Jan Pleskač

For a bitcoin wallet, a crucial question is who can gain access to the secret keys needed to authorise payments. A Secure Element is a specialised security chip designed to protect sensitive data and work with it. Tropic Square’s TROPIC01 belongs to this category. Pleskač co-founded the company; its EPS Global partnership announcement on 19 February 2025 also identified him as CTO, or chief technology officer. His story begins with designing a component whose workings specialists should be able to investigate, rather than accept solely on the maker’s reputation. [1] [5]

On 1 April 2025, Tropic Square announced Pleskač’s return as CEO, or chief executive officer. He succeeded John Sirianni and was to focus more on strategy and the direction of its products. His technical experience now carried a different responsibility: beyond designing a chip, the business had to bring it to market and grow around it. The announcement explicitly recognised Sirianni’s contribution to finalising the patent and launching TROPIC01. Development continued on work that other people had already done. [2]

A further announcement on 12 May 2026 said Pleskač was stepping down as CEO while remaining a shareholder. The distinction matters: owning part of a company is different from running its daily operations. The announcement named Ladislav Veselý as interim CEO. The company linked the change to stronger business operations, preparation for investment and a broader product range. An older interview introducing Pleskač as chief executive therefore describes one stage of his work, not automatically the company’s current leadership. [3]

In its May 2026 announcement, the company credited Pleskač with an important role in taking TROPIC01 from concept to volume production. Co-founder Marek Palatinus praised the engineering foundation built by Pleskač and the team. Think of this as the journey from a design to a component that can repeatedly be manufactured, programmed and built into devices. An idea or one working prototype is not enough. Pleskač’s contribution matters within that wider effort; it does not mean he personally created every circuit, program and security test. [3]

The EPS Global partnership announced in February 2025 shows another part of the work: secure programming, chip provisioning and distribution. Knowing the design is only part of what a customer needs; the origin of the actual component also matters. The release describes the partner’s role in PKI, the public key infrastructure used to authenticate TROPIC01 chips. In simple terms, this is a system of cryptographic credentials and checks. It helps establish a chip’s provenance, without replacing an assessment of the whole device or how its maker integrated the chip. [1]

Technical development also has a public side. Tropic Square advertised Pleskač’s BTC Prague 2025 talk, scheduled for 20 June at 17:00, about how an open chip relates to Bitcoin. For a wallet user, the connection is practical: security involves the electronics inside the device as well as the application on its screen. The invitation documents the announced programme and subject. The speaker’s exact words or a particular technical promise would still need to be checked against a recording of the talk itself. [4]

Readers wanting to go beyond the founder’s biography can use the main TROPIC01 repository as a guide to technical materials. It describes a RISC-V core, the processor component that executes instructions, and SPECT, a specialised coprocessor for cryptographic calculations. It links to firmware, meaning the software running inside the chip, security reports and errata: lists of known defects and limitations. Documentation is organised by part number. Specialists can therefore examine a particular product version instead of inferring the whole project’s properties from a familiar name. [5]

Published materials let specialists look for flaws and independently review a design. Publication alone is not the result of a security audit, however. Tropic Square’s GitHub page also notes publication delays and components that cannot be disclosed because of third-party rights. Public files may therefore differ from a shipped chip at a particular time. Pleskač’s emphasis on more transparent hardware belongs alongside these limits: confidence comes from specific checks, version information and available findings, rather than the word open alone. [6]