Key Points
- Banks and regulators from Europe, the Middle East and Asia have joined a pilot testing post-quantum wallets and onchain transfers.
- The initiative uses ML-DSA-65, a post-quantum digital signature standard from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, on a quantum-resistant NEAR testnet.
- The pilot reflects growing efforts among financial institutions and regulators to prepare digital-asset infrastructure for the potential threat posed by quantum computing.
Financial Institutions Test Post-Quantum Infrastructure
Banks and financial regulators across Europe, the Middle East and Asia have joined a pilot designed to test quantum-resistant infrastructure for digital asset wallets and onchain transfers.
The initiative was announced Monday by the Responsible Fintech Institute (RFI) and crypto custody infrastructure provider Safeheron. The project will allow participating financial institutions to test how post-quantum cryptography can be incorporated into digital asset infrastructure before quantum computing reaches a level capable of threatening current cryptographic systems.
The pilot uses a multiparty computation protocol supporting ML-DSA-65, a post-quantum digital signature standard published by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Testing will take place on a quantum-resistant NEAR testnet.
Banks to Test Wallets and Transfers
Participating financial institutions include Bison Bank and DK Bank.
The banks will test wallet generation and onchain transfers through a shared application environment. The objective is to examine how financial institutions could use quantum-resistant cryptographic infrastructure for digital asset custody and transactions.
The pilot is structured so that regulators can observe the initial testing phase without necessarily participating in every operational component.
Regulatory participants include Abu Dhabi Global Market, Bhutan’s Gelephu Financial Services Office and the Malta Financial Services Authority.
The organizers said participation levels will differ between institutions. Regulators are expected to contribute to a governance workstream during a later stage of the project.
Preparing for the Quantum Threat
The initiative comes as financial institutions increasingly consider the possibility that sufficiently powerful quantum computers could undermine the public-key cryptography used to secure digital assets.
Many blockchain systems and digital asset wallets depend on cryptographic signatures to prove ownership and authorize transactions. A sufficiently capable quantum computer could eventually threaten some of the mathematical assumptions underlying those systems.
That possibility has prompted financial authorities and blockchain developers to begin examining migration paths toward post-quantum cryptography before such capabilities become practical.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, for example, has targeted 2030 for the banking sector to become fully prepared for quantum-related security risks.
A 2025 paper from the Bank for International Settlements similarly called on financial institutions to begin coordinated and phased migration toward post-quantum systems.
Regulators Take an Observational Role
The structure of the pilot highlights the growing role of regulators in evaluating emerging digital asset infrastructure.
Rather than immediately adopting the technology, participating authorities will initially observe how banks generate wallets and execute transfers using the quantum-resistant system.
The later governance workstream is intended to provide regulators with a role in examining how such infrastructure could be managed and potentially incorporated into financial systems.
This approach allows financial institutions and regulators to evaluate technical and governance considerations before wider deployment.
Pilot Could Lead to Open-Source Technology
RFI and Safeheron plan to publish a white paper documenting the research, protocol design and findings from the pilot.
The organizers also intend to eventually open-source the underlying technology.
Such an approach could allow other financial institutions, blockchain projects and regulators to examine the system and potentially use its findings when developing their own post-quantum migration strategies.
The pilot therefore extends beyond testing a single custody solution. Its results could provide a practical framework for examining how quantum-resistant cryptography can operate across institutional digital asset infrastructure.
Post-Quantum Security Moves Toward Financial Infrastructure
The involvement of banks and regulators indicates that quantum security is increasingly being considered as an infrastructure issue rather than solely a theoretical blockchain concern.
Financial institutions already face the challenge of protecting assets and transaction systems over long time horizons. Preparing those systems for advances in computing technology requires migration strategies that can be developed before existing cryptographic standards become vulnerable.
For digital assets, the challenge is particularly significant because blockchain transactions are designed to operate through cryptographic authorization rather than centralized intermediaries.
The current pilot remains an early-stage test, and the source does not establish that the technology is ready for production deployment. Its significance instead lies in bringing banks, regulators and infrastructure providers into the same testing environment.
Closing Insights
The post-quantum pilot demonstrates a growing effort to prepare digital asset infrastructure before quantum computing presents an immediate security threat. By testing wallet generation and onchain transfers using ML-DSA-65 and multiparty computation, participating institutions can begin evaluating how quantum-resistant systems could function in real financial environments.
The participation of banks and regulators from multiple jurisdictions also points toward a broader need for coordination. Quantum migration is unlikely to be confined to individual blockchain networks or financial institutions, making common technical standards and governance frameworks increasingly relevant.
The pilot’s planned research publication and eventual open-source release could provide additional insight into how financial institutions approach the transition from conventional cryptography to post-quantum security.
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