Walter Raquet (Symmatrics): Taking the courier-era one-time pad onto the internet

In this episode, I spoke with Walter Raquet, Chairman and CEO of Symmatrics, a company that has revived the one-time pad symmetric key encryption concept — once used exclusively by US intelligence agencies — and brought it to the internet age using quantum random number generators. Walter explained how their system eliminates passwords and reusable credentials by wrapping every transaction in unique keys that are used once and destroyed, making it fundamentally different from today's math-based asymmetric encryption that quantum computers threaten to break. We discussed their key distribution center, their hardware-based "quantum protected network," their patent portfolio covering one-time pad symmetric key use, and their ongoing work with NIST to achieve certification ahead of the government's 2027 quantum-resistance deadline.

Transcript

Yuval Boger: Hi, Walter, and thank you for joining me today.

Walter Raquet: It's a pleasure.

Yuval: So who are you and what do you do?

Walter: I'm the chairman and CEO of a company called Symmatrics. Symmatrics has the next encryption system for the globe. We're a symmetric key encryption system, as opposed to the entire world which is asymmetric — a system built on mathematical formulas which are broken. Currently, there was $10.5 trillion of cybercrime in 2025, going to $23 trillion in 2027. This is evidence that Asymmetric encryption is severely broken, and Symmatrics has the solution to eliminate most of that cybercrime.

Yuval: And what is the solution? What is a symmetric key?

Walter: Symmatrics technology is based on One Time Pad Symmetric Key. This is the technology that was used by the US government and all the three-letter agencies for about 50 years, from the early '50s to the early 2000s. But it involved sending a courier to two different people with two different pieces of paper. When they got back together, they could put the two pieces together and basically decrypt highly secret messages. It was always perfectly secure and perfectly secret, but it wasn't practical, so it was discontinued in the early 2000s.

Our founders decided to bring it to the internet. I met them in June of 2022, and they were working on the one-time pad symmetric key for the supply chain. I realized after a couple of hours that they had the perfect solution for cybersecurity. We pivoted the company, raised money, and then came out this year with two significant products. We have a key distribution center which can basically create trillions of these true random numbers, store billions, and distribute like eight million per second.

The uniqueness is that these numbers are not known to anyone, and they're used once and destroyed. That's basically the difference between what we do and everybody else. We eliminate passwords, user IDs — everybody else is using VPNs where they use the tunnels over and over again. They use the same credentials over and over again, and we don't do any of that. That's why we're called Symmatrics, because we're not based on any mathematical formula, and that's the reason why we're quantum secure. We believe we'll be quantum proof after we get enough systems out there. We think this is the next encryption standard for the world, and that's backed up by a lot of experts that agree with us.

Yuval: Since many of my guests talk about quantum computing, I want to go back a little bit to the basics just to make sure I understand and hopefully help the audience understand as well. So one time symmetric key — if you and I were in the same room, you could give me a note with the key on it, and then if we're at separate locations, we each know what the key is. No one else knows it, and —

Walter: Right.

Yuval: And that's good. And you described that until about 2000, that was used with three-letter agencies, and I'm guessing the problem was how do you distribute the key, right? How do you get that —

Walter: Well, yeah, the courier — the expense of the courier going to the people, and then the people having to get back together. It was always known as perfect security, but it was not practical anymore.

Yuval: And now you're saying with quantum key distribution, you could distribute that key electronically without using a courier?

Walter: That is correct.

Yuval: Now, I think there was a report from the US government some time ago where they were looking at post-quantum security, post-quantum cryptography and quantum key distribution and basically said, "We don't really trust this quantum key distribution as a long-term solution." Am I misremembering it, or how do you —

Walter: You know, I'm not familiar with what you're referring to, but basically what happened was the quantum random number generators really didn't come into play until the early 2020s. So you couldn't do this before that. You needed the true random numbers, which we now have, and we can basically create those at scale in a very cost-effective way. Three of the quantum random number generators that cost $6,000 to $8,000 apiece can create 10 trillion of these true random numbers on an annual basis. So it's a very low cost, cost-effective way of doing it.

Yuval: For generating the random numbers, but how about the distribution?

Walter: So we have what we call a QPN instead of a VPN. We have a quantum protected network. Basically there's a three-foot by three-foot box that holds all the equipment. The only connection is through our QPN, which is basically unhackable, unbreakable, and all the communications come from that.

Maybe a simple example would be — let's say you had an account at Chase Bank. Chase would send you a QR code in the mail. You would download that into your app through a whole secret process, and in your app you would have two random numbers. One would be an identification, one would be a transaction key. Chase would know your device, they would know those numbers, but you would not know those numbers. Then when you went on with a sophisticated biometric next time and wanted to do a transaction, we would wrap that transaction, depending on the length of the message, in as many keys as necessary. That would go to Chase, they would destroy those numbers, process your transaction, and send you secretly a new transaction key.

