Citadel — Sovereign-Grade Cryptographic Custody

The Problem: Key Custody in Sovereign Banking

Public key cryptography revolutionized security in the 1970s. The math is rock-solid. RSA, elliptic curve, modern post-quantum algorithms—all excellent.

But there's still a vulnerability: the private keys themselves.

Banks store keys in Hardware Security Modules (HSMs)—hardened devices designed to make key theft extremely difficult. They rotate keys regularly. They limit access to authorized personnel.

But those HSMs live somewhere physical. On Earth. Where governments can demand access, where insiders can be coerced, where facilities can be compromised.

For most banking, this is fine. But for sovereign-level infrastructure—central bank settlements, cross-border clearing, systemically important financial utilities—traditional custody creates single points of failure.

What Sovereign Encryption Means

Sovereign encryption isn't about governments owning the keys. It's about keys that can't be unilaterally compromised by any single entity—including governments.

When a central bank authorizes a major settlement, or when a financial market utility signs off on a critical infrastructure change, the private key that authorizes that action is functionally the key to the kingdom.

If that key can be coerced, stolen, or demanded by legal order, the entire system has a hidden vulnerability.

Why This Matters Now

What Citadel Provides

Citadel is sovereign-grade cryptographic custody infrastructure. It's designed for institutions that need Root-of-Trust capabilities where traditional Earth-bound custody models create unacceptable single points of failure.

The technical architecture is confidential. What we can share:

• Keys aren't stored in any single jurisdiction
• No single institution can unilaterally access them
• Coercion becomes orders of magnitude harder through physical distribution and multi-party authorization
• The system remains auditable and legitimate, even under stress

This isn't a retail product. It's infrastructure-grade capability for central banks, financial market utilities, and systemically important settlement operators.