Crypto's post-quantum shift and Privacy renaissance take center stage at Quantus and NEAR's Quantum + Privacy Day at TOKEN2049 Singapore. Bitwise, Grayscale, Dragonfly, Balaji Srinivasan, Zcash's Zooko Wilcox, and NEAR's Illia Polosukhin convene to plan crypto's migration to quantum-safe, privacy-preserving infrastructure Singapore, October 8, 2026 - Quantus and NEAR Foundation will host Quantum + Privacy Day on Thursday, October 8, 2026, as a side event of TOKEN2049 Singapore. Built for security researchers, application builders, and capital allocators, the event features keynotes and panel discussions with crypto and finance industry luminaries such as Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR, Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise, Krista Lynch of Grayscale, Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, and Balaji Srinivasan, angel investor and founder of Network School. Quantum + Privacy Day will take place at Tower Club, Republic Plaza, from 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. SGT, followed by an evening of networking. The program brings cryptographers, protocol builders, investors, and researchers into one room to dive into the ways the industry can protect blockchain networks from the increasingly powerful quantum computers which will soon have the ability to break the cryptography securing them today. A quantum computer that forges signatures can not only corrupt blockchain ledgers but also strip the privacy from every transaction they record. The conversations and keynote presentations at Quantum + Privacy Day will look at both quantum-safe cryptographic schemes for securing assets, as well as privacy infrastructure for encrypting assets... Quantus CEO Chris Smith will open the program with a keynote on the quantum threat and what the crypto industry needs to do to address it. Later speakers will debate Bitcoin's privacy model, whether pre-quantum chains remain viable, and what quantum risk means for digital stores of value. Raghav Gulati and Quantus co-founder Joe Mattia will also discuss what comes after mainnet launch and how a new asset reaches the market. Later sessions will focus on implementation and migration, as speakers explain what it takes to bring post-quantum cryptography into production. They will discuss algorithms, key exchange, and NIST standards, along with ways users can protect their assets before every Layer 1 upgrade. Smith will speak alongside Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR, and Alex Shevchenko, CEO of Aurora Labs. Zooko Wilcox of Zcash and Alex Pruden, CEO of Project Eleven, are also confirmed. "We are very excited about our partnership with NEAR. Both Quantus and Near support post-quantum transactions today and are therefore leaders in the great quantum migration," says Christopher Smith, co-founder and CEO of Quantus. "Our Quantum and Privacy event is bringing together thought leaders from across the blockchain space to discuss how to adapt to the changing cryptographic landscape." The investor side of the program brings Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise; Krista Lynch of Grayscale; and Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly. Balaji Srinivasan, angel investor and founder of Network School, joins them. Quip Network co-founders Colton Dillion and Richard Carback round out the lineup, together with Raghav Gulati, former CEO of CoinList. The Rollup will livestream the talks, and additional speakers will be announced ahead of the event. "Quantum computing poses a threat to the cryptography underpinning all current blockchain security,"said Illia Polosukhin, Co-Founder of NEAR. "Quantum + Privacy Day is a chance to hear from top researchers, builders, and investors and discuss how infrastructure providers, wallets, and builders are preparing for the post-quantum reality and building toward a more resilient, privacy-preserving onchain economy." NEAR has already shipped post-quantum signing to mainnet, using ML-DSA, the NIST-standardized signature scheme Quantus also builds on. The release is the first milestone in NEAR's quantum security roadmap. The program is built for security researchers, application builders, and capital allocators. Exchanges, custodians, and institutions holding assets on chain face the same migration on their own roadmaps. The event is sponsored by Project Eleven, Zcash, Vizor Wallet, Quip Network, Keystone, and Network School, several of which also have founders on the program. After the talks, guests can stay for drinks, food, networking, and a casual Super Smash Bros. tournament. Space is limited, and registration is open at https://luma.com/jtof4o9b. About Quantus. Quantus is quantum-secure encrypted money. It's a layer 1 proof-of-work blockchain with a 21 million supply cap and post-quantum security, and it is private by default. Quantus uses ML-DSA for key generation and transaction signatures, plus zero-knowledge proofs for scaling and privacy. Quantus also built migration.fail, a public tracker of how much of the crypto industry is still vulnerable to quantum computing. About NEAR. NEAR is the open infrastructure powering the agent economy. NEAR's vertically integrated stack connects NEAR Intents for cross-chain execution, NEAR AI for confidential and verifiable AI, IronClaw for a secure agent harness, and sharded blockchain infrastructure for 1M+ TPS scalability. near.com is NEAR's unified front-end: one account, 30+ chains, and confidential cross-chain swaps, perps, RWAs, and earn in a single interface. With $30B+ in cross-chain volume and AI integrations with Abound, Brave Nightly, the Government of Bermuda, OpenMind, Venice AI, and more, NEAR is where agents transact. Learn more at https://www.near.org/.

Coates cites Solana's scale as a key factor. Explaining his decision, Coates said Solana now handles tens of billions of dollars in daily stablecoin volume while processing more transactions each day than most of the cryptocurrency industry combined. He also pointed to recent tokenization activity on the network, including the launch of SpaceX tokenized shares on the same day the asset debuted on Nasdaq. Coates enters the role after serving as Head of Security at Mozilla during the browser competition era and becoming Twitter's first Chief Information Security Officer as the social media platform expanded globally. He later founded enterprise SaaS security company Altitude Networks, which entered the crypto sector after its acquisition by CoinList. Within the Solana Foundation, Coates said his work will include strengthening operational security, improving application security practices and addressing risks unique to digital assets. He added that he also plans to work with policymakers and standards bodies on cybersecurity regulation affecting the crypto industry. Describing the current threat environment, Coates said attackers remain heavily motivated to steal digital assets and noted that malicious uses of artificial intelligence are becoming an increasing security concern. He added that AI can also strengthen defensive capabilities when used effectively and referenced his congressional testimony on the subject earlier this year. The appointment comes as digital asset firms continue bringing experienced leaders from technology, cybersecurity and regulatory backgrounds into senior positions while institutional participation expands across the sector. A similar trend emerged last year when former U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Christopher Giancarlo joined Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum as a senior policy advisor. Sygnum said at the time that Giancarlo would advise on global regulation, strategic partnerships and international growth, underscoring the industry's continued recruitment of experienced executives as crypto infrastructure develops.