ETHSofia · Oct 6, 2026

Galin Dimitrov, cybersecurity engineer and founding member of Superteam Ireland, traces four eras of crypto theft: scams such as OneCoin and BitConnect, smart contract exploits like The DAO and Wormhole, attacks on people as in Ronin and Bybit, and now AI coding agents. He walks through the Drift Protocol hack, which began with a fake trading firm approaching the team at a conference and ended six months later with $285 million drained in minutes. He then shows how malicious skills, poisoned npm packages and hijacked agent CLIs reach builders' keys, citing Anthropic's figure that users approve 93% of permission prompts, and closes with three rules: keep keys out of reach, treat every add-on as a stranger, and use a sandbox. Keynote at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Galin Dimitrov, Cybersecurity Engineer & Web3 Growth Lead, Founding Member, Superteam Ireland Galin Dimitrov is a cybersecurity engineer with a BSc in Cyber Security and Digital Forensics from TU Dublin and six years at Fidelity Investments, where he secured and monitored 800+ production database servers and led Splunk-based incident response. He has also spent over a decade leading Web3 growth across agencies, Master Ventures and HYPE Partners, and is a founding member of Superteam Ireland. Today he builds AI and onchain products as a solo founder and has won several hackathons, including the Solana Privacy Hackathon. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/galindimitrovvv Chapters 00:00 The new insider, hidden in plain sight 01:30 Four eras of getting robbed in crypto 02:52 Era one: the scam is the product 04:20 Era two: attacking the code 05:32 Era three: targeting people (Ronin, Bybit) 06:43 Case study: the Drift Protocol hack 09:47 Era four: AI agents on your machine 11:23 Why 93% of prompts get approved 12:36 Three doors in: skills, npm and your agent CLI 14:14 Already happening: real losses 15:20 Three OPSEC rules for builders 17:10 Closing: read before you approve 17:44 Closing titles Blockchain Week Bulgaria: https://www.blockchainweek.bg ETHSofia: https://www.ethsofia.com Future Finance Forum: https://www.blockchainweek.bg/f3 Follow Blockchain Week Bulgaria X: https://x.com/BWBulgaria LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockchain-week-bulgaria Follow ETHSofia X: https://x.com/EthSofiaBG LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ethsofia Telegram: https://t.me/+b-33LJUpAB5iODNk Nothing in this video is financial advice. About the organiser Blockchain Week Bulgaria, ETHSofia and the Future Finance Forum are organised by the Bithope Foundation, founded in 2014 by Vladislav Dramaliev. Inspired by Andreas Antonopoulos, it is Europe's first non-profit operating exclusively with bitcoin donations. Over more than ten years, it has supported 50+ charitable campaigns, and in January 2016 it co-founded the Sofia Crypto Meetup, now the region's longest-running monthly crypto event. https://bithope.org

ETHSofia · Oct 6, 2026

Martin Leinweber of MarketVector Indexes draws on index data back to 2015 and more than 2,300 tokens to argue that crypto rewards size, not speculation. The top ten coins hold roughly 90% of market cap, there is no small-cap premium, and a liquid micro-cap basket lost about 19% a year. He shows which coins held up in both bull and bear markets, why privacy is a strong theme, and why DeFi, at 2% of market cap but 65% of on-chain fees, looks mispriced. He expects stablecoins, tokenisation and AI agents to drive a fundamentals-led altcoin cycle, and explains the fees-and-users methodology behind his Token Terminal index. Keynote at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Martin Leinweber, CFA, Head of Digital Asset Research and Strategy, MarketVector Indexes Martin Leinweber leads digital asset research at MarketVector Indexes, developing index products and institutional research, and serving as the firm's primary voice on crypto markets globally. He brings nearly two decades of portfolio management experience across equities, fixed income, and alternatives. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-leinweber-cfa-7758b012b Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:19 Twelve years of data on 2,300 tokens 01:03 Crypto is concentrated: the top 10 hold 90% 02:13 No size premium in crypto 03:21 Micro caps: the pump and dump that works on paper 04:26 The most consistent coins in bull and bear markets 06:54 Screening for relative strength: the privacy theme 09:01 What the leaders share: revenue and users 10:02 On-chain fundamentals: DeFi is 2% of cap, 65% of fees 11:19 Stablecoins, tokenisation and AI agents 13:49 The Token Terminal top 10 index 15:45 Prediction: a fundamentals-driven altcoin cycle 17:30 Q&A: The index methodology 19:46 Closing titles Blockchain Week Bulgaria: https://www.blockchainweek.bg ETHSofia: https://www.ethsofia.com Future Finance Forum: https://www.blockchainweek.bg/f3 Follow Blockchain Week Bulgaria X: https://x.com/BWBulgaria LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockchain-week-bulgaria Follow ETHSofia X: https://x.com/EthSofiaBG LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ethsofia Telegram: https://t.me/+b-33LJUpAB5iODNk Nothing in this video is financial advice. About the organiser Blockchain Week Bulgaria, ETHSofia and the Future Finance Forum are organised by the Bithope Foundation, founded in 2014 by Vladislav Dramaliev. Inspired by Andreas Antonopoulos, it is Europe's first non-profit operating exclusively with bitcoin donations. Over more than ten years, it has supported 50+ charitable campaigns, and in January 2016 it co-founded the Sofia Crypto Meetup, now the region's longest-running monthly crypto event. https://bithope.org

ETHSofia · Oct 6, 2026

With Sally Meouche - Ghrawi (4PTO Labs, moderator), Jordan Duclos (Truflation) and Dragomir Dikov (Jungle Trade). The last session of the day follows the chain from raw market data to a trading decision. Jordan Duclos explains how Truflation turns around 100 million daily data points into some 500 live indexes, arguing that monthly government inflation figures are too slow and that in finance latency is death. Dragomir Dikov of Jungle Trade argues that market noise is worth analysing rather than discarding, that every signal should carry an explicit confidence level, and that full trading automation is inevitable but premature today. Moderated by Sally Meouche - Ghrawi, the panel debates where the edge lies and whether shared AI models lead to correlated strategies, with Dikov naming trust as the scarce resource in three years and Duclos betting on real-time data as markets move to 24/7 trading. Panel at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Sally Meouche - Ghrawi, Founder and CEO, 4PTO Labs (moderator) Sally Meouche-Ghrawi is Founder & CEO of 4 Point O (4PTO) Labs, building across AI, fintech and Web3, and Co-Founder of Buildrooms, Bulgaria’s first Web3 hub. She works with startups, protocols and enterprises on emerging tech, product development and market strategy. LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/sallymg ▸ Jordan Duclos, Head of Growth, Truflation Jordan is Head of Growth at Truflation. After starting his career in SaaS, helping banks and public institutions improve customer engagement, he moved into blockchain, working across the Ethereum and Bitcoin ecosystems. At Truflation, he focuses on making inflation and economic data more accessible through clear, impactful storytelling. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-duclos-b48b72153 ▸ Dragomir Dikov, CEO, Jungle Trade Dragomir Dikov is Co-founder and CEO of JLabs, the team behind Jungle Trade, building trading technology and market-analysis tools. He holds a master's degree in Structural Engineering and has 15+ years of experience in geotechnical modelling and structural design. He is a Python programmer and quantitative data scientist focused on probability and stochastic modelling. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dragomir-dikov Chapters 00:00 Introduction: from data to decision 00:57 What has been missing in market data? 02:43 Is market noise useful? 03:57 Real-time inflation data 07:16 Regime shifts 08:45 Signals and confidence 09:54 Where is the edge? 14:43 From analysis to autonomous trading 16:25 Prediction markets as a signal 20:16 What if everyone uses the same models? 21:41 Three years out: where will the scarcity be? 25:54 Q&A: Can human traders compete with machines? 28:35 Q&A: Buy data and signals or build your own? Blockchain Week Bulgaria: https://www.blockchainweek.bg ETHSofia: https://www.ethsofia.com Future Finance Forum: https://www.blockchainweek.bg/f3 Follow Blockchain Week Bulgaria X: https://x.com/BWBulgaria LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockchain-week-bulgaria Follow ETHSofia X: https://x.com/EthSofiaBG LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ethsofia Telegram: https://t.me/+b-33LJUpAB5iODNk Nothing in this video is financial advice. About the organiser Blockchain Week Bulgaria, ETHSofia and the Future Finance Forum are organised by the Bithope Foundation, founded in 2014 by Vladislav Dramaliev. Inspired by Andreas Antonopoulos, it is Europe's first non-profit operating exclusively with bitcoin donations. Over more than ten years, it has supported 50+ charitable campaigns, and in January 2016 it co-founded the Sofia Crypto Meetup, now the region's longest-running monthly crypto event. https://bithope.org

Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · Sep 9, 2026

Haun Ventures General Partner Diogo Mónica joins ETHGlobal Co-Founder and CEO Kartik Talwar to discuss crypto’s progression from secure custody to full capital-markets infrastructure. Drawing on his experience co-founding Anchorage, Mónica explains why the company paired advanced security with a federal banking framework and how regulated institutions compound trust, capital, and operating capability over time. The conversation asks where crypto-native value accrues as traditional financial firms adopt blockchain technology and whether banks, infrastructure providers, or open protocols will capture the next phase of growth. Mónica explains that Anchorage was designed around two requirements that institutional customers could not separate: cryptographic security and a regulatory structure they understood. Becoming a federally chartered bank created long-term obligations but also allowed the company to compound trust, capital, products, and customer relationships. They explore product ideas at the intersection of crypto, artificial intelligence, payments, and verifiable digital activity. AI systems create new demand for cryptographically verifiable records of model behavior, reasoning, and outputs, even if many experiments serve narrow markets before reaching scale. Mónica also reflects on moving from operator to investor and on evaluating businesses across the ecosystem. His advice to founders is durable and category-agnostic: work on a real problem, understand the customer, keep experimenting through difficult cycles, and make something people want. Infrastructure succeeds when it converts technical possibility into a product institutions or users repeatedly choose. The discussion then turns to emerging infrastructure that may create new demand. Mónica argues that model behavior and outputs can be recorded in indelible ledgers with cryptographic signatures, and that zero-knowledge proofs are becoming efficient enough to verify computation. The conversation also points to Cloudflare’s work on bringing payment mechanisms and verification into the network stack. 00:00 Introduction to Diogo Mónica 01:12 From Anchorage Founder to Investor 01:39 Balancing Investing and Operating 02:17 Professionalizing Angel Investing 02:59 Business Curiosity Beyond Anchorage 03:15 The Long Path to a Federal Charter 04:12 Anchorage and the Trust Bank Model 04:29 New Tailwinds for Modern Banks 05:07 The Cost of Regulatory Resistance 05:45 Security, Regulation, and Compounding 06:34 Crypto Extends Traditional Finance 06:59 Where Financial Value Accrues 07:43 Self-Custodial Financial Products 08:14 Faster Access to Financial Licenses 08:34 Crypto Neobanks and Card Products 09:47 Stablecoins Replace Whitelists 11:12 Libra and New Currency Experiments 12:02 Why Unlikely Experiments Are Worth Trying 12:18 Consortium Coins for Commerce 13:13 Distribution as Part of Product Design 13:48 Open Areas in Financial Infrastructure 15:09 Cryptographic Records for AI Models 15:53 Zero-Knowledge Proofs for AI Outputs 16:44 Economic Incentives for Intelligent Agents 18:07 Verifying the Internet Stack 18:28 Cloudflare and Network-Level Payments 19:13 What Founders Ask Investors 20:14 Security and the Basics of Building 20:56 Advice Through Difficult Market Cycles 21:36 Build Companies, Not Crypto Projects 22:36 Stablecoin Neobanks and Dollar Access 22:54 From Dollars to Tokenized Stocks 23:27 Make Something People Want _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *Pragma Lisbon 2026* Pragma Lisbon 2026 was held on June 25th at the Carlos Lopes Pavillion in Lisbon, Portugal and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Lisbon 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxB4xW8JYdk ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Haun Ventures X: https://x.com/HaunVentures ✅ Follow Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