Yuval: You mentioned the three-foot box. So what do I need? If I'm Chase and I have a New York branch and a San Francisco branch and I want these two branches to be able to communicate securely on an ongoing basis or change the keys as often as I want, what do they have to do to get on the network?

Walter: Well, they would have these boxes in all their different data centers throughout the globe, which would enable them to communicate securely. Basically what we're able to do is transactions, data files — we can actually secure cell phone calls and also texts and emails. So it's a very wide range of applications, and those are really the areas where all this hacking takes place.

Yuval: Tell me a little bit about the company. Where are you headquartered? Roughly how many people? If there's a funding history.

Walter: Yeah. So right now we have about 20 people. We're located in Tysons Corner, Virginia. We also have a technical team with about 30 engineers in it. So as a group we're able to develop the products and service the customers as they come on board.

Yuval: And where is the uniqueness? I mean, the concept of one-time pad is old.

Walter: Yeah. So just to give you an idea, we filed the patents on the use of one-time pad symmetric keys. After we filed the patents, 76 other firms filed patents to use one-time pad symmetric key. We've had interviews with over 100 experts and they all agree that one-time pad symmetric key is the only thing that will prevent quantum from basically taking over. Those include Microsoft, Google, Intel, and a bunch of other major names. But they would have to license the technology from us in order to use one-time pad symmetric key.

Yuval: Is the product already deployed?

Walter: The product is in process now of being deployed. We finished it up in June of this year and we're in process of installing it on a trial basis for several companies.

Yuval: And how do you envision the price? Is it by the number of boxes that you sell or by the number of keys that you distribute?

Walter: Yeah, it'll basically be on the number of boxes that we sell, and it'll kind of depend on the use case and the amount of customization. The one thing is that we'll be able to secure any transaction — both current digital or the typical banking transaction or brokerage transaction — and be able to do that securely. With the advent of central bank digital currency, we'll be able to secure all those transactions also, and we can make every app on a smart device secure.

Yuval: Is there a limitation on exporting this box, or can it be used outside the US?

Walter: Yeah, obviously we're focused on the US, but we will basically make it available for the US and its allies.

Yuval: You've been with this company for three or four years now, if I remember correctly.

Walter: Yeah, it's four years, yeah.

Yuval: Four years. So how has the market changed in your view during these four years as it relates to encryption and key distribution?

Walter: Well, basically cybercrime has just gone through the roof. When I joined it was about $5 trillion, and then it was 10 and a half last year, going to 23 trillion. So it's like the fastest growing — if it was a company, it would be the fastest growing company. It'd be the fastest growing economy. It would be the world's second largest economy based on GDP. So it's a major problem now, and this is before quantum comes. When quantum computing comes, it's going to be millions of times faster than current computers, and they'll be able to break any of the current asymmetric encryption formulas. It's all based on math formulas. We're not based on math. We're a process.

Yuval: NIST, of course, has been working on post-quantum cryptography algorithms for a very long and involved process.

Walter: Right.

Yuval: You're basically saying that they're taking the wrong approach?

Walter: Well, it's interesting — we didn't fit into NIST's box because they were doing all asymmetric. Recently, however, we're working with NIST to get NIST certified, because basically the president came out with an edict that they wanted everybody to be quantum resistant by January 1st, 2027, and we have the only probably known technology that could actually make that happen.

Yuval: So —

Walter: So we're working with NIST. We are working with NIST very carefully to get certified.

Yuval: But an organization could also deploy post-quantum cryptography, one of the NIST algorithms. I guess you're saying that they could alternatively deploy your solution.

Walter: Yeah, I think our solution makes sense because it's the only way that we know to prevent quantum computing from destroying everything that exists. We firmly believe that we're quantum secure, but once our systems are out there, we'll be able to say quantum proof.

Yuval: And as we get close to the end of our discussion today, what are you hoping to achieve in the next year with the company?

Walter: Well, I'd like to have — basically we've been having a number of meetings with the White House and the government. We've also been talking to NVIDIA and Microsoft, and we would hope that we get significant adoption from these major companies. Microsoft would be an ideal candidate for our technology. They have the biggest footprint in the world, and they are the most hacked because of their size, and we have the solutions that they need.

Yuval: And last, a hypothetical that I ask all my guests: if you could have dinner with one of the quantum or cryptographic greats, whether dead or alive, who would that person be?

Walter: You know, certainly Claude Shannon was the inventor of this — obviously that was back in 1949. But I think I'd love to have dinner with the CEO of Microsoft and basically make him aware that we can fix their problems.

Yuval: Walter, thank you so much for joining me today.

Walter: Okay. All right, thanks.

Yuval Boger is the Chief Commercial Officer of QuEra Computing.