SVRN COO David Schwed sat down with the Station70 podcast for an unfiltered read on where crypto security actually stands, and why the threats that should worry institutions usually aren't the ones their teams are defending against.
He has been CISO at Galaxy Digital and Robinhood, Global Head of Digital Assets Technology at BNY Mellon, and COO at Halborn. In this conversation he lays out why so much of the industry settles for security theater, and what works instead.
What David covers
- Why Web3 has a security theater problem, and what real security looks like
- How nation-state hackers spent weeks earning his trust before getting him to click a single link
- Why your engineers are not your security team
- What traditional finance figured out about process that crypto still ignores
- The architecture crypto disaster recovery actually requires
- Why most CISOs get rolled over, and the one skill that changes that
- Why crypto theft in 2026 will be worse than last year
Watch the full conversation above, or on YouTube. Produced by Station70.
■ overview
May 29, 2026
SVRN COO David Schwed on why crypto's worst threats aren't technical, from nation-state social engineering to the security theater that passes for safety.