ETHGlobal · Sep 9, 2026

Marcelo Kunze, Co-founder of Frames, shares what the team learned from settling roughly 500,000 payments initiated by AI agents. He traces the product from an ETHGlobal finalist project through accelerators and a rebrand, describing an early prompt-based system that hid wallets, passphrases, and payment mechanics from users. Demand centered on paid data and API tools, such as social monitoring, lead enrichment, and brand intelligence, but rapid growth exposed a core problem: agents could discover many endpoints without knowing which tools were reliable or appropriate for a specific task. Kunze uses the Michelin Guide as an analogy for products that begin by helping a new market grow and later become valuable infrastructure in their own right. Frames followed a similar path. The early system made agent payments possible through a portable prompt, then the team observed what people actually purchased. Data services dominated, but manual endpoint selection and paid requests that sometimes returned empty results prevented agents from reliably completing larger workflows. Frames used its transaction history to train a model that understands endpoint quality and handles routing, execution, payment, and validation as one workflow. A reliability system ranks tools as transactions succeed or fail, allowing performance to improve with usage and creating data that general web search cannot reproduce. Kunze positions Frames F1 as infrastructure for work beyond the public web: models can ask for an outcome while the system chooses and pays the right service. The lesson from agentic commerce is that payment rails matter, but dependable discovery and verified execution are what turn a directory of tools into a useful market. The accumulated payment history became a proprietary training and evaluation set. Frames can see which tools were selected, whether they executed successfully, what result was returned, and how often an endpoint failed for a particular task. That evidence supports routing and validation decisions that a general model cannot infer from documentation or search results alone. Kunze presents the system as an adaptive market for machine services. 00:00 Introduction and Michelin Guide Analogy 00:48 Discovery and Trust for Agent Payments 01:34 MCPay Begins at ETHGlobal Prague 02:02 From Finalist to Accelerator Support 02:42 Building a Wallet for AI Agents 03:12 A Curated Registry of Paid Tools 03:48 Prompt-Based Wallet Abstraction 04:14 Lessons From Five Hundred Thousand Payments 04:52 Demand for Data and Enrichment APIs 05:20 The Endpoint Selection Problem 06:03 Paying for Empty API Results 06:36 Replacing the Guide With a Smart Engine 07:22 Building a Composite Model 08:29 Fine-Tuning on Transaction History 08:55 Routing, Execution, and Payment 09:20 Validating Results Before Charging 09:48 Tool Reliability From Success and Failure 10:20 Live Options Data Example 10:48 Frames F1 and Proprietary Data 11:14 Comparing Frames With General Models 11:48 Why Agents Choose Reliable Companies _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *Pragma Lisbon 2026* Pragma Lisbon 2026 was held on June 25th at the Carlos Lopes Pavillion in Lisbon, Portugal and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Lisbon 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxB4xW8JYdk ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Angelo Min X: https://x.com/angelomint ✅ Follow Lighthouse X: https://x.com/LighthouseOne_ ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal New York 2026, Kim Luu and Eric Tesenair from Dynamic set hackers up for the weekend, introducing the team, the product, the prize tracks, hacker resources, and a live demo of the newest product, Fireblocks Flow. Kim, who recently joined Dynamic and Fireblocks in developer relations, explains that Dynamic was acquired by Fireblocks last October, so building with Dynamic means building on infrastructure backed by Fireblocks, through which about 15% of all global crypto and stablecoin transactions are secured and moved, giving projects real security and trust from the start, with customers like Kraken and Flutterwave. At its core, Dynamic provides non-custodial wallet infrastructure that scales, handling login, wallets, signing, and on-chain UX so builders integrate once and go straight to building, covering over 100 chains and 800+ wallets across EVM and non-EVM chains like Solana, Bitcoin, Sui, and Flow. Kim points to dynamic.xyz/docs and a hacker cheat sheet as the home base, stressing the one-click MCP install that drops Dynamic's docs into AI assistants like Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex so they write accurate code. She walks through around $10,000 in prizes across five tracks: best use of Flow ($3,000), best agent build, best on-chain app, best wallet glow up (the continuity track), and a best private nano payments app built jointly with Unlink and Arc using Circle. Eric then demos Fireblocks Flow, whose pitch is accept any crypto, settle in any stablecoin, with one SDK, using DeFi protocols (via LiFi under the hood) rather than acting as liquidity provider. He walks through three nearly identical flows: a merchant checkout (buying a 10-cent backstage pass, paying in ETH on Base settling to USDC), a deposit flow for apps like prediction markets or games, and a more complex withdrawal flow using Dynamic's embedded wallet product, connecting external wallets and exchanges like Kraken via native wallet providers. He shows both the SDK and API integration paths (create checkout, add transaction and buyer source with watchlist checks, get a quote, sign and broadcast, await settlement via webhooks), notes Flow supports most EVM chains plus Solana, Tron, and Bitcoin, and closes with Q&A on testnet limitations and building stablecoin-backed cards with providers like Rain. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Welcome to the Dynamic Workshop 00:39 The Plan for the Session 01:05 Meet the Dynamic Team 01:47 Acquired by Fireblocks 02:12 The Fintechs and Enterprises That Trust Dynamic 02:30 What Is Dynamic 02:42 Before and After Dynamic 03:07 Over 100 Chains and 800 Wallets 03:33 Your Home Base: The Docs and Cheat Sheet 03:54 Why to Install the MCP for Your Agent 04:22 The Prize Tracks and $10,000 in Prizes 04:47 Best Agent Build and On-Chain App 05:08 Best Wallet Glow Up and Nano Payments 05:38 What Fireblocks Flow Is 06:33 Handing Off to Eric for the Demo 06:40 Setting Up the Flow Demo 07:11 Why You Might Want to Use Your Meme Coins 07:33 The Three Flows Explained 08:49 The Checkout Flow 09:12 Connecting Wallets and Exchanges 10:04 How the Conversion Works Under the Hood 10:43 Integrating With the SDK 12:09 Integrating With the API 12:29 Webhooks and Out-of-the-Box Wallet Lists 12:48 The Deposit Flow 14:06 The Withdrawal Flow With Embedded Wallets 14:55 Why You Need an Embedded Wallet 15:35 Q&A: Which Chains Flow Supports 16:10 Q&A: Testing on Testnets 16:38 Q&A: Building Stablecoin-Backed Cards 18:44 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal New York 2026, Leonardo Cascianelli from LI.FI introduces Composer, the project LI.FI is sponsoring for the hackathon, and walks through its interaction pattern. Composer is essentially a compiler that lets you execute complex DeFi strategies in one atomic transaction. You define a declarative flow in JSON (a simple embedded DSL), and Composer transforms it into something executable with one click on chain, pre-simulating everything so you learn your expected outputs, gas usage, and whether the transaction will fail. He motivates it with a common pain point: wanting to chain a swap, a vault deposit, and a stake or restake often ships as multiple transactions needing a coordinator to feed each output into the next. People try to solve this with multicall, but multicall does not give real data flow (you must hardcode intermediary values), so it is flaky. Composer instead defines the whole flow in one spot and passes intermediate values through automatically. Leo walks through a simple flow performing a swap and a zap (staking into a vault) using the TypeScript SDK, though any language that produces JSON works. He explains declaring inputs (like wrapped ETH as an ERC-20 resource via direct deposit from an EOA), the nodes that transform resources (swap WETH to USDC, then zap USDC to staked USDC), and optional guards that set minimum amounts. He covers the account model, where each signer (EOA, safe, or smart wallet) gets a dedicated auto-deployed user proxy that isolates approvals, with execution via delegate call to LI.FI's on-chain virtual machine. He details the simple API surface (the /compose endpoint plus manifest and zaps metadata routes, authenticated with an API key from the LI.FI portal), whose response returns the transaction to send yourself, required approvals, and dangling output resources. For the hackathon he previews new operations on a dedicated ETHGlobal deployment, including a cross-venue migration demo (moving an Aave position to Morpho in one flow) where flash loan complexity is abstracted away via materializers, supporting Aave V3, Balancer V2, Morpho, and ERC-3156 flash loan providers. He points agents to an llms.txt file and a repo of 30+ examples, invites AI, UX, and dev tooling builds, and closes with Q&A on targeting any smart contract, chain availability, and third-party contract whitelisting. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Meet Leo and Composer 00:42 How the Declarative JSON Flow Works 00:58 Pre-Simulating Outputs, Gas, and Failures 01:08 The Multi-Transaction Pain Point 01:36 Why Multicall Falls Short 02:03 The JSON Specification and Embedded DSL 02:30 A Simple Swap and Zap Flow 02:50 Declaring Your Inputs 03:18 The Nodes That Transform Resources 03:42 Using Guards for Minimum Amounts 04:04 The User Proxy Account Model 04:27 Execution via Delegate Call 04:37 The API Surface and Endpoints 04:51 Authentication and the API Key 05:21 What the Compilation Response Returns 05:41 Exposing Dangling Resources 05:53 New Operations for the Hackathon 06:11 The Cross-Venue Migration Demo 06:49 Abstracting Flash Loans With Materializers 07:09 The Three Beats of a Migration 07:30 The Preview Deployment and Supported Protocols 07:56 Pointing Your Agents to llms.txt 08:22 The Repo of 30+ Examples 08:44 What You Can Build With Composer 09:19 Q&A: Targeting Any Smart Contract 11:01 Q&A: Partners and Chain Availability 11:39 Q&A: Third-Party Contract Whitelisting 12:00 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal New York 2026, Alvaro Lillo, a solutions engineer on Sui's builder growth team, walks hackers through the Sui prizes and, most importantly, how to integrate Walrus, Sui's decentralized storage solution, with EVM dApps. Alongside his colleague Ralph at the booth, he shares a collection of resources, starting with example integrations showing how to swap a typical IPFS or Filecoin setup for Walrus in common use cases. He highlights a newly released product, Walrus Memory, built on top of Walrus for storing encrypted memories from AI agents, which he suggests is useful for anyone doing agent work. He also points to a Sui plugin that helps implement anything on the Sui stack by injecting the docs (noting it is token-expensive, so use it deliberately) and integrating a Move language server, which is handy since that is not built into Claude Code, the tool he hopes most hackers will use this weekend. Alvaro explains how the prizes are structured around the hackathon's two main tracks. For the existing project track, the focus is on projects swapping their decentralized storage integration for Walrus, judged primarily on product-market fit rather than novel uses of Move, since the goal is products with existing traction and users that are ready to go to market. A portion of the pool is reserved for the new project track, where builders can create anything entirely on Sui using Move or integrating Walrus or another part of the stack. He points to links, faucets for testnet tokens, and QR codes at the booth. In an extended Q&A, he clarifies that Walrus is programmable decentralized storage infrastructure (not a single product), that the decentralized cloud people remember is just a product built on top of it (like Walrus Harbor), that Walrus is far faster than IPFS and Arweave on both uploads and retrievals, and that it can store anything, not just web3 data. He explains Walrus is built using Sui, relying on Sui's smart contracts to coordinate storage, and that Sui's object-oriented model provides built-in security around digital assets, making access control and complex data structures much easier to manage than in Solidity, before sending everyone off to build. 00:00 Introduction 00:12 Welcome to the Sui Workshop 00:45 Meet Alvaro and Ralph at the Booth 01:14 A Collection of Resources to Check 01:14 Integrating Walrus With EVM dApps 01:46 Introducing Walrus Memory for Agents 02:20 The Sui Plugin and Move Language Server 02:49 Why It Helps Claude Code Users 03:20 How the Prizes Are Structured 03:46 The Existing Project Track and Product-Market Fit 04:13 The New Project Track on Sui 04:46 Links, Faucets, and Testnet Tokens 05:14 Q&A: What Excites You the Most 06:07 Q&A: How to Think About Walrus Today 06:59 Walrus as Programmable Storage Infrastructure 07:16 Q&A: Building Without Walrus 07:40 Q&A: Help With Move Coding 08:06 Q&A: Walrus vs IPFS and Arweave 08:31 Q&A: Faster Uploads and Retrievals 08:52 Q&A: Is Walrus Only for Web3 09:07 Q&A: How Walrus Uses Sui 09:29 Q&A: Sui's Object-Oriented Model 10:08 Why Access Control Is Easier Than Solidity 10:31 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal New York 2026, Meghna Mehta and Andrew Warner from Privy present updated interfaces for modern money management and movement, plus the hackathon bounties. Meghna, a product manager who came from mining and years at Coinbase, and Andrew, a forward deployed engineer and former Privy customer who started in finance at BlackRock, introduce Privy as secure, scalable wallet infrastructure that lets you spin up embedded wallets in applications or server-side payments infrastructure. Privy has over 2,000 applications and 120 million users and processes around $15 billion a month in stablecoin and native currency transfers. They highlight three recently launched products: deposit addresses, Privy Earn, and an agent CLI. Andrew details the agent CLI and its skill, which gives Claude and Codex agents complete access to Privy's SDKs and APIs to fund wallets, send transactions, and sign messages while the developer stays in the loop controlling funding and access. Agents authenticate into an embedded wallet through a short-lived, per-transaction ephemeral signing key that can be revoked anytime, with policies to prevent malicious behavior or draining. Meghna covers deposit addresses (launched two weeks earlier): persistent per-user EVM addresses that let anyone send any asset on any chain, automatically bridging and swapping to a single canonical token on a canonical chain with no KYC or verification flows and broad asset support. She then covers Privy Earn, a simplified interface to leading on-chain yield providers like Morpho, letting you deposit, withdraw, and track balances via a single API call, with spending out of the balance coming later. She frames Privy as building financial infrastructure where wallets are just a starting point. In a long Q&A, they share exciting builders (Deel's stablecoin accounts paying contractors in Argentina with yield via a Morpho vault, and Ramp's business accounts), discuss potentially integrating ENS for easier send destinations, custom Earn partnerships, and the technical side of their roughly 20-millisecond server-side signing latency (down from 100), achieved by moving from client-side key reconstitution to a secure AWS Nitro Enclave with websocket infrastructure, parallelized pre-checks, and global regional coverage. They also explain Shamir secret sharing (splitting keys into shards reconstituted in memory then destroyed) and a bring-your-own-cloud option for institutional customers, and note Privy supports over 40 EVM and SVM chains. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Meet Meghna and Andrew 00:56 What Is Privy 01:15 Privy by the Numbers 01:37 The Three Newly Launched Products 01:57 Introducing Privy Earn 02:22 The Agent CLI 02:44 How Agent Wallets Work 03:23 Staying in the Loop With Policies 03:47 Ephemeral Per-Transaction Signing Keys 04:06 How the Skill File Empowers Agents 04:26 Deposit Addresses Explained 04:41 Persistent Per-User Addresses 05:02 Automated Bridging and Swapping 05:23 No KYC and Universal Asset Support 05:54 Embedded Yield With Privy Earn 06:17 A Simplified Interface to Yield Providers 06:37 Deposit, Withdraw, and Track Balances 06:54 Why Wallets Are Just the Starting Point 07:17 Q&A: The Most Exciting Projects 08:01 How Deel Powers Global Stablecoin Accounts 09:05 How Ramp Uses Privy for Businesses 09:32 Q&A: Integrating ENS 10:38 Q&A: Custom Earn Integrations 11:19 Q&A: What the 20ms Latency Means 12:00 Moving to Server-Side Signing 12:39 What the 20 Milliseconds Covers 13:23 How Websockets and Enclaves Cut Latency 14:03 Global Regional Coverage 14:23 Q&A: Shamir Secret Sharing 15:42 How Key Shards Are Reconstituted 16:06 Bring Your Own Cloud for Key Storage 16:28 Q&A: How Many Chains Are Supported 17:36 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal New York 2026, Mateo Sauton from Tools for Humanity, the company building tools for World, presents a world of human possibilities, walking through several products for hackers to build on plus the hackathon tracks. He frames the core insight: the goal was never just to prove someone is a human on the internet but to know there is a human behind an internet interaction, which matters now that roughly 45 to 50% of internet traffic is bots. He describes World entering phase three of its plan, where World ID is reliable enough that enterprises like Tinder, DocuSign, Zoom, Okta, and Vercel are adopting it, and where World App has 38 million total users, 18 million verified humans, and around 7.5 million active users. He notes the Mini Kit SDK for building mini apps (third-party sites inside World App that leverage its distribution) but focuses on other SDKs. Mateo details the star product, World ID, used via the ID Kit SDK, which proves you are a unique human without revealing any information using zero knowledge technology, with three credential tiers (the Orb iris scan being most reliable, then passport, then face) verifiable on-chain or in cloud across many languages. He then introduces Agent Kit, which adds a World ID to an agent's wallet and registers it in an agent book mapping humans to agents, so a human can back multiple agents. Its three capabilities are acting for a human with a human in the loop (for example, requiring approval before an agent trades over $1,000), agentic commerce via a Shopify integration, and an x402 challenge flow where a server verifies an agent's signature against the agent book. Because the unit of trust is the human, not the wallet, spinning up more agents gives no advantage since rate limits and free trials tie back to one person. He previews Proof Kit, a new open source Rust-like DSL for writing zero knowledge circuits with Noir, proven client-side and post-quantum secure. He shares case studies (the Shopify unique-human hat, credit.cash offering undercollateralized anonymous credit to verified humans, Morpho giving unique humans increased yield, and Tinder giving verified humans boosts), lays out four tracks (Agent Kit, World ID use cases, continuity, and Proof Kit), and closes with an extended Q&A on privacy, per-website isolation, and how the iris hash prevents duplicate verification. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Meet Mateo and Tools for Humanity 00:55 Proving a Human Is Behind the Interaction 01:17 Why Bots Are Half of Internet Traffic 02:13 Entering Phase Three of the Project 02:53 Becoming the Biggest Human Financial Network 03:19 World App by the Numbers 03:45 The Mini Kit SDK and Mini Apps 04:08 Enterprises Building on World 04:54 The Star Product: World ID 05:23 Proving You Are a Unique Human 06:01 The Three Credential Tiers 06:33 Why the Orb Is the Most Reliable 07:15 Integrating ID Kit 07:55 Introducing Agent Kit 08:19 Why a Wallet Cannot Tell If a Human Is Behind It 08:49 Mapping Humans to Agents in the Agent Book 09:17 Capability One: Acting for a Human 09:42 Agentic Commerce With Shopify 10:22 The x402 Challenge Flow 11:29 Why Every Agent Ties Back to One Human 11:51 The Three Access Modes 12:36 The Tool Router Integrations 13:20 Introducing Proof Kit and Noir 13:46 Client-Side, Post-Quantum ZK Proving 14:48 Why This May Power World ID's Future 15:15 Case Study: The Shopify Hat 16:12 Case Study: credit.cash 17:43 Case Study: Morpho and Increased Yield 18:22 Case Study: Tinder Boosts 19:08 Go and Build: The Four Tracks 20:12 Why Projects Should Outlast the Weekend 20:30 Resources and QR Code 20:50 Q&A: Cross-Referencing and Privacy 22:18 Why Each Website Is Isolated 23:05 Q&A: Can You Verify Who Someone Is 23:46 Q&A: Preventing Duplicate Verification 24:46 Q&A: Post-Quantum in Noir Circuits 25:11 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal New York 2026, Nalin Mittal and Goutham Deva from Google Cloud's Web3 team present building for the on-chain agent economy, centered on ERC-8004 and accessing its data through BigQuery. Nalin, who leads Web3 product efforts, notes Google Cloud has built Web3 products since 2018, with BigQuery datasets for over 40 blockchains, faucets for many test networks, and growing agentic access. He frames the core problem: as agents gain autonomy and begin purchasing from and delegating to other agents, real-time markets will form on the fly, but you cannot extend trust across organizational boundaries without knowing who you are dealing with. Standards like MCP (for tools and services) and Google's A2A (agent-to-agent communication) exist, but the trust piece is still missing, and ERC-8004 bridges that gap. Goutham and Nalin explain that ERC-8004, built in collaboration with MetaMask, the Ethereum Foundation, and Coinbase and live on Ethereum mainnet since January 29 (and other chains), establishes three pieces. Identity: calling a register event mints an NFT tied to the agent and returns an agent ID, with the metadata holding a name, description, and most importantly the service endpoints (A2A, MCP), whether it supports x402, and which trust models it uses. Reputation: a give-feedback contract method lets anyone leave on-chain, public feedback (star ratings, uptime, response times) via open-ended tags. Validation: still a work in progress, a way to prove an agent did the work it claimed via a third-party validator and hash. They then show how to access the 8004 data through Google's BigQuery Ethereum dataset (indexed from genesis to chain tip, with a generous 1 TB free tier plus a $1,000 coupon for the track), walking through live SQL queries for registrations per day, decoding a register event, a reputation leaderboard, and an x402 join showing which agents support x402. Nalin lays out the $5,000 cash prize for applications leveraging the identity and reputation data (like an explorer or analytics dashboard), and closes with Q&A on monetization (none, it is an open registry), available datasets like Base, how feedback works, spam, and whether the spec extends beyond agents. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Meet Nalin and Google Cloud Web3 00:54 Meet Goutham 01:16 How the Workshop Is Structured 01:40 The $5,000 Prize 02:01 Why Agents Need Trust 02:23 Delegation and Real-Time Agent Markets 02:41 MCP, A2A, and the Missing Trust Piece 03:39 Trusting Agents Across Organizations 04:01 The Three Pieces of ERC-8004 04:36 Built With MetaMask, EF, and Coinbase 04:54 Identity: Registering an Agent 05:34 What the Agent File Contains 05:55 Service Endpoints and x402 Support 06:18 Reputation: Giving Feedback 06:39 Why Tags Are Open-Ended 07:05 Building a Reputation System 07:15 Validation: Proving Work Was Done 07:58 The Identity and Reputation Registries 08:21 The BigQuery Ethereum Dataset 08:47 The Free Tier and $1,000 Coupon 09:30 How to Set Up Access 10:14 Walking Through Live Queries 11:29 Understanding the Dataset Fields 11:50 Query: Registrations Per Day 12:24 Query: Decoding a Register Event 13:12 Reading the Agent URI 13:58 Decoding Input Data on the Contract 14:22 Query: Reputation Leaderboard 14:52 Query: The x402 Join 15:55 More on the Prize 16:15 What a Winning Application Looks Like 17:01 Where to Find Resources 17:24 Q&A: Plans to Monetize 8004 18:11 Q&A: Datasets for Base and BNB 18:41 Q&A: What Is 8004 19:36 Q&A: Interesting Findings in the Agents 19:52 Q&A: How Leaving Feedback Works 21:00 Q&A: Judging and Spam 22:00 Q&A: Does the Spec Go Beyond Agents 23:11 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal New York 2026, Jatin Pandya, a developer advocate at the Canton Foundation, gives hackers a heads-up on Canton's hackathon tracks and a 101 on the network and its DAML smart contract language. He runs through the four prize tracks. First is private DeFi and capital markets: taking the DeFi use cases people already know (DEXes, perps, margin management, dark pool matching, lending, borrowing, collateralized protocols) and adding a natively built-in privacy element, since privacy, not TPS, is now the talk of the town. Second, the one he is most excited about, is privacy-native TradFi, RWAs, and tokenization: repo agreement automation and management platforms, tokenized bond issuance, and supply chain finance built on Canton's need-to-know privacy model. Third is payments and neobanks on top of Canton, tying into institutions like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and DTCC. Fourth, more exploratory, is agentic commerce, exploring how AI agents would interact with a privacy-preserving blockchain. Jatin points to his existing video workshop, revamped documentation (with an MCP server and a native LLM model that surfaces the right docs or SDK), and a dedicated module comparing Solidity and DAML concept by concept, noting DAML feels like writing English to those who know TypeScript or Haskell. He explains Canton's flipped architecture: rather than one blockchain with RPC calls, a single global synchronizer operated by the foundation coordinates atomicity across per-entity validators (JP Morgan, DTCC, and others each run their own), with data visible only to the relevant parties and sub-transaction privacy so two parties in a trade can keep it hidden from everyone else. He clarifies that Canton uses parties rather than wallet addresses, and that DAML is access-based, structured around templates (blueprints rather than functions) with signatories, observers, and choices (the functionality). He walks through example templates for a token and a trade proposal (buyer, asset, price, seller as signatory), then demos deployment via the C-port tool at devport.io, where an ETHGlobal New York organization is preconfigured so hackers can build or import from GitHub and deploy to a devnet validator without running their own. He closes by pointing to his full zero-to-deploy video and offering booth help. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Welcome to the In-Person Workshop 00:33 A TLDR on the Four Prize Tracks 00:33 Track One: Private DeFi and Capital Markets 01:48 Track Two: Privacy-Native TradFi and Tokenization 02:38 Why This Is the Track He Is Most Excited About 02:57 Track Three: Payments and Neobanks 03:18 Working With Major Institutions 03:49 Track Four: Agentic Commerce 04:21 A Quick Heads-Up on Resources 04:40 The Revamped Docs and LLM Model 05:41 The Solidity vs DAML Comparison Module 06:00 Why DAML Feels Like English 06:54 Why Deploying on Canton Is Different 07:24 Introducing the C-port Tool 08:12 The Preconfigured ETHGlobal Organization 09:17 How Canton's Architecture Is Flipped 09:41 The Global Synchronizer and Validators 10:04 Parties Instead of Addresses 10:36 Sub-Transaction Privacy Explained 11:00 Why DAML Is Genuinely Different 11:35 Templates, Signatories, and Observers 12:12 Parties, Not Wallet Addresses 12:36 The Structure of a DAML Model 13:14 Declaring a Token Template 13:43 How Ownership and Signing Work 13:57 A Trade Proposal Example 14:52 How Choices Define Functionality 15:17 Q&A on Defining Trades 16:44 Writing a DAML File in C-port 17:13 Building and Deploying to Devnet 17:42 Where to Get Help With DAML 18:23 Closing and the Full Video Workshop _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal New York 2026, Logan Nguyen, an engineer at Hashgraph, shows hackathon builders how to move faster on Hedera using its open source collection of AI plugins and skills. He opens with a recap of Hedera for the mixed audience: it is a fully EVM-compatible L1, so anything built on Ethereum (MetaMask, Solidity smart contracts, Foundry, ethers.js) migrates and works out of the box, plus native protocol services like the Hedera Token Service (ERC-20 and ERC-721 style tokens with built-in KYC, freeze, pause, and royalty fees, no separate Solidity contract needed), the Hedera Consensus Service for messaging and topic subscription, a schedule service for on-chain automation, smart contract service, and more. He notes Hedera processes over 10,000 transactions per second with roughly 3-second finality, low fixed and predictable fees (a fraction of a cent), and a carbon-negative network. Logan then introduces Hedera Skills, the open source collection of plugins and skills built by Hedera's DevRel team, covering six capabilities: the hackathon helper, an agent kit plugin (for building AI agents that interact with the network via natural language using the Hedera Agent Toolkit), dev intelligence for scaffolding and session tracking, native services JavaScript (interacting with native services via the SDK without Solidity), system contracts (the Solidity counterpart for the same services), and the recently added Hedera CLI reference. He goes deep on the hackathon helper's two skills: hackathon PRD, run before writing any code, which teaches Claude, Cursor, or Codex to read Hedera's criteria, ask questions, narrow scope to a demoable MVP, and produce a buildable product requirements document, and validate submission, run before submitting, which does a mock judging pass against Hedera's seven criteria to catch bugs. He live-demos installing the hackathon helper in Claude with three commands and generating a PRD, then introduces the Hedera docs MCP server, which solves AI knowledge cutoff by giving agents a search tool over always-up-to-date documentation, SDK references, and code examples via one command to a remote hosted server. He closes with the four bounty tracks (AI agent, agentic payments, tokenization with no Solidity, and autonomous on-chain automation) and $15,000 in prizes. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Meet Logan and the Goal of the Workshop 00:32 The Idea: Open Source Plugins and Skills 01:04 A Quick Recap on What Hedera Is 01:30 Why Your EVM Stack Works Out of the Box 01:44 Native Services: The Hedera Token Service 02:27 The Consensus, Schedule, and Smart Contract Services 02:59 Throughput, Finality, and Low Fees 03:35 Why Hedera Is a Carbon-Negative Network 04:24 36 Hours and $15,000 in Prizes 04:51 Introducing Hedera Skills 05:37 The Six Capabilities in the Repo 06:02 The Agent Kit and Dev Intelligence Plugins 06:36 Native Services JavaScript vs System Contracts 07:12 The Recently Added Hedera CLI 07:44 Going Deeper: The Hackathon PRD Skill 08:21 How the PRD Skill Narrows Your Scope 09:00 The Validate Submission Skill 09:36 A Mock Judging Pass Before You Submit 09:52 Live Demo: Installing the Hackathon Helper 10:53 Generating a PRD From an Idea 11:21 How the Skill Asks Questions to Brainstorm 12:47 Claude Generates the PRD 13:13 Introducing the Hedera Docs MCP Server 13:39 Solving the AI Knowledge Cutoff Problem 14:28 One Command to Add the Server 14:58 Using the Server With Natural Language 15:42 Recapping the Two Tools 16:03 The Four Bounty Tracks and Prizes 16:31 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Etienne Waldron

