CTRL/SHIFT - 14 06 2026 PARTHENOPE STAGE - BEYOND CUSTODY

Okay, I'd like to invite on stage Leonardo Donatacci, co-founder of Solana Italy. Wolfgang Vitale, general manager at Bitcoin Swiss. And Chi Young, CEO and co-founder of Quantum Custody. So, welcome to the panel beyond custody, the evolution of digital asset infrastructure in the post-quantum era. So, custody has become one of the foundations of institutional digital asset adoption, but the market is evolving quickly.

So, with the growing regulatory clarity, more major infrastructure, and the need to prepare for quantum resistance security, the question is no longer how to safeguard assets today, but what the next generation of custody in digital asset infrastructure will look like. So, now let's start with the with the market perspective. Chi, custody used to to be seen mainly as a secure storage. But today, what are institutions really asking for when they choose a custody provider? Security, regulation, access, or a mix of all of these features?

Thanks. Look, I think the question can be debated from all aspects, but I actually looked this up just recently. EY had a report for 2026. And surprise, surprise, top of the list, it was regulation. And when we talk about regulation, it's not just regulatory compliance, it's regulatory clarity.

In the EU, we obviously have MiCA. In the US, there's the GENIUS Act that has been passed. And the CLARITY Act is coming. And essentially, it says it in its title, the CLARITY Act. We need regulatory clarity.

And that is top of mind for institutions. When you think about the motivations of institutions, they have to operate with regulatory bodies and comply with the law. And this is something that has been here in the crypto space since day dot, the question of regulation. And since we've had more regulatory clarity, um we are seeing that influx of institutions, but they've only dipped their toes in the water. Um the I mean, inherently within regulation um is risk management.

And that's top of mind for institutions these days, and part of that is security. Um quantum is one of the major risks that that is apparent within um digital assets, but there is an urgency there. So, um those are the top things that institutions are thinking of at the moment. Um and let's see how the space evolves in that in in that regard.

Thank you, Chi. Uh now, let's move um to the to the cryptosphere more more in detail. Wolfgang, from the perspective of a crypto infrastructure and protocol expert, how has custody market changed over the last few years? Are we moving from basic safekeeping toward a broader institutional infrastructure layer?

Yeah, I mean, I think there is space for everybody still. So, you can still be super specialized on custody, or you can offer a more diversified set of services that, you know, custody is not just like having some private key safe, you know, it can be also implementing some more complex policies. Like maybe some client wants to have some more complex way to decide how to have access to the to the funds, how to control the funds, having I don't know like multiple approvals and certain guardrails on how to move the funds, how to deploy them on D5. Yeah, there are many options and of course the market participants needs to find need to find a way to diversify. And yeah, post-quantum readiness is definitely one way to, you know, to show that you are on top of things and you're not up as Bobby said.

Yes, you have to show that you are on top of things and you prepare with the migration in advance. You're aware of the challenges but also you do the right steps in advance. And the first will be definitely to know at least what is the surface of attack in your organization. So have a clear inventory of where do you use cryptography, what are the dependencies on vendors and so on. So really have a clear scope of the surface of attack and then start taking measures at least what the ones that you can take.

Yeah, if you talk specifically about crypto then, you know, of course you cannot be you cannot start the migration to a post-quantum protocol if the chain itself doesn't have a way to become post-quantum. But for sure you have to keep monitoring the space and take action as soon as possible when it makes sense. So yeah, I would say it's not just custody you want to offer all sorts of services related to the control of funds like staking of course deployment in D5 and other protocols, lending and so on. There is space to diversify, that's what I want to say. I don't know if there was some other more specific question or anything like

Thank you. Leonardo, when we introduce the post-quantum dimension, how does the definition of secure custody change? Is quantum resistant mainly about cryptography or does it also require new thinking around governance, curation, recovery, and long-term asset protection?

Thank you so much. So, I think for the first time in in the history, we have kind of a like a change in how we think about digital assets in general. And I think the most important thing is like everybody thinks for example about migration and definitely they're very very important. But the most most interesting thing about these all these post-quantum and like breaking Schnorr and like whatever is is more about like getting for the first time a time axis on a digital asset because before it was like always oh, if I protect an asset that asset like if the cryptography sound, then that asset is pretty much like good. Uh now, it's more about if we know that these algorithm will be breaking is like how much do we want to reveal about the information that we think that it's safe right now.

And so, having for the first time the concept of like you need to not think in the future and say I need to migrate to a post-quantum secure signature, but like even right now is saying what are the type of data and what are the type of asset where if I reveal too much right now can actually be harvested and then decrypted later. I think this is something that a lot of people are not thinking about like a new dimension of digital asset. Naturally uh when the migration comes, I think one of the most important thing uh would be to actually figure out how to swap components as well. So, not be super into like singular for example signature, but at the same time like to actually understand and like figure out something that could scale in the time and like could change easily once we figure out that okay, this is a possibility. Let's let's figure out like how the future looks looks like.

Thank you. Now, institutional custody is also an operational business. What are the hardest parts to scale in practice? So, compliance workflows, client onboarding, or segregation of duties, or even something else?

When we think of the idea of scaling, we always think of it from a technological perspective. You know, I've spent a majority of my career in audit and compliance at Ernst & Young, and you know, I've seen how organizations work. And in my mind, when we talk about scaling, it's an organizational problem. It's a human problem. When you think about implementing a new technology and particularly to combat against the quantum risk, firstly, it's complicated.

And when you think about it from an organizational perspective, you have to educate the organization. Leaders are there to to obviously understand the problem, but there is a a whole organization under those leaders. We have various departments when it comes to audit and compliance. You have your audit committees, you have your legal departments, you have risk management, you have accounting and finance. And when you think about a large organization, they need to coordinate with each other.

