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/.