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal New York 2026, Etienne Waldron (developer relations and product) and Oscar Chaix (product manager) from Ledger present what Ledger is building in the agentic world and lay out the hackathon track. Etienne recaps Ledger, a French company founded in 2014 that makes hardware devices securing cryptocurrencies, having sold over 8 million devices and securing roughly 20% of the world's crypto assets. Its devices are secure by design through a secure element chip and a secure display sitting on top of it, and over 12 years the company has focused on user and developer experience across products like Ledger wallet, clear signing (so users understand what they sign), and the wallet provider for dApp login and signing flows. He frames the new agentic era as one where Ledger is well placed to be the trusted infrastructure. Oscar explains why: agents are useful only if they can act (signing transactions on your behalf), but they are susceptible to prompt injections and hallucinations that can move or lose funds, so Ledger lets you review what an agent is about to do on the trusted display and keeps private keys and credentials in hardware requiring human approval. He walks through the newly launched Ledger agentic stack, built on three pillars: CLIs to interact with a Ledger device from your favorite agent (connect a wallet, check balances, initiate transactions you validate on-device), DMK skills that teach an agent to integrate Ledger into an app or workflow (cutting integration from days or weeks to about five minutes), and apps including a security key app (Fido2 login that gates agent access to sites) and Open PGP for encrypting agent secrets. He live-demos the wallet CLI querying Bitcoin and Ethereum accounts, balances, and gas fees spent, proposing 70/30 ETH/BTC rebalancing swaps that require on-device approval, and simultaneously has Claude integrate the DMK skills into a mock website in about five minutes, showing clear signing and background transaction checks on a connected Ledger Flex. Etienne closes on this year's single track, Agentic x Ledger, with $10,000 in bounties across five prizes for AI products using Ledger as the trust layer (human-in-the-loop for high-risk actions, identity, credential and authentication management, x402 agent payments, and policy-based spending), plus Q&A on lending devices, the emulator, and high-frequency use cases. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Welcome to the Ledger Workshop 00:33 What Is Ledger 00:59 Why Ledger Devices Are Secure by Design 01:19 The Ledger Product Suite 01:37 Entering the Agentic Era 02:06 Why Agents Need a Trust Layer 02:32 Reviewing Agent Actions on the Device 03:02 The Three Pillars of the Agentic Stack 03:30 DMK Skills for Developers 03:52 Apps: Security Key and Open PGP 04:48 A Mock Site for Agent Transactions 05:21 Asking Claude to Integrate the DMK Skills 05:54 The Wallet CLI Finding Accounts 06:34 Discovering Balances Across Chains 07:26 How the Skills File Is Structured 07:51 Querying Ethereum and Solana Accounts 08:34 Checking Tokens and Gas Fees Spent 09:49 Proposing a 70/30 Rebalancing Swap 10:28 Why Moving Money Needs Device Approval 11:11 Recalculating the Swap Rate 12:11 The Mock Site Now Integrated With DMK 12:32 Handling a Locked Device Gracefully 12:50 Clear Signing and Transaction Check 13:34 Integrating in Minutes 14:21 Executing the Swap 15:12 Recapping What Ledger Launched 15:33 The Agentic x Ledger Track 16:03 Example Use Cases 16:23 Credentials, x402 Payments, and Policy Spending 17:07 The Developer Portal and Docs 17:29 Why Documentation Feedback Matters 17:54 Q&A: Lending Physical Devices 18:30 Q&A: The Emulator vs Real Devices 19:30 Q&A: High-Frequency Use Cases 19:52 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kevin Jones