Um, there's always office politics and approvals and egos. Um, so when you think about implementing a new technology, presumably we would like to upgrade to protect against quantum um, in a calm environment, but you know, as we understand Q-Day is coming at an uncertain date. Um, and it is complex and when you think about it from an organizational perspective, um, it's going to take a lot of time. When you look at an organization upgrading a process workflow and understanding, you know, the risk around that workflow, traditional controls take time to upgrade. You know, I've seen in the listed environment organizations taking up to 3 years to upgrade um, you know, significant workflows or even just understanding their workflows.

So, when you add add on a technological workflow on top of that and we're probably seeing it with artificial intelligence, you know, everyone's moving at rapid pace to keep up. Um, but when you when you think about the application of AI, you have to think about the human element. You know, do you have a good workflow from the beginning or you're just slapping AI on to accelerate a shitty workflow. So, in my mind when I think about scaling from an organizational perspective, um, you know, it's very much organizational and and the human element.

Thank you, Shea. I think the the keyword here is uh um, coordination. So, Wolfgang, protocols and custody providers do not involve in a isolation. How should custodians, exchanges, and blockchain communities coordinate where when preparing for a quantum resistant upgrades?

So, the custodian exchanges and protocols. How do you coordinate?

Infrastructure providers and blockchain communities.

Well, I think a lot of the conversation is open. Anyone is open to is uh can contribute to uh give recommendations or participate in the discussion with the protocol upgrades. So, if there is any good idea or way to influence upgrades in the Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other chains, if there are some recommendations or some insights that can come from custodians and crypto infrastructure providers, like saying, "Maybe you didn't think about this. Maybe you should consider also how this affect us." You can participate in the conversation.

I don't think that everybody needs needs to coordinate at the same point. I think that over time the good solutions and good explanations to these solutions will be clear and there will be ways to do a post-quantum upgrade and everybody will normally, you know, converge towards the right solution without having a need to coordinate on how to do it. What is needed is maybe timelines and, you know, give clear urgency figures. You know, I think you you mentioned it in a good scenario, this is like Y2K. But Y2K, at least we had a day and we had a date and everybody knew they had to be ready by that time.

So, if there is some sort of coordination needed, for me it's more like on clarifying the urgency and make it very, very clear that we need to do something, you know, we need to do the upgrade with years in advance. But but it's tough because different institutions have different needs. And we talked about harvest now, decrypt later. So, you know, it's true that some secrets are harvested now and they will be decrypted later, but it's also true that not all secrets have the same lifetime, you know? So, you know, maybe some secrets can be revealed in 10 years and maybe you don't care.

So, it depends on the institution also. Level of urgency that is needed from that respect. So, yeah, I would say coordination will be on recognizing the problem. I I think that I mean, maybe I'm too optimistic, but I think that we are there. At least, you know, institutions know that it's a real problem.

We don't have many quantum deniers yet. And if they are, you know, the world is moving, the world is upgrading and yes, not many institutions started initiative. It's also true that, you know, 60% of the human initiated traffic measured by Cloudflare is post-quantum ready. So, at least for what regards post-quantum encryption, the world started moving and for signature and certificates, we will get there. But, yeah, to conclude, the conversation is open and coordination is possible.

I just don't think that we need someone from above to say that's the way or even an outcome from a coordination to say this is the way. I expect the the market and the good solutions to propagate and spread naturally. So, really the the important thing is the urgency and the priority. That's what I would focus on. Yeah.

Thanks.

So, looking ahead, Leonardo, what should institution expect from post-quantum digital asset infrastructure? Will we see gradual upgrade of existing systems or or more fundamental redesign of how custody signatures and trust model work?

So, I think it's a mix of both in the sense of like I think quantum will be more of like a forcing ends for a lot of these institution and the the way that we actually will be able to pretty much try to solve at scale for institutional the the problem of quantum could be more of about like a disciplinary we could say approach that is like the first one is like visibility naturally because it's so funny how like most institution don't know what data they have, where they have the data, and most important is like what data is encrypted how. And so, we were talking about about this with G before. And it's like imagine an hospital like they are still very very behind on all the data that they have and like how they custody that data. So, first of all is like let's make an inventory and figure out what we need to migrate. Second of all, as I said before as well, it's more about agility and in the sense of like not being blocked by specific implementation.

But at the same time is to figure out and scale it up and like try to be open-minded about like what the best solution for quantum is for these tasks after. And last and for all is more about time awareness and I really enjoy the idea of like we shouldn't be quantum ready today, but we should start preparing with like the parts where it's easy actually to be quantum ready right now. And the the parts where make for example products and other stuff is lower worse, probably it's better to just like wait. Start naturally developing ideas around that, but like be very sure when the time is right to just turn it on and I have everything tested and just like be prepared for knowing Q-Day happens because that it will be already too late, but when the percentage for example reach 1%, 2% and I think that will probably be a safe way to just like migrate everything at that point to something post-quantum.

Thank you. Now, before we close uh one last question for all of you as I did in the last panel. Uh in the post-quantum era, what will be the most important feature of digital asset infrastructure? Maximum three words without explanation.

I've got one word, agility.

Okay.

That's my word.

Well, [laughter] cryptographic

cryptographic agility. Yeah.

Prepared.

Thank you all for the discussion and for the different perspectives. Today, we explored how custody is evolving from a basic security function into a broader institutional infrastructure layer and how the post-quantum era may accelerate that transformation. Thank you, everyone, and now let's enjoy the aperitivo.