When you speak with Oded Blatman, you immediately sense the weight of his responsibility – not metaphorically, but literally. Fireblocks, where Blatman serves as CIO and CISO, is on track to process five trillion dollars in digital asset transactions this year alone. In an industry where one exploit can erase billions in minutes, security is not a feature – it is the foundation.
Blatman’s path into this role is a journey through three worlds: entrepreneurship, national security, and cloud-scale SaaS. He began his career in Israel’s defense ecosystem, building programs meant to withstand nation-state adversaries. He then transitioned to the cloud era as CIO and CISO of ClickSoftware, helping the company overcome its security debt and ultimately complete a $1.4B acquisition by Salesforce. Later, he led security for Israel’s largest bank. Each phase layered technical depth with operational realism.
Fireblocks, he told me, was the first place where all those worlds converged. “Fireblocks was born out of security,” he said. “Everyone here – from the founders down – is security-minded. We walk the talk.” In a market where exchanges lose over a billion dollars in a single breach, that mindset is existential.
The financial world is shifting in front of us, Blatman argued – not slowly, but in real time. Stablecoins, once considered fringe, are now being adopted by global banks, payment processors, and Fortune 500 institutions. Of Fireblocks’ multi-trillion-dollar annual volume, nearly $3 trillion is expected to be stablecoin transactions, with half of that flowing through payments. “What SWIFT did in days, blockchain can now do in seconds,” he said. “Transparent, programmable, secure transfers – 24/7. It’s not theory anymore. It’s happening.”
But this efficiency and programmability come with new dangers. In traditional banking, mistakes can be reversed. On blockchain, transactions are irreversible. An insider error, or a malicious actor with developer access, can move millions – permanently. As Blatman pointed out, the same programmability that enables smart payments also enables sophisticated attacks. Malware injected into wallet software or business logic can silently reroute funds with perfect syntactic validity.
This is why understanding business logic is becoming as important as understanding vulnerabilities. It’s a theme echoed by Nitay Milner of Orion Security, who told me that anomaly detection alone is no longer enough – everything now “looks normal” in a world of deepfakes and AI-assisted code generation. And like Elik Etzion described in our conversation, the attacker’s offensive toolkit now includes AI-driven reconnaissance, social engineering, and code manipulation at a scale impossible just five years ago.
Blatman sees this shift clearly. Beyond nation-state-grade external threats, he is equally focused on insider risk – both the deliberate and the accidental. Remote and distributed workforces have expanded the attack surface. AI-powered deepfake interviews and fraudulent candidates are no longer hypothetical. He described coordinated campaigns, such as North Korea’s “dream job” operations, targeting developers in crypto companies. “If your DevOps team writes smart contract code that moves money,” he said, “that makes them one of the most attractive targets in cybersecurity today.”
Fireblocks responded by building not just a secure platform, but secure business rails. Their Transaction Authorization Policy (TAP) allows companies to define granular, programmable guardrails – when money can move, under what conditions, and who must approve it. Combined with multi-party computation and a dedicated operational security unit built to bank-grade standards, Fireblocks is designing the security architecture for financial institutions entering the blockchain era.
Ultimately, Blatman believes that the future of cybersecurity in finance will be defined by the ability to understand data, intent, and business logic – not just anomalies. The role of the CISO, he argues, is evolving faster here than anywhere else. “The organization will run on AI,” he said. “The attackers will run on AI. If the CISO doesn’t understand AI – deeply – he or she will already be behind.”
Watching Fireblocks process trillions on infrastructure that barely existed twenty years ago makes one thing clear: digital finance is no longer emerging – it is here. And the leaders who understand both the opportunity and the responsibility, like Blatman, are defining the playbook for securing it.
Michael Matias is the CEO and Co-Founder of Clarity, an AI-powered cybersecurity startup backed by venture capital firms including Bessemer Venture Partners and Walden Catalyst. Clarity develops advanced AI technologies protecting organizations from sophisticated phishing attacks and AI-generated social engineering threats, including deepfakes. Before founding Clarity, Matias studied Computer Science with a specialization in AI at Stanford University and led cybersecurity teams in Unit 8200 of the Israel Defense Forces. Forbes Israel recognized him early on, naming him to the exclusive 18Under18 list in 2013 and the Forbes 30Under30 list thereafter. Matias authored the book Age is Only an Int and hosts the podcast 20MinuteLeaders.