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal New York 2026, Kevin Jones from BuidlGuidl walks hackers through building on Ethereum in the AI era, tying together the tools and best practices that let developers learn and ship faster. Having worked in the Ethereum ecosystem for about six years alongside Austin Griffith and the Ethereum Foundation, he surveys what BuidlGuidl has produced for developer education and tooling. He gives a tour of SpeedRun Ethereum, the challenge-based curriculum that teaches core concepts through hands-on modules: minting an NFT, crowdfunding and staking, ERC-20 tokens and the approve pattern, a dice game on on-chain randomness, building a DEX with liquidity pools, oracles, overcollateralized lending, stablecoins, prediction markets, and zero knowledge, plus capture-the-flag security events and a new AI-guided learning mode. He also covers other BuidlGuidl products including Scaffold-ETH, ABI Ninja, Address Vision, and its full node client. Kevin then dives into AI-era building. He explains x402 (Coinbase's extension of the HTTP 402 status code) as a way to token-gate any API with an onchain payment instead of API keys, noting his work at Edge & Node (creators of The Graph) on a wallet that makes and accepts x402 payments with guardrails. He highlights ETH skills, an open source skill file encoding Ethereum best practices for editors like Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex, and ERC-8004, a registry giving AI agents a long-lived onchain reputation (with Agent0's SDK and a subgraph for querying agents). He shares his AI coding workflow: ideate in Claude Desktop to generate a prompt, bootstrap in Claude Code, then move to Cursor to review diffs. He runs a live Scaffold-ETH demo, spinning up a project with two commands, explaining the Hardhat and Next.js monorepo, burner wallet, auto-generated ABI-driven debug UI, hooks, and components (ENS resolution, balance checkers), then vibe-codes a basketball NFT contract that deploys and mints a LeBron card. He closes on OneClaw, his spotlight secrets-management platform storing keys in a Google Cloud HSM with multi-party computation, an LLM proxy running in a TEE that inspects prompts for injection and redacts secrets, and intent-based signing with guardrails so an agent can use a key that never leaves hardware, followed by Q&A. 00:00 Introduction 00:13 Nostalgia for ETHGlobal New York 00:32 About Kevin and BuidlGuidl 01:00 Why AI Accelerates Learning and Building 02:15 Introducing SpeedRun Ethereum 02:46 Scaffold-ETH as a Starter Kit 03:45 A Walk Through SpeedRun Challenges 04:40 ERC-20 Tokens and the Approve Pattern 05:09 The Dice Game and On-Chain Randomness 05:35 Building a DEX and Liquidity Pools 06:20 Oracles and Overcollateralized Lending 07:13 Stablecoins and Prediction Markets 08:28 Learning Zero Knowledge 08:58 The Tech Tree and Capture the Flag 10:15 The New AI-Guided Learning Mode 11:06 What Is x402 11:31 How x402 Token-Gates APIs 12:56 Building on x402 With Edge & Node 13:44 ETH Skills for Your Editor 15:06 ERC-8004: A Registry for AI Agents 16:05 Building Agent Reputation 16:42 Agent0 and the Subgraph 18:28 Kevin's AI Coding Workflow 19:12 Starting Ideation in Claude Desktop 21:18 Generating a Prompt for Claude Code 23:36 Moving to Cursor to Review Diffs 24:39 Starting a Scaffold-ETH Project 26:22 Choosing Hardhat or Foundry 29:18 Agent, Plan, and Ask Modes 30:45 Inside the Scaffold-ETH Monorepo 31:36 The AI-Friendly Files and MCP Server 34:00 The Burner Wallet and Debug UI 35:00 How the ABI Powers the Front End 35:58 Vibe-Coding a Basketball NFT Contract 40:19 Minting a LeBron NFT 41:27 The BuidlGuidl Full Node Client 42:20 Introducing OneClaw Secrets Management 43:18 The LLM Proxy in a TEE 44:36 Intent-Based Signing With Guardrails 45:39 Embedded Wallets, MCP, and SDK 46:30 Q&A: Signing Latency 47:49 Q&A: Git Integration for Agents 49:12 Q&A: How ERC-8004 Reputation Works 52:44 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal New York 2026, Greg Skril from ENS Labs presents ENS as a source of identity for apps, agents, and more. He starts with the basics: the Ethereum Name Service is a decentralized, permissionless naming protocol that lives on Ethereum but scales to the entire internet, most simply turning complex hex addresses into human-readable names (his address becomes gregskril.eth). He frames ENS as a user experience protocol, showing how sending five dollars to a name is far easier than copying a hex address, and how ENS has evolved from a username into a full profile with an avatar, banner, and description that replaces the anonymous gray circle and truncated address most apps show. His first conclusion: users of crypto-powered experiences should never have to interact with a hex address, and anywhere an app reads or writes one, it should support ENS names. He explains how it works through forward resolution (name to data) and reverse resolution (address to name), which combine into a primary name set via reverse registrars on six chains, and can be configured on behalf of another user with their signature. Greg then positions ENS as a universal pointer to anything on the internet, not just addresses: naming smart contracts for clearer block explorer history, decentralized registries (like a hackathon NPM clone where each package is an ENS name with text-record metadata pointing to decentralized content), storing credentials or AI agent metadata via text records (with a spec, ENSIP-26, for agents), and decentralized websites (like Vitalik's IPFS-hosted blog that survives a Cloudflare outage). He covers subnames, which are full ENS names usable for clean hierarchy and cheap free onboarding (buy projectname.eth, give users free subnames), highlighting the Durin tool at durin.dev for deploying subname contracts to an L2 linked to L1. He previews ENS V2 (live on Sepolia) with a cleaner registry design and fine-grained permissions enabling org structures, and an ENS CLI as the easiest way to teach agents to use ENS. He lays out a record $20,000 in prizes across an AI agents track, a creative use track (citing a privacy solution that resolves a name to different addresses per sender), a $6,000 pool prize, and a $4,000 continuity track, then closes with Q&A on reassigning and revoking subdomains, gas costs, off-chain names, and how subnames compare to second-level domains. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 What Is ENS 00:42 Turning Hex Addresses Into Names 01:08 ENS as a User Experience Protocol 01:35 From Username to Full Profile 02:01 Why a Profile Beats a Gray Circle 02:42 ENS Used in the Wild 03:26 Reading and Writing Data With Names 03:56 Why Users Should Never See a Hex Address 04:21 How It Works: Forward and Reverse Resolution 04:52 Primary Names and Reverse Registrars 05:43 Setting a Name on Behalf of Another User 05:59 ENS as a Universal Pointer 06:20 A Decentralized NPM Registry Example 06:46 Storing Credentials and Agent Metadata 07:06 Text Records and ENSIP-26 07:31 Decentralized Websites Like Vitalik's Blog 08:44 Naming Smart Contracts 09:29 Subnames and Clean Hierarchy 10:19 Free Subnames for Onboarding Users 10:41 The Durin Tool for Subnames 11:05 Introducing ENS V2 11:36 New Registry Design and Permissions 11:58 Org Structures With Fine-Grained Access 12:23 A Preview of the ENS CLI 12:49 The $20,000 in Prizes 13:20 The Build From Scratch Tracks 13:39 The AI Agents Track 14:09 The Creative Use Track 14:37 A Privacy Solution Built on ENS 14:57 The Pool Prize 15:20 The Continuity Track 16:02 Key Takeaways 16:30 Where to Get Help 16:53 Q&A: Reassigning Subdomains 18:29 Q&A: Limits on Subdomains and Gas Fees 19:50 Q&A: Preventing Revocation of User Subdomains 21:14 Q&A: Subnames vs Second-Level Domains 22:19 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this closing ceremony for ETHGlobal New York 2026, Kartik Talwar, co-founder of ETHGlobal, wraps up the hackathon with event stats, ten live finalist demos, and the partner prize reveal. He shares that 682 attendees and 486 hackers (31% new to web3) came from 152 cities, 44 countries, and six continents, supported by 100-plus sponsor staff, 18 mentors, and 20 Friday workshops with zero talks. The 486 hackers built 232 projects (27% on the new continuity track), and for the first time in eight months Python overtook TypeScript as the most common language. DeFi was the biggest category, wallets and payments the most common hacks, and infrastructure rose to third, with ENS, Arc, and Chainlink the most-used integrations and mainnet, Base, and Arc the most-deployed chains. He introduces the 16 partners giving out $200,000 in prizes and the ten finalists (three continuity, seven from scratch). The finalist demos showcase the range: Canary, parametric insurance on prediction markets that prices DeFi risk like a credit default swap; Acrew, which turns the AI coding spinner into an onchain ad marketplace tying one human to one agent via World ID; Void Tactics, a year-old fully onchain PVP spaceship game upgraded with Dynamic embedded wallets, World ID tournaments, and Walrus move history; Lynx, a terminal bridging prediction markets with tokenized securities and traditional finance data; DRO.buzz, a clipping marketplace on Arc, World ID, and Chainlink; Ansu, a dead-simple browser wallet for onboarding newcomers; Proof of Scan, a decentralized network of scan nodes using Sui, Walrus, and TLS notary to catch cloaked phishing sites; The Wallet Shift, a DeFi-Llama-style analytics dashboard indexing ERC-8004 agents via Google BigQuery; Immunity, a decentralized AI security protocol where agents mint antibodies against prompt injection, rebuilt with Chainlink CRE and ENS; and Cumulant, structured products (baskets, tranches, protected notes, distribution markets) on prediction markets via Dynamic and Arc. Kartik details the finalist rewards (ETHGlobal Plus, $1,000 per member, flight and developer credits, a Ledger Flex, and an exclusive hoodie), then races through 60 slides of partner prizes from 1inch, ENS, Google Cloud, Chainlink, Hedera, Ledger, LI.FI, Privy, Sui, Uniswap Foundation, World, Canton Foundation, Blink, Arc, Dynamic, and Unlink. He closes noting code will be verified over four weeks, thanks the team and partners, and previews upcoming events in Lisbon, ETHOnline, Tokyo, and Mumbai. 00:00 Opening Montage 01:35 Welcome to the Closing Ceremony 02:03 The Event by the Numbers 02:32 Thanking the 16 Partners 03:01 Why This Is a Hackathon, Not a Conference 03:49 Community Highlights and Stats 04:28 232 Projects and the Continuity Split 04:53 The Most Common Categories and Integrations 05:54 Thanking the Judges 05:57 A Quick Word on Feedback Forms 07:19 Introducing the Ten Finalists 08:02 Thanking Every Team That Submitted 09:53 Finalist Demo: Canary 13:54 Finalist Demo: Acrew 19:21 Finalist Demo: Void Tactics 25:19 Finalist Demo: Lynx 31:42 Finalist Demo: DRO.buzz 36:36 Finalist Demo: Ansu 41:30 Finalist Demo: Proof of Scan 47:19 Finalist Demo: The Wallet Shift 52:58 Finalist Demo: Immunity 58:30 Finalist Demo: Cumulant 1:04:36 What the Finalists Win 1:05:50 Starting the Partner Prizes 1:07:19 1inch Prizes 1:08:17 ENS Prizes 1:09:46 Google Cloud Prize 1:09:53 Chainlink Prizes 1:11:05 Hedera Prizes 1:12:15 Ledger Prizes 1:13:04 LI.FI Prizes 1:13:28 Privy Prizes 1:13:59 Sui Prizes 1:14:25 Uniswap Foundation Prizes 1:15:14 World Prizes 1:16:09 Canton Foundation Prizes 1:17:00 Blink Prizes 1:17:27 Arc Prizes 1:18:23 Dynamic Prizes 1:19:06 Unlink and Joint Prizes 1:19:50 Wrapping Up the Prizes 1:20:09 Closing Notes and Verification 1:20:38 Thanking the Team and Community 1:22:01 Upcoming Events and Farewell _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal New York 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal New York 2026, a 3-day hackathon held June 12-14 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal New York 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh7MZ8T-ict6YshkFDw9WJCu _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026, Gathin T, a senior developer at 0G, introduces 0G as a permissionless blockchain for AI agents, covering what it is, how to start building, and the resources available. He frames the core value up front: 0G enables verifiable, private inferencing where model queries run inside a trusted execution environment (TEE) so the input and output are verified and not exposed to centralized entities. He then walks through the problems with centralized AI. Recent restrictions and re-enablements around Fable Fi show how access can be throttled, gated, or removed by government or corporate decisions. Subscription pricing can change unpredictably (he cites region-specific pricing). Censorship can refuse legitimate requests (like cybersecurity research) based on a model's parameters. He breaks these into specific issues: opacity and lack of trust (you cannot verify you are getting the actual model behind a black box), vendor lock-in with closed APIs and shifting policies, and no true ownership of the agents you create. Gathin explains how 0G addresses each. Inference is provable with references, running in a tamper-proof input-output channel where your data is not used for training. Rather than lock-in, 0G is a marketplace where you can switch between multiple providers for the same model, choosing cheaper or lower-latency options by region. Ownership comes via agentic IDs (the ERC-7857 standard), NFTs tied to an agent that can be transferred. He stresses the platform is permissionless with no gatekeeper, and that its modular stack lets you swap any layer without rebuilding, with incentives for compute providers and future fine-tuning contributors. He notes open source models like Kimi K2, GLM, and DeepSeek are reaching parity, and covers the architecture: an infinitely scalable chain (11,000 TPS, sub-second finality), decentralized storage (80 to 90% cheaper than AWS S3), compute, a soon-launching fine-tuning and RAG layer, a provider marketplace, and alignment nodes (around 92,000 sold) giving the community governance. He highlights products like the private compute router at pc.0g.ai (OpenAI-compatible keys) and the 0G app for building, notes 0G is well funded ($325 million) with 400+ ecosystem partners, and closes with the $15,000 in bounties across best AI product, infrastructure, and continuity tracks, plus a Telegram group for testnet tokens, followed by Q&A. 00:00 Introduction 00:33 Welcome to Lisbon 00:44 What This Workshop Covers 01:04 The Core Problem With Centralized AI 01:25 Verifiable, Private Inference in a TEE 01:49 How Centralized Models Get Restricted 02:07 Unpredictable Subscription Pricing 02:45 The Censorship Problem 03:04 Opacity and the Black Box Problem 03:45 How 0G Enables Verifiable Inference 04:13 Vendor Lock-In and Switching Providers 04:58 The Problem of No Agent Ownership 05:17 Agentic IDs as Ownership 05:37 Centralized Control and Censorship 06:18 Swapping Layers Without Rebuilding 07:01 Incentives Across the Modular Stack 07:38 Why Open Source Models Are Catching Up 08:01 Private TLS Routing and Attestation 08:58 The Modular Architecture 09:18 Decentralized Storage for Agents and Models 09:56 The Marketplace and Alignment Layer 10:25 Why Trust Is the Biggest Issue 10:53 0G Compute and GLM 11:16 Storage 80 to 90% Cheaper Than S3 11:38 Chain Throughput and Sunsetting the DA 12:00 Agentic ID and the ERC-7857 Standard 12:12 The Private Compute Router 12:42 The 0G App and Agent Launchpad 13:02 Funding, Partners, and Grants 13:26 The $15,000 in Bounty Tracks 13:47 The Infrastructure Track 14:07 The Continuity Track 14:25 Joining the Telegram for Testnet Tokens 15:02 Q&A: Track Ideas and Requirements 15:57 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026, a 3-day hackathon held July 24-26 at the Carlos Lopes Pavillion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWgAODGnD_is _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kevin Jones

