Overview
- The Responsible Fintech Institute and Safeheron formally launched the pilot on Monday to run wallet generation and on-chain transfer tests under realistic institutional conditions.
- The technical setup uses multi-party computation to sign with ML-DSA-65, a NIST FIPS 204 post-quantum signature, in a non-custodial 2-of-2 key design so no single party ever holds the full private key.
- Participating banks Bison Bank and DK Bank are executing the tests while Abu Dhabi Global Market, Bhutan’s Gelephu Financial Services Office and Malta’s MFSA observe and will later join a governance workstream.
- Organizers say the exercise runs on NEAR’s quantum-resistant testnet with no customer funds at risk and that they plan a whitepaper and an eventual open-source release so outside experts can audit the implementation.
- The pilot responds to the longer-term ‘harvest now, decrypt later’ quantum threat and could shape cross-border migration plans for finance by showing practical trade-offs in performance, oversight and operational resilience.