘The blockchain is the perfect solution for the Navy of the future,’ Tim and I said as we watched sailor after sailor get medevac’d from carpal tunnel. We created QCel to ensure at least six sigma accuracy on every log entry while simultaneously freeing our warfighters from the burden of paperwork.”

Palaniuk and Strawser, who serves as the chief buttonology officer, left active duty to pursue their venture and shortly approached the Naval Information Warfare Center (NAVWAR) with their plan to upgrade the Navy’s archaic logging systems.

QCel “was like a gift from Neptune himself,” according to CDR Jim Davis, NAVWAR Assistant Director of Logbook Technology. “As one of the premier warfighting forces on the waves today, security is always a foremost consideration. Under the Navy’s manual deck logging system, virtually anyone can alter the record with a single line-out and hastily-scrawled initials – and don’t get me started on erasable pens, if ISIS ever finds out about them, we’re done for.”

Once the fleet implements the QCel system, CDR Davis adds, the Etherium-based ledger will automatically record the identity signature of all entries and alterations, or at least “whoever was logged into the shared CIC computer that week.”

Although QCel’s revolutionary application is already ushering in the next evolution of the US Navy, Palaniuk and Strawser are taking their success in stride. “Driving ship and writing code are two sides of the same coin,” Strawser explains, “both are about finding solutions to complex real-world problems. And we at QCel are confident that as long as ships have excellent SATCOM connectivity at all times and never lose a generator, they’ll never have to worry about the deck log again.”