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026, Kevin Jones, a BuidlGuidl member who works at Edge & Node (the original creators of The Graph Protocol), shows hackers how to build AI agents on The Graph and walks through the bounties. He explains The Graph as a decentralized network of indexers that serve blockchain data, and covers its two main products. Subgraphs are GraphQL-based APIs, easy to create in the subgraph studio and usually focused on a specific smart contract, that make complex time-series blockchain data far easier to query than hitting an RPC directly. Substreams are a Rust-based streaming protocol that pipes deeper, blockchain-wide data (transactions, value transfers, wallets) directly into your own database like ClickHouse. He notes subgraphs are written in AssemblyScript (a TypeScript subset) while substreams are Rust, both of which AI tooling handles well. Kevin focuses on the AI angle. He introduces The Graph's two MCP servers (one for subgraphs, one for substreams) as discovery tools that let an agent find the right data (for example, asking for Uniswap data returns the relevant subgraphs with a recommendation), and points to installable subgraph and substreams skills for coding agents in Cursor, Claude Code, or any IDE. He lays out the bounties: $7,000 split five ways for tooling that helps agents use Graph data or the best AI use case of The Graph, plus a prize for best use of composable subgraphs (which sit on top of per-contract, per-chain subgraphs to unify a protocol deployed across many chains). He then demos Scaffold Agent, an AI-native command-line alternative to Scaffold-ETH (reusing its components, hooks, and burner wallet) that bootstraps a Next.js AI chatbot wired to the subgraph MCP server and able to consume The Graph over x402, Coinbase's crypto-native reinvention of the HTTP 402 status code that replaces API keys with pay-per-query. Using his own startup One Claw for MPC and HSM key custody (generating a signing key inside a TEE on Google Cloud so no private key sits on his machine), he scaffolds a project, funds the fresh wallet with 10 cents of USDC on Base, and attempts to query the last five Uniswap V3 swaps paid over x402. The live query does not go through, but he frames Scaffold Agent, the MCP servers, and the skills as strong starting points and points hackers to the booth for help. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Meet Kevin and Edge & Node 00:29 What This Workshop Covers 00:50 Who Has Built a Subgraph 01:10 What The Graph Protocol Is 01:42 Subgraphs as GraphQL APIs 02:13 Creating a Subgraph in the Studio 02:53 Introducing Substreams 03:19 Streaming Data Into Your Database 03:44 AssemblyScript vs Rust 04:03 Why Rust Is Easy With AI 04:26 The AI Tooling in the Docs 04:44 The Two MCP Servers 05:11 How the MCP Discovers Data 05:31 Subgraph vs Substream MCPs 06:36 Installing the Skills for Your Agent 07:14 The Bounties and What The Graph Wants 07:53 Examples of Agent Tooling 08:14 Best Use of The Graph in AI 08:43 The $7,000 Prize Split 09:06 Best Use of Composable Subgraphs 09:29 Introducing the Scaffold Agent Demo 09:59 Why Scaffold Agent Is AI Native 10:26 The MCP and x402 Integration 10:53 What Is x402 11:17 Reinventing the HTTP 402 Status Code 11:45 x402-Enabled Subgraph Endpoints 12:09 What the Starter Kit Wires Up 12:36 Running the Scaffold Agent Command 13:17 Using One Claw for Key Custody 13:50 Generating an API Key 14:42 Generating Signing Keys in an HSM 14:58 Configuring The Graph and the LLM 16:06 Forcing Signing in a TEE 16:28 Bootstrapping the Application 16:56 Funding the Fresh TEE Wallet 17:58 Loading the Project in Cursor 18:26 The Encrypted and Public ENV Files 18:50 Running the App With One Command 19:22 The Next.js Application 19:39 Querying the Last Five Uniswap Swaps 20:45 Troubleshooting the Live Query 21:45 Why Scaffold Agent Is a Good Starting Point 22:07 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026, a 3-day hackathon held July 24-26 at the Carlos Lopes Pavillion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWgAODGnD_is _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this workshop at ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026, Mateo Sauton from Tools for Humanity, the company building tools for World (formerly Worldcoin), explains the company's new products and hackathon tracks. He opens on why proof of human matters now: more than half of internet traffic is bots or agents, CAPTCHAs no longer reliably work against agents, KYC and identity checks struggle against deepfakes, so there is a real need to prove there is a human on the other side of the computer without revealing anything else about them. That is the core of World ID, a privacy-preserving, high-assurance authentication layer for bot protection that uses zero knowledge proofs for every attestation and is fully open source. He explains World ID's three credential tiers as assurance levels: the face credential (the new low-friction selfie check, in beta), passport (via the NFC chip, proving citizenship though not uniqueness, since he holds two passports as an Argentinian), and the highest-assurance Orb iris scan, which proves a unique human since iris and DNA are the only biometrics that cannot yet be faked or duplicated. Mateo lays out the three tracks. Agent Kit ($8,000 across the top three teams) is an SDK that lets a human delegate their humanity to an agent, giving that agent a wallet so it can act on the human's behalf, for example buying on a Shopify store integrated with World that offers human-backed agents a preferred discount, or using human-in-the-loop delegation to require approval before an agent trades over a set amount. He stresses the track needs meaningful, end-to-end use of Agent Kit that verifies an agent is human-backed, and shares new verticals to explore (identity plus payments, agent-to-agent trust flows, regulated workflows), while noting simple agent reputation and free-API-call perks are already overdone. Selfie check ($3,500 across two winners) is the lowest-friction on-ramp to World ID, using the mobile camera for a liveness check and returning a sybil score to flag repeat attempts, with feedback required as a deliverable. Identity attestations (also beta) let a developer gate users on passport attributes like age, nationality, and document type, returning only whether the criteria were met (for example, over 18) without revealing the underlying data, and can be combined with selfie check. He shares the judging rubric (weighting product fit, feedback, quality, technical integration, and live deployment) and closes noting people on chain are the real primitive, with MCPs for the docs and dev portal so agents can handle integrations. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Meet Mateo and World 00:39 The Three SDKs 00:52 The Peter Sandberger Story 01:41 Why Agents Changed Everything 01:52 Why Proof of Human Is Needed 02:09 Why CAPTCHA and KYC No Longer Work 02:37 The Problem World Solves 02:53 What World ID Is 03:31 The Three Credential Tiers 03:59 The Face Credential and Selfie Check 04:22 The Passport Credential 04:49 Why Passports Do Not Prove Uniqueness 05:00 The Orb and Iris Scanning 05:19 Why Iris Proves a Unique Human 06:11 The Three Hackathon Tracks 06:43 Why Feedback Is a Deliverable 07:09 Agent Kit: Delegating Your Humanity 07:37 The Shopify Discount Example 08:09 All-Chain Delegation and Human in the Loop 08:53 The Agent Kit Track Requirements 09:19 New Verticals to Explore 09:51 The Live Shopify Integration 10:20 What Will Not Qualify for Agent Kit 11:13 Selfie Check: The Lowest-Friction On-Ramp 11:46 The Sybil Score 12:37 The Selfie Check Track Requirements 13:06 Example Use Cases for Selfie Check 13:47 Identity Check and Passport Attributes 14:23 Gating Users by Nationality 14:51 Combining Both Tracks 15:14 Attribute Checks Without Revealing Data 15:39 The Judging Rubric 16:06 Verifying Proofs On Chain or in the Cloud 16:32 Live Deployment and Wrapping Up 17:33 People On Chain Are the Real Primitive 17:48 The Docs, MCPs, and Dev Portal 18:00 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026, a 3-day hackathon held July 24-26 at the Carlos Lopes Pavillion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWgAODGnD_is _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this short workshop at ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026, Luke Forrest from Hedera walks hackathon builders through Claude Code and the skills that can help them move faster over the weekend, covering plugins, skills, and the Hedera MCP server that connects Claude to Hedera's docs for maximum context. He points to the Hedera skills repo on GitHub (via a QR code also shown at the booth), which contains five skills, and focuses on the main one, the hackathon helper, which has two key sub-skills. Hackathon PRD is a skill you talk to about your idea so it fleshes it out, recommends the best way to implement Hedera, and produces a full product requirement document you can then build from with Claude. Validate submission runs once your project is ready, inspecting your repo and judging it much as the Hedera team will (looking at your Hedera integration and whether it is strong enough to be judged accurately) against criteria like innovation, feasibility, execution, integration, validation success, and the Sunday pitch. Luke shows how easy installation is (adding the hedera-dev skills marketplace and reloading plugins), noting you do not even call the skill directly, just ask Claude to create a hackathon PRD for your idea and paste in the ETHGlobal track criteria so the PRD hits every point needed to succeed. He covers the Hedera Docs MCP, which connects Claude directly to the documentation to speed up building, and offers to help anyone get set up at the booth. He also introduces a recent addition, Scaffold HAR, a scaffold with templates built on best practices (launchable with npx create scaffold-har) that includes templates matching the bounties (x402, a payment handler, cross-chain DCA, and tokenized subscriptions). He closes with a recap of the bounties: AI and agentic payments (two teams, $3,000 each), tokenization on Hedera (two teams, $1,500 each), a no-Solidity smart-contract-free track (up to three winners, $1,000 each), and cross-chain automation using the Hedera schedule service and Axelar. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Who Is Using Claude Code 00:32 What This Workshop Covers 00:43 The Hedera Skills Repo 00:58 The Five Skills and the Hackathon Helper 01:22 The Hackathon PRD Skill 01:53 The Validate Submission Skill 02:18 The Judging Criteria 02:35 How Easy Installation Is 02:51 Generating a PRD From Your Idea 03:12 The Hedera Docs MCP 03:39 Adding the MCP to Claude 04:00 Questions on Skills and MCP 04:08 Introducing Scaffold HAR 04:33 The Templates for the Bounties 04:57 Recapping the Bounties 05:26 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026, a 3-day hackathon held July 24-26 at the Carlos Lopes Pavillion, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWgAODGnD_is _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Matt Sheffield, CIO of SharpLink, sits down with Robbie Mitchnick, Global Head of Digital Assets at BlackRock, to discuss institutional Ethereum adoption, ETFs, tokenization, and the future of finance. Matt opens by describing SharpLink's strategy of putting roughly $3 billion of Ethereum onto a public company balance sheet last year and progressively moving it onchain. Robbie explains BlackRock's deliberate approach to crypto ETFs, with IBIT for Bitcoin and ETHA for Ethereum, noting the high bar that includes asset maturity, market cap, liquidity, product market fit, and the conviction that an asset belongs in client portfolios on a long term fundamental basis. He emphasizes that Bitcoin sits in category one, Bitcoin plus ETH sits in category two, and there is a meaningful breakpoint after that. The conversation digs into why TradFi firms prefer Ethereum over newer programmable L1s, citing time tested maturity, network effects, and Ethereum's incumbency. Matt argues that Ethereum gets chosen on merit rather than economic incentives, which builds trust with the community. Robbie details BlackRock's launch of ETHB as a staking focused product alongside ETHA for liquidity sensitive investors, reaching half a billion in AUM out of the gate. They discuss why tokenized money market funds have been the breakthrough tokenization category at over 10 billion dollars (including BUIDL), since they break the historical tradeoff between full US Treasury yield and perfect liquidity when paired with stablecoins. Matt outlines SharpLink's onchain allocations including a $200 million LRT deployment, bridging to Linea, and a $125 million private fund with Galaxy. Robbie shares BlackRock's four pillar tokenization framework around asset class focus, custody, regulation, and exchange listing. They close by discussing agentic finance and the intersection of AI and digital assets as the most exciting theme for the next 5 to 10 years. 00:00 Introductions 01:21 Why BlackRock Launched IBIT and ETHA but Paused After 02:23 The High Bar for an iShares Crypto Product 02:57 Bitcoin Category One, Bitcoin and ETH Category Two 03:22 Why TradFi Prefers Mature, Battle Tested Assets 04:24 Network Effects and Ethereum's Incumbency Advantage 05:12 SharpLink's Inflection Point: Stability Over Headline Chasing 06:25 Picking Ethereum on Merit, Not Economics 07:02 Utilization Without Economic Incentive as a Signal 07:42 Why BlackRock Created ETHB Separately for Staking 08:49 Catering to Liquidity Sensitive vs Yield Focused Investors 09:32 No Switching Between ETHA and ETHB 09:53 The Impact of Crypto ETFs on Industry Access 10:14 Why Tokenized Money Market Funds Came First 11:02 Breaking the Yield vs Liquidity Tradeoff 12:00 BUIDL and the 10 Billion Dollar Tokenized MMF Category 13:06 What Needs to Happen for Ethereum to Stay the Tokenization Hub 13:50 Liquidity Begets Liquidity: Ethereum's Pole Position 14:10 RWAs Need to Become More Valuable Onchain Than Off 14:55 Tokenized Stock Loans and the GameStop Example 15:35 Only 0.1% of Global Assets Are Tokenized 15:57 SharpLink's Onchain Deployments and Regulatory Process 17:02 Building Infrastructure While Pioneering Each Deployment 17:51 BlackRock's Four Pillar Tokenization Framework 18:46 Why Money Market Funds Became the Coalescence Point 19:14 The Race Between TradFi and Crypto Exchanges 20:04 Custody Hurdles for Institutional Adoption 20:58 Regulatory Clarity vs Tokenization Specific Rules 21:23 The iShares Tokenization Opportunity 21:46 Looking Ahead: Agentic Finance That Adds Value 22:16 The AI as Guardian Angel for Onchain Transactions 23:31 Ethereum's Immutability and Agentic Payments 23:58 AI Plus Digital Assets as the Defining Intersection 24:22 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Kartik Talwar sits down with Nemil Dalal, visiting partner at Y Combinator and former head of Coinbase's developer platform, to discuss the early days of USDC, the current state of crypto startups, and what YC is looking for from founders. Nemil walks through how he spent seven years at Coinbase leading USDC from launch in 2018, when many in crypto circles thought stablecoins were the wrong vision and Bitcoin should replace everything. He pushed against two early strategies that didn't fit Coinbase's positioning as a US based regulated company: chasing high yield Asian markets where Tether dominated, and selling to banks that only knew about Bitcoin and saw stablecoins as a beta dollar. The breakthrough insight was bootstrapping DeFi adoption through the USDC Bootstrap Fund, deploying capital into Uniswap, Aave (then EthLend), DyDx, and other early protocols. Nemil shares how YC funds about 100 crypto startups today and expects to 10x that in the next decade, since crypto is moving from a niche DGen product to something most Americans will use without realizing. He outlines what YC is excited about: stablecoins and the businesses built on top, tokenized assets including equities and debt, and AI plus crypto including X2X (which Nemil's team launched at Coinbase). He shares his controversial view that founders should launch fewer tokens, since most are incentive tokens that act like marketing schemes attracting mercenary users and worsening UX, while reserving tokens for L1s, L2s, and DeFi protocols where decentralization is genuinely core to the product. On regulation, he tells the story of Coshi spending three years suing the CFTC and winning, framing regulation as either go regulation forward and specialize per country, or follow the Binance playbook offshore first. He closes urging founders to combine crypto with AI thoughtfully and pointing to the rolling YC application deadline. 00:00 Introduction 00:08 Nemil's Background and Homecoming to Ethereum 01:08 Launching USDC at Coinbase in 2018 02:26 Why Stablecoins Were Controversial in Crypto Circles 02:41 Two Bad Early Strategies: Asia Yield and Banks 03:41 The Breakthrough: Bootstrapping DeFi 03:58 Maker DAO, Compound, and Early DeFi Signals 04:23 Launching the USDC Bootstrap Fund 05:10 Nemil's Role as Visiting Partner at Y Combinator 05:38 What YC Offers Founders 06:20 Funding 100+ Crypto Startups and 10x'ing the Pace 07:00 Why Bear Markets Are the Best Time to Build 07:32 Tourists vs Real Builders 07:50 Why ETH Global Hackathon Attendance Correlates Inversely with Price 08:46 What YC Is Looking to Fund in 2026 09:04 Stablecoins and Stablecoin Neo Banks 09:51 Tokenized Stocks, Debt, Equity, and Emerging Markets 10:12 X2X and the AI Plus Crypto Opportunity 10:50 Agentic Finance May Be Agnostic to Crypto vs Credit Cards 11:33 YC's Mindset: Make Something People Want 12:14 Where Is the Saturated Space in Crypto Startups 12:38 Common Patterns: Dev Tools, On Off Ramps, Wallets 13:08 Prediction Markets and Crypto as Core Stack 13:25 Should Founders Launch a Token 14:10 Incentive Tokens as a Marketing Scheme 14:48 Tokens Often Hurt User Experience 15:19 Where Tokens Genuinely Make Sense: L1s, L2s, DeFi 16:05 Solving Pain Points, Not Decentralizing for Its Own Sake 16:36 How Founders Should Think About Regulation 17:01 The Coshi Story: Suing the CFTC and Winning 17:39 Regulation Forward vs Binance Playbook 18:43 Onshore vs Offshore Based on Product Type 19:00 How to Apply to YC and Reach Nemil 19:35 The Magic of Crypto and AI Coming Together 20:33 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Sreeram Kannan

