Leon Okun: How Self-Custody Crypto Infrastructure is Changing the Game for SMEs

Over the course of the past several years, cryptocurrency has broken into the mainstream in surprising and unprecedented ways. The digitized currency was once the subject of disdain and scorn, but is now being actively integrated into and utilized by many of the biggest industries in the world. To this end, new voices are emerging regularly that are willing to take this bold new technology and apply it in new ways. A prime example of this is Leon Okun and his company, inabit. 

Unlike many founders who approach crypto from a purely trading or speculative background, his perspective is rooted in infrastructure, security, and operational reality. In this way, he focuses on how businesses actually use crypto day-to-day, not how it works in theory. inabit was built around self-custody by design, not as an add-on. This affords the company a fundamentally different approach to security, control, and risk management compared to custodial platforms, with a perspective that emphasizes ownership, resilience, and long-term sustainability rather than convenience at the expense of control.

Through these methods, inabit is striving to demystify crypto for small and medium-sized businesses and offer user-friendly, secure tools that remove the friction of traditional custodial platforms.

Origins of Innovation

The natural intersection of finance and software led Leon into the crypto space. He initially approached Bitcoin and crypto trading from a speculative perspective, but after being introduced to decentralized finance, he became fascinated by its broader potential uses. In his view, DeFi revealed a fundamentally new financial infrastructure rather than just an asset class.

As he initially explored where he could contribute meaningfully in this burgeoning new field, his early focus was on asset tokenization and on providing lending and credit against both digital and real-world collateral. These early use cases highlighted the operational and security challenges that businesses face when working with crypto at scale and would go on to have a significant impact on the establishment of inabit.

Using Crypto as a Tool

During this process, Leon realized how common it is for both companies and individuals to lose access to their wallets or mismanage private keys. This insight prompted him to carefully assess the major players in digital asset custody. From his viewpoint, it became evident that current solutions are not suited for everyday business use and pose substantial challenges for organizations adopting crypto.

This market gap led him to start inabit. From the outset, the goal was to build self-custodial technology that enables small and medium-sized businesses and financial institutions to securely and efficiently manage digital assets without sacrificing usability or control. The focus was on combining institutional-grade security with practical workflows that businesses can actually use.

Overcoming Obstacles

One of the company’s primary challenges was creating a self-custodial system that balances institutional security requirements with practical business use. To solve this, the team created its own proprietary technology, the Trusted Computing Mechanism (TCM), which securely protects private keys without depending on conventional custodians.

Building trust in a market dominated by large custodians was another challenge. Fortunately, the inabit team overcame it by focusing on transparency, rigorous security design, and validating technology through real-world deployments and enterprise use cases.

New Developments

Recently, inabit has grown into a crypto gateway and checkout solutions, enabling businesses to accept crypto payments directly into their own custody without third-party processors. This allows companies to maintain full control over their funds while also lowering complexity, counterparty risk, and middlemen. Essentially, inabit aims to help businesses treat crypto as a practical financial tool, not just speculation, while ensuring ownership, security, and clear operations.

In addition to crypto checkout and gateway capabilities, inabit also provides access to fiat on ramp and off ramp services through regulated third party partners. This allows businesses to seamlessly move between traditional currencies and digital assets while maintaining compliance and operational clarity. By integrating regulated on ramp and off ramp flows into its infrastructure, inabit enables companies to manage the full lifecycle of crypto payments and treasury operations without compromising on custody, control, or regulatory alignment.

Moving Forward

In the coming years, Leon Okun aspires to see inabit become a foundational layer for how businesses interact with digital assets. The goal is to make secure self-custody the default standard for enterprises, not the exception. Long-term, he aims to help shape an ecosystem where crypto infrastructure is as reliable, secure, and intuitive as traditional financial systems and payment orchestrations, while preserving the core principles of ownership and decentralization.

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