Silence Labs launches NIST-backed quantum-safe custody vault

Silence Laboratories has launched a custody vault that replaces traditional digital-signature schemes with ML-DSA, the post-quantum signature standard finalized by NIST in 2024. The company said the system pairs ML-DSA with multi-party computation (MPC) and hardware-isolated execution to protect transaction signing from future quantum threats.

The platform keeps MPC’s shared-control model used by many institutional custodians so no single party holds the full signing secret. The architecture is modular, allowing banks, exchanges and custodians to add quantum-resistant signing without replacing existing governance, policy or operational systems.

Sensitive operations run inside hardware-isolated environments, including Google Cloud Confidential Computing, to limit exposure to cloud providers, system operators and external attackers. The company described these environments as a way to reduce the attack surface for transaction signing and key management.

Silence is rolling the vault out to a group of design partners for testing in institutional custody workflows. Named early testers include Bitgo, Zengo, EigenLayer and Infosys. The tests will evaluate latency, key recovery procedures, compatibility with compliance controls and how the modular design integrates with institutional governance.

Practical quantum computers capable of breaking widely used signature algorithms do not yet exist. Standards bodies and vendors have published post-quantum algorithms and begun adoption work, and some institutions are pursuing staged upgrades to avoid a rushed migration if capable machines appear.

Andrei Bytes, co-founder and CTO of Silence Laboratories, offered the following comment: “Most existing systems still rely on signature schemes that were not built to withstand quantum threats. Using our quantum-safe MPC infrastructure, institutions can begin upgrading now, on their own timeline, rather than being forced into a rushed migration later.”

The company said the modular approach is intended to let institutions retain familiar MPC workflows while replacing only the signature layer, with the goal of minimizing operational changes and costs during the transition.