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Nikita Sachdev from Luna PR sits down with Sreeram Kannan, founder of Eigen Labs and former University of Washington professor, to discuss the verifiability layer needed for the AI agent economy. Nikita opens by asking the audience to raise hands on whether they'd trust an AI agent to book a flight (most hands), make a $100 transaction (more hands), or hand over their passport, bank accounts, and identities (almost none). Sreeram identifies two layers of agent verifiability: confirming the agent is running exactly the code and model claimed, and enforcing constraints on what the agent can do. He stratifies agents into single player (where a user can run them locally with their own constraints) and multiplayer (where agents adjudicate between mutually untrusting parties like a prediction market), noting that multiplayer agents need much higher trust guarantees. Eigen Compute solves this by guaranteeing the exact prompts, model, and data used in agent decisions. Sreeram shares his personal AGI moment from 2017 working on DNA sequencing with physicist Jens Gundlach, when a student beat his hand crafted mathematical benchmarks using deep neural networks, teaching him that any objectively verifiable problem can be optimized by AI. He recounts a recent story where an Eigen colleague who hadn't finished college responded to Google's quantum breakthrough by launching ECDSA.fail, an open challenge where anonymous agent operators collaborate. Within six days they not only beat Google's benchmark but went 40% better than anything existing. He warns the next 6 to 12 months will be scary for DeFi as AI cracks instant settlement protocols, suggesting protocols with intentional settlement lag will weather this better. He closes by outlining Eigen's new thesis of agentic companies: agents at the center, humans at the edge, with company credentials (websites, YouTube channels, Stripe accounts, Roblox games) owned by onchain smart contracts so that every digital company becomes investable by crypto capital. 00:00 Introduction 00:32 Sreeram's Background and Eigen Labs Overview 01:21 Audience Hand Raising: How Much Do You Trust AI Agents 02:09 Two Layers of Agent Verifiability 02:42 Single Player vs Multiplayer Agents 03:28 Prediction Markets and Multiplayer Trust 04:15 How Eigen Compute Guarantees Agent Execution 04:42 What Makes Eigen the Right Company for AI 05:31 Sreeram's 2017 AGI Moment with DNA Sequencing 06:41 Why Objectively Verifiable Problems Get Optimized by AI 07:20 How AI Led Sreeram Into Blockchain 07:52 Eigen Layer's Original AI Thesis 08:17 Climbing the Product Stack to Agentic Companies 09:23 Would EigenLayer Move This Fast Without AI 09:46 The Google Quantum Breakthrough Story 11:06 ECDSA.fail: 40% Better Than Google in Six Days 12:12 The 10x to 100x Acceleration Opportunity 13:09 Is Crypto Moving Fast Enough Against AI Attacks 13:49 Instant Settlement vs Security Tradeoff 14:31 Why the Next Six to Twelve Months Will Be Scary for DeFi 14:56 What About Other People's Jobs 15:21 The Agents as Companies Thesis 16:05 Crypto's Core Value Proposition Is Capital 16:29 Why Only Five DeFi Protocols Are Investable 16:53 Putting Digital Company Credentials Onchain 17:19 Fully Onchain Agents That Cannot Run Away 17:51 Agents at the Center, Humans at the Edge 18:24 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kartik Talwar, Joe Lubin

