TL;DR
- Banks and regulators across Europe, the Middle East and Asia are testing quantum-resistant wallets and onchain transfers through a pilot led by RFI and Safeheron.
- The system uses multiparty computation with the NIST-published ML-DSA-65 signature standard on a quantum-resistant NEAR testnet, with banks conducting transfer tests.
- Organizers plan a white paper and open-source release, while regulators observe initially and later join governance work as financial authorities prepare for quantum threats.
Banks and financial regulators spanning Europe, the Middle East and Asia are joining a pilot designed to test quantum-resistant infrastructure for digital asset wallets and onchain transfers. Led by the Responsible Fintech Institute and custody infrastructure provider Safeheron, the initiative places participating banks inside a shared application environment where they can generate wallets and move assets using post-quantum protections. The striking development is that quantum security is moving from theoretical planning into hands-on financial testing. Regulators will initially observe, giving institutions space to examine how the technology behaves before governance participation deepens across increasingly complex institutional settlement workflows today.
Banks move quantum resistance from theory toward infrastructure
The pilot uses a multiparty computation protocol supporting ML-DSA-65, a post-quantum digital signature standard published by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Testing will run on a quantum-resistant NEAR testnet, with Bison Bank and DK Bank participating as financial institutions. The architecture aims to protect wallet creation and transfers without waiting for quantum computers to become an immediate operational threat. Abu Dhabi Global Market, Bhutan’s Gelephu Financial Services Office and Malta’s Financial Services Authority are among the regulators involved, though their participation levels will differ during the program’s first stage.
The organizers plan to publish a white paper detailing the research, protocol design and results, with the underlying technology eventually expected to become open source. Regulators are set to contribute more directly to a governance workstream after the observational phase. That progression matters because quantum-resistant finance is not only a cryptography challenge, but also a coordination problem across banks, regulators and infrastructure providers. Shared testing could expose operational questions before institutions attempt large-scale migrations, while publication of the findings may give other market participants a clearer reference point for evaluating post-quantum wallet and transfer systems.
The pilot arrives as financial authorities increasingly prepare for the possibility that quantum computers could undermine widely used public-key cryptography. Hong Kong’s monetary authority is targeting full banking-sector readiness for quantum-related security risks by 2030, while a 2025 BIS paper called for coordinated, phased migration toward post-quantum systems. The broader message is that waiting for a practical quantum threat may already be considered too late. By testing wallets, signatures and onchain transfers now, the participating institutions are treating cryptographic migration as infrastructure planning rather than an emergency response left for some future date.