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Kartik Talwar sits down with Joe Lubin, founder of ConsenSys and co-founder of Ethereum, to discuss the state of the ecosystem nearly 12 years in. Joe frames Ethereum's slow but steady adoption curve as an inevitability now reaching critical mass, arguing that the fundamental reason Ethereum matters to mainstream society is that the world is composed of platforms users can be deplatformed from, and decentralized trust offers a new model where this cannot happen. He points to Hyperliquid and the agentic economy as forcing functions pushing financial institutions to be online 24/7/365. Joe addresses the recent reorganization around the Ethereum Foundation, explaining that rumors of its demise are exaggerated. He outlines an emerging architecture of multiple credibly neutral nonprofit organizations working in parallel: the Ethereum Foundation focused on cypherpunk core protocol work, a separate platform scalability group, a third group serving as the institutional user interface having spoken with around 200 financial institutions and governments, and the institutional privacy task force. He explains how value will accrue across all three layers, with Ethereum mainnet getting busy as Layer 2s, app chains, and private permissioned Besu networks proliferate, unified through synchronous composability technology being built by Linea and ZISK. Joe also announces the MetaMask agent wallet launching today in a command line version, with insurance up to $10,000 per transaction when users stay within policies. He closes with advice for Wall Street institutions on getting onchain quickly and the role of agentic interfaces in the user centric web. 00:00 Introduction 00:33 12 Years In: Are We On Track or Off Track 02:19 Why Should the World Care About Ethereum 03:12 Platforms, Deplatforming, and Decentralized Trust 04:52 Hyperliquid as a Forcing Function for 24/7 Finance 05:49 Tokenization Moving Everything Onchain 06:36 How the Ethereum Foundation Is Evolving 08:32 Credible Neutrality vs Slightly Decentralized Companies 09:47 Specializing into Multiple Nonprofit Stewards 11:36 Institutional Privacy Task Force and Other Groups 13:13 Decentralized Stewards of Ethereum 13:39 Value Accrual Across L1, L2, and Applications 14:39 Why Ethereum Pursued the Rollup Centric Roadmap 15:37 L1 Getting Busy: App Chains and Permissioned Networks 16:23 Synchronous Composability with Linea and ZISK 17:40 Unifying Fragmented Liquidity Pools 18:22 MetaMask Agent Wallet Launch 19:29 Beta Program with 200 Trading Users 20:00 Best in Class Security and Transaction Insurance 20:48 Same Product for Humans and Machines 21:31 Will UX and UI Still Matter in the Future 21:59 Voice Interfaces and Subvocalization 23:25 The Agentic Future and Digital Twins 24:31 User Centric Web Three Vision 24:50 What Wall Street Still Misunderstands 25:37 Citi, JP Morgan, and Long Time Ethereum Users 26:17 Forcing Functions Pushing Institutions Onchain 27:05 Why Banks Want Layer 1 for Bearer Instruments 27:33 ConsenSys Helping Institutions Set Up Settlement Layers 28:07 Closing Remarks _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Tim Beiko

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Tim Beiko, who spent eight years on Ethereum core protocol R&D coordinating major network upgrades like EIP-1559 and The Merge, presents his thesis on how Ethereum can evolve from being "unreasonably sufficient" to becoming "reasonably necessary" infrastructure for the world. He explains that the question keeping him up at night for years was whether Ethereum could scale to planetary infrastructure without compromising its core properties, and with zero knowledge proofs and data availability sampling now in production, that question has been answered. The harder question now is what Ethereum should actually be used for. Tim argues that for Ethereum to truly succeed, it must provide things the world genuinely needs that cannot be obtained elsewhere, and those things must depend on Ethereum's unique properties of permissionlessness, immutability, censorship resistance, and decentralization. He contrasts two possible outcomes: The Pirate Bay as a cautionary tale of useful technology that became niche versus TSMC as the level of strategic importance to aim for. He identifies three core affordances that Ethereum uniquely provides: durable commitments across jurisdictions and time, canonical uniqueness through globally consistent state, and programmable trust as a dial rather than binary gate. He uses flash loans as a proof point of financial primitives impossible elsewhere, and suggests prediction markets becoming composable risk infrastructure as one possible frontier. He closes by announcing his focus is shifting from protocol work to finding the applications that deserve to run on Ethereum at planetary scale. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Background and Ethereum's Special Properties 00:54 Unreasonable Sufficiency: Simple Protocols, Complex Results 01:19 The New Question: What Should Ethereum Be Used For 02:24 Why Ethereum Must Provide What the World Needs 03:28 Cautionary Tale: The Pirate Bay vs Strategic Goal: TSMC 04:34 Why Apps Must Depend on Ethereum, Not Just Run on It 05:33 Why DeFi and L2s Are Foundations, Not Final Answers 06:55 The Bar for Reasonably Necessary Territory 07:49 Three Core Affordances Ethereum Uniquely Provides 08:32 Durable Commitments Across Time and Context 09:13 Canonical Uniqueness and Double Spend Prevention 10:04 Programmable Trust as a Dial, Not a Binary Gate 10:54 Settlement Physics and Flash Loans as Proof 12:18 Prediction Markets as Composable Risk Infrastructure 13:18 AI Agents and Onchain Trust at Machine Speed 13:52 The Foundation Is Already in Place 14:31 Tim's Next Chapter: From Protocol to Applications 15:08 Closing: Becoming Reasonably Necessary _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Jill Malandrino moderates a discussion with Declan Fox and Rob Dawson from Consensys on the role of neutral governance in institutional blockchain adoption. They argue that while open source software has been foundational for technology companies, it is not sufficient on its own for enterprises making decade long bets, since the technology could be swept from under their feet without credible neutral stewardship. Declan compares open source without neutral governance to a building where you can peek in the door and inspect the code, but the house could still be demolished. The conversation positions governance not as ideology but as a practical procurement decision. Declan and Rob detail Besu's success as the institutional Ethereum client, running 15% of Ethereum mainnet but 80 to 90% of all blocks on enterprise blockchains, largely because of its Apache 2 license and Hyperledger and LFDT hosting. They explain that Consensys has now made the same bet on Layer 2 by contributing Linea technology to the Linux Foundation. The discussion covers tradeoffs in the EF's CROPS mandate (censorship resistant, open source, private, secure), how zero knowledge proofs enable confidential blockchains to interoperate without revealing sensitive information, the risk of digitizing fragmentation across chains, and atomic cross chain delivery versus payment as a recently unlocked use case. They close on the holy trinity of decentralized trust (blockchains), decentralized identity, and decentralized AI, with discussion of how ERC-7804 helps manage non human identities in a future of machine to machine blockchain interaction. 00:00 Introduction 00:29 Why Governance Is Becoming Central to Institutional Adoption 00:52 Open Source Is Not Enough: The Building Analogy 01:51 Why Technologists Should Care About Governance 02:37 Besu's Adoption Through Apache 2 and Linux Foundation 03:15 Besu as the Institutional Ethereum Client 03:41 Donating Linea Technology to the Linux Foundation 04:26 The Linux Foundation as a Trusted Brand 04:47 Does Governance Quality Match Technical Quality 05:40 Competitors Coming Together for Shared Standards 07:07 Governance as a Component of Scalability 07:26 Challenges and Friction Points in Governance 08:35 Maintaining Innovation Velocity Under Stewardship 09:55 Governance Improves Product Practices 10:00 The CROPS Mandate and Its Tradeoffs 11:40 Privacy and Security as Institutional Adoption Blockers 11:58 How Privacy Is Achieved Technically with ZK Proofs 12:50 Avoiding Digitized Fragmentation Across Chains 13:58 LFDT as a Forum for Interop Standards 14:16 No One Size Fits All Chain Solution 14:51 Interoperability as the Remaining Pillar 16:04 Cross Chain Delivery Versus Payment Now Possible 16:35 Security as a Critical Conversation 17:36 Challenges with Legacy Enterprise Blockchain Infrastructure 19:08 Ethereum's 10+ Years of Continuous Uptime 19:52 What's Next: Progressive Decentralization 21:16 Integration, Not Us Versus Them 22:22 How Rough Consensus Works in Practice 23:30 Selectivity in Onboarding Projects to Foundations 24:48 The Maturation of Governance, Security, and Privacy 25:25 Closing Thoughts on Institutional Adoption 25:44 The Holy Trinity: Decentralized Trust, Identity, and AI 26:26 Governing Non Human Identities and AI Agents 27:21 ERC-7804 and Machine to Machine Infrastructure 27:37 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Deepthi Kumar, co-CEO of O(1) Labs, the team behind Mina Protocol, makes the case for moving from trust based to proof based enterprise systems. She frames the central problem facing every business in the coming years: increasing reliance on systems, vendors, and AI agents that you cannot actually check. Her thesis fits in one line: make trust verifiable. Rather than handing over more promises about what systems can do, organizations should hand over more proofs. She notes that zero knowledge proofs have quietly gone mainstream beyond cryptography papers and private tokens, with Google shipping ZK age verification in Google Wallet, Microsoft integrating ZK based credentials into its identity offering, and the EU mandating ZK based digital identity for member states. Deepthi explains that ZK has historically been used for two purposes (privacy and scalability through ZK rollups), but proposes a third use case: verifiability, which is an inherent property of ZK rather than something bolted on. A SNARK at its core is verifiable computation. She argues this should be applied to enterprise workflows where policies govern high stakes operations, citing two converging forces driving the urgency: AI as an offensive weapon (with the first AI generated zero days being reported and threat actors using AI across attack lifecycles), and AI as an actor (agents acting on our behalf at a scale existing guardrails cannot match). The proposed shift is from a model where you trust systems to act, to one where the highstakes action is logged until a proof shows up validating that all policies were enforced. She describes ZK as a "knot tree" that cannot be bribed. The mechanics are three steps: encode existing policy into a ZK circuit running in parallel to existing enforcement, verify the proof against the expected statement, then execute the operation. Benefits include cryptographic receipts, per action audit trails (finer than sample checks), and composability across multi organization workflows through proof aggregation. She closes by emphasizing this is additive not replacement (preserving security heterogeneity), incrementally adoptable starting with one narrow high value flow, and applicable to institutional finance money movement, AI agent identity and delegation, and any vendor integration with policy enforcement requirements. 00:00 Introduction 00:10 Why You Cannot Check Your Vendors and Agents 00:54 Proof Over Promises 01:33 ZK Has Quietly Gone Mainstream 02:17 Google, Microsoft, and the EU on ZK 02:46 The Two Established Uses: Privacy and Scalability 03:42 Proposing Verifiability as the Third Use Case 04:17 Why Verifiability Is Inherent to ZK 05:05 Why Now: Two Forces Pushing in the Same Direction 05:50 AI on the Offense 06:26 AI as an Actor on Your Behalf 07:01 Shifting From Trust to Proof Authorization 07:47 ZK as a Knot Tree That Cannot Be Bribed 08:22 Treasury Transfer as a Concrete Example 09:24 Verifiable Workflow in Three Steps 10:03 Encoding Policy Into a ZK Circuit 10:44 Verifying the Proof Statement 11:27 Cryptographic Receipts 11:54 Per Action Audit Trails 12:19 Composability Across Multi Organization Workflows 13:44 Not Rip and Replace, Additive Layer 14:51 Why ZK Adoption Can Be Incremental 15:45 Applications: Institutional Finance Money Movement 16:27 AI Agents Proving They Followed Policy 16:53 Agent Identity and Delegation Chains 17:21 Enterprise Operations and Vendor Integrations 18:02 Key Takeaway: Add a ZK Layer to High Stakes Operations 19:01 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Jakob Drzazga, founder of Frontier Tower, opens with the story of why he chose to build on Ethereum back in 2017: not for the price action or hype, but because of the test nets that let developers safely change the engine mid flight while ensuring everything remained solid. He uses this as a frame to ask what societies and governments would look like if they had test nets to validate policy implementations before rolling them out nationwide. He argues we currently implement things mid flight without testing, leading to uncoordinated outcomes. His mission is to build a physical test net for new governance and monetary systems. Jakob walks through Frontier Tower's progress since launching in April 2024: a 16 floor vertical village in San Francisco with capacity for 7,000 builders, organized into floors for AI, longevity, biotech, crypto (which he calls the Ethereum floor), robotics, and neurotech. In the last 12 months, 70,000 people visited, 800 became full time citizens, and they're growing 25% quarter over quarter. They've since acquired Superhero Hotel for 150 builders to co-live, and plan to scale from 1,000 to 10,000 to 100,000 to 1 million citizens. He references Ray Dalio's thesis that societies survive on average 250 years, then shares observations from his China trip including Mu Shanghai's pop-up city showcasing record breaking drone shows, autonomous coffee shops, robots on the street, and China surpassing the US in blockbuster pharma deals in 2025. He attributes China's edge to its 80 year old governance system being younger and to experimentation in special economic zones like Shenzhen, Dubai, and Singapore. He advocates for startup cities and freedom cities in America. He previews two near term experiments his community will run: Frontier OS launching this year with their own stablecoin to test programmable, restricted subsidies that solve the 2021 stimulus problem where many recipients invested in crypto rather than supporting small businesses, and an AI agent based DAO experiment with Protocol Labs where each tower resident's agent reads proposals, knows their preferences and physical activity patterns, and votes accordingly. He closes with the Frontier Residency program that just ran badge zero with six startups, with one accepted to YC. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Why Test Nets Made Jakob Choose Ethereum in 2017 01:13 What If Societies Had Test Nets 01:52 Frontier Tower: A 16 Floor Vertical Village 02:19 Floors for AI, Longevity, Biotech, Crypto, Robotics 02:50 70,000 Visitors and 800 Citizens in 12 Months 03:19 Superhero Hotel and Co-Living Expansion 03:48 Scaling From 1,000 to 1 Million Citizens 04:18 Rethinking Governance From First Principles 04:18 Ray Dalio's 250 Year Society Thesis 05:06 What China Got Right 06:26 Why Younger Systems Have an Advantage 06:57 Special Economic Zones: Shenzhen, Dubai, Singapore 07:25 The Case for Startup and Freedom Cities in America 08:05 Building a City of Physical and Digital Automation 08:45 The Genius Act and Launching a Frontier Stablecoin 09:10 The 2021 Stimulus Problem 09:38 Programmable Subsidies for Local Economies 10:43 Reimagining Tax Allocation and DAOs 11:24 Why DAOs Failed When Crypto Was Only Digital 12:01 Agent Powered DAO Experiment With Protocol Labs 13:03 How Agents Solve the Proposal Fatigue Problem 13:35 Call to Action: Build a Society Test Net 14:01 RWA Real Estate Over $30 Million 14:24 IRL DAO Co-Design Opportunity 14:59 Frontier Residency Badge Zero Recap 15:40 Open Floors at the Tower 16:15 Robotizing the Building 16:30 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Dean Tribble from Agoric, one of the original Cypherpunks, presents enforceable guardrails as the missing layer for agentic finance. He frames the trajectory: financial activity is moving rapidly from humans in the loop to agents executing on behalf of people, with Fireblocks, Coinbase, Circle, and as of that morning MetaMask all rolling out APIs for agent access. The driver is smart automation that can adapt to the complexity of our evolving economy at electronic speed, and the trend is inevitable. But the central obstacle is trust. Agents are talked out of their money the same way humans are phished, and they can delete production databases or send funds to attackers who persuade them to be helpful. Dean walks through what doesn't work. After the fact auditing is too late at the speed of light, since the money is already converted and shipped offshore. Telling the agent the rules and hoping it follows them is exactly what we're trying to police. Adding additional supervisor agents to review transactions just stacks unreliable layers. Custody providers offer something useful but are themselves building non custodial solutions because custody cannot move at the speed agentic commerce requires. The answer is direct enforcement of a bounded mandate where what matters is what the agent can do, not what it wants to do. He uses the analogy of giving signing authority to your grocery shopper. Dean explains Agoric's orchestration approach where a user signs a high level mandate (which vaults are allowed, max amounts per vault, allowed chains) and submits it to a smart contract on the Agoric L1, then delegates execution to an agent that can use Twitter sentiment and APY data to propose allocations. The smart contract validates each high level intent against the mandate before executing it, coordinating cross chain activity via CCTP, Axelar, and other rails from a single auditable place. He demos YMAX, Agoric's yield optimization product, which already enables single signature cross chain capital deployment and is rolling out agentic features in alpha. He closes by reframing smart contracts as the solution to the classical principal agent problem from economics, enabling humans and AI agents to be cryptographically aligned. 00:00 Introduction 00:08 An Original Cypherpunk 00:28 The Shift From Humans to Agents in Finance 01:29 Why Agentic Finance Is Inevitable 01:59 Why You and I Need Agents to Keep Up 02:24 The Core Obstacle: Agents Can Be Talked Out of Their Money 03:12 Trust as the Number One Problem 03:40 Why After the Fact Auditing Fails 04:06 Why Telling the Agent the Rules Doesn't Work 05:09 Why Supervisor Agents Aren't the Answer 05:56 The Guardrails Problem Comes to the Forefront 06:29 Bounded Authority: What the Agent Can Do 06:49 Why Keys for Agents Is a Bad Idea 07:24 Why Custody Is Not a Complete Solution 08:38 Why Terms of Service Won't Save You 08:57 Smart Contracts as the Principal Agent Solution 09:19 Example: Yield Optimization Mandate 10:18 Strategy vs Mandate 10:57 Signing the Mandate to the Smart Contract 11:15 Why High Level Intents Beat Raw Transaction Bytes 12:24 Smart Contract Validates and Executes the Intent 12:49 The Multi Chain Execution Problem 13:06 How Agoric Orchestration Works 13:27 One Contract, Multi Step Cross Chain Action 14:00 Mandate Enforcement Across All of Web3 14:23 Orchestration Beyond One Chain 14:45 YMAX: Single Signature Yield Optimization 15:38 The Agentic Version of YMAX 16:26 Why Cross Chain Yields Beat Single Chain Yields 18:12 Alpha Status and Partner Integrations 18:28 Pulling Up: The Pattern Is the Insight 18:57 Smart Contracts Beyond Strangers Cooperating 19:15 Solving the Principal Agent Problem 19:48 Building the Trust Layer for Agentic Finance 20:28 Don't Give Your AI Keys, Give It a Mandate 20:47 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Ishan Singh from Google Cloud's digital asset team sits down with Christian Crowley, partner on the A16Z crypto go to market team, to discuss the pending Clarity Act, the future of tokenization, agentic commerce, and lessons for crypto founders selling into institutions. Christian draws on his background as a former founder who built DeFi and AI startups and the first Ethereum analytics company under the Consensys umbrella, plus his time at AWS, to explain that good go to market advice often sounds great in theory but is much less compelling in execution. His central principle for the founders he advises is reducing user friction at every step. The conversation digs into the parallel tracks of stablecoins and tokenized deposits. Christian explains that banks want the 24/7 interoperability and composability benefits but want to maintain deposit relationships and fit into existing compliance frameworks, which is why tokenized deposits will persist alongside stablecoins. Ishan previews Google Cloud's Universal Ledger product built at the protocol level for interoperability between onchain money assets. On RWAs, Christian argues tokenization itself is not the product since what matters is what the asset gains (24/7 trading, collateral mobility, interoperability), with money markets and treasuries leading early. Ishan emphasizes collateral mobility as the real killer use case for eliminating reconciliation across TradFi books and records. They debate the rails for agentic commerce, with virtual cards up 6x year over year offering an easier behavior shift while X2X and direct stablecoin payments make more sense for net new behaviors like real time compute adjustments. On the AI security tension, Christian notes that until frontier models have comprehensively reviewed existing code bases there is an unknowable set of risks in production, and the same tools attackers use are available to defenders. Ishan covers Google Cloud's MPC wallet using key shares with sub second signing across Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, and Universal Ledger. Christian closes with the most consistent founder mistake: assuming Web2 go to market lessons don't apply to Web3, when enterprises buy for clear measurable benefits, not decentralization. 00:00 Introductions 01:22 What Christian Brings to Founder Conversations 02:15 Reducing Friction as a Core Mental Model 03:14 The Clarity Act and Tokenized Deposits vs Stablecoins 04:00 Why Banks Want Tokenized Deposits 05:14 From Bank Issued Stablecoins to Integration Focus 05:56 Google Cloud Universal Ledger and Interoperability 06:26 The Trouble with the Term RWA 07:12 Tokenization Itself Is Not the Product 07:53 Why Collateral Mobility Is the Real Killer App 08:39 Eliminating Reconciliation Across TradFi 08:57 Money as Internet Packets 09:50 Legacy Distribution vs Better Technology 10:34 Rails for Agentic Commerce 11:00 Virtual Cards vs X2X and Stablecoins 11:36 Why Virtual Cards Are Easier Behavior Shifts 12:26 When Net New Behaviors Call for Open Rails 13:05 The Dark Side of AI for Web3 14:00 Founders Have Always Cared About Security 14:21 The Race Between Frontier Models and Attackers 15:14 Google Cloud MPC Wallet 15:59 Sub Second Signing Across Multiple Chains 16:41 Common Mistakes Founders Make Selling to Institutions 17:54 Why Best Technology Doesn't Always Win 18:11 The Champion's Asymmetric Risk Inside Enterprises 18:40 TradFi Budget Constraints and Quantifiable ROI 19:24 Knicks or Spurs Tonight 19:43 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Philipp Zentner, founder of LI.FI, tackles Ethereum's multi chain fragmentation and how a single API can solve it. He opens by celebrating that finance is finally coming on chain after 10 years of building smart contract and distributed ledger technology, citing around $31 billion in RWAs and $400 billion including stablecoins. But the core problem is that all this value is spread across dozens of chains, and it grows more complex as banks like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton build their own permissioned systems. He notes 95% of stablecoin movement happens on Ethereum L2s with 30% on Base, all representing the same dollar, and warns that as more countries adopt frameworks like the Genius Act and MiCA, the world could see thousands of stablecoins, making fragmentation exponentially worse. Philipp explains the cost of this fragmentation tax. Builders must bet on one ecosystem while mercenary liquidity rotates between hyped chains, leaving projects stranded, and they burn time on user onboarding instead of product. Users pay with time, money, and dust, often distrusting bridges so much that liquidity sits stuck in silos, leading to the verdict that crypto is not ready. Institutions will not deploy billions across 40 islands and will pick or build their own chains to retain customer relationships, so fragmentation must be solved from the user's perspective. Drawing the internet analogy where you type an address without caring about DNS or data centers, he argues the future is multi chain and outcome oriented, shifting to intent based flows where users simply express what they want. He positions this as critical for the next wave of AI agent users communicating in natural language. He describes how LI.FI spent five years aggregating bridges, DEXs, and trading venues into one modular system serving over 1,200 partners (including MetaMask, Phantom, Binance, Coinbase, Circle, and Fireblocks) and now serving TradFi with compliance and custom liquidity. He introduces Composer, an on-chain virtual machine expressing a TypeScript domain specific language that compiles end to end user journeys into byte code executed atomically, abstracting away chains, gas tokens, and wrapping. Having processed over $80 billion across 90 million transactions, he closes by urging the industry to stop reinventing the wheel and build on LI.FI's marketplace to stop paying the fragmentation tax. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Finance Is Coming On Chain 00:36 RWAs and Stablecoins by the Numbers 01:00 Why Fragmentation Is the Big Problem 01:19 Being Grateful for the Progress 01:44 95% of Stablecoin Movement on L2s 02:05 Hundreds of Stablecoins and Counting 02:31 The Cost of Fragmentation for Builders 02:55 Mercenary Liquidity and Capital Rotation 03:17 Time Lost on User Onboarding 03:38 How Users Pay With Time, Money, and Dust 04:16 Why Whales Keep Liquidity Stuck on L1 04:39 Jumper and the Dust Problem 04:57 Why Institutions Will Pick Their Own Chain 05:34 The Internet Analogy: Outcome Oriented 06:00 Why It Will Be Multi-Chain 06:24 Intent Based Flows for the Next Wave 06:51 What LI.FI Has Built Over Five Years 07:20 Abstracting Away Complex Systems 07:54 Serving TradFi With a Modular System 08:20 Why We Need to Talk to the Chain 08:46 Introducing Composer 09:14 Typing User Journeys in TypeScript 09:51 Seamless Journeys for Vaults and Cards 10:20 Infrastructure That Scales: $80 Billion Processed 10:44 The 1,200 Partners Using LI.FI 11:06 Back to the Fragmentation Tax 11:33 Why the Tax Grows Exponentially 11:57 Stop Reinventing the Wheel 12:17 Why Edge Cases and Data Matter 12:36 Focus on Building Great Applications 13:03 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Nick Stoev

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Nick Stoev from Mellow addresses what he calls the idle trillion: the gap between how much capital sits on chain and how little of it is actually working. Drawing on 10 years building in the space, he traces the industry's evolution from an isolated world with few on-ramps and off-ramps and almost no real world use cases, through DeFi summer as the kickstarter, to today's landscape of on-chain settlement, tokenized products, and real world assets. He cites over $300 billion in stablecoins on chain now with BCG projecting more than $18 trillion by 2033, then polls the audience on how much of that capital is truly working. The answer is only around 10%, and he argues two forces are changing that: shifting regulations that, while limiting some asset classes, enable banks and institutions to hold stablecoins on their balance sheets, and the rise of payments and settlement as the main driver since on-chain settlement is atomic, cross border, and 24/7. Nick frames the opportunity in two parts: settlement, which is already solved with custodians, stablecoin settlement, and bridging infrastructure live today, and management, which is still being built and involves not just technology but business processes, strategy construction, compliance, NAV reporting, and strategy isolation. As sophisticated asset managers arrive from TradFi and fintech, the industry needs more guardrails and tech stack pieces to route capital between assets (stablecoins, money market funds, commodities) and distribution channels (wallets, exchanges, brokers, issuers). He stresses that yield is a liability with very different risk characteristics for retail versus institutions, where APY is the last question asked after transparency, risk, and structure. He covers the same yield stack serving AI agents that need guardrails since models hallucinate, DeFi products being baked invisibly into fintechs like Deel and Stripe, and Mellow's vault stack that deploys strategies on chain in hours without smart contract development. He emphasizes on-chain enforced risk management removing the need to trust asset managers, and the faster pace of updating strategies as RWAs make the market more dynamic, closing that the coming year will bring far more capital on chain and deeper DeFi and TradFi convergence. 00:00 Introduction 00:12 The Idle Trillion and an Invisible Industry 00:51 How the Industry Has Changed in 10 Years 01:17 The Numbers: 300 Billion in Stablecoins 01:57 Audience Poll: How Much Capital Is Working 02:26 Why Only 10% of Capital Is Active 02:26 First Driver: Changing Regulations 02:53 Second Driver: Payments and Settlement 03:16 Why Settlement Is Naturally On-Chain 03:44 The CFO Question About Treasury Stablecoins 04:17 Two Parts: Settlement and Management 04:42 Why Management Is More Than Technology 05:16 How the Asset Manager Landscape Is Changing 05:47 Assets and Distribution Already Solved 06:16 The Missing Middle: Strategies and Routing 06:48 Why Yield Is a Liability, Not Just a Number 07:25 Why Institutions Ask About Risk First 07:55 The Yield Stack for AI Agents 08:20 Why Agents Need Guardrails 08:20 DeFi Products Baked Into Fintechs 09:08 Invisible Deposit Buttons for End Users 09:39 Mellow's Vault Stack 10:08 On-Chain Enforced Risk Management 10:37 Transparency and Trust Without Trusting Managers 10:59 Why Speed of Updates Matters 11:29 Reallocating Capital Almost Instantly 12:03 Summing Up: DeFi and TradFi Convergence 12:32 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Steven Goldfeder

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Amanda Cassatt from Serotonin sits down with Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Offchain Labs, to discuss Arbitrum's origins, the evolving role of L2s, and how institutions are reshaping the Ethereum ecosystem. Steven traces Arbitrum back to a fall 2014 Princeton class project led by his co-founder Ed, nearly a year before Ethereum went live, when it was a purely academic pursuit around scaling the theorized concept of smart contracts. Years later, when platforms hit real scaling issues, he and co-founders Ed and Harry took the vision out of the ivory tower. On Vitalik's comment that the rollup centric roadmap no longer makes sense and that an L2 which doesn't fully decentralize is just a vampiric L1 with a bridge, Steven welcomes Ethereum ending its neutral stance toward chains that latched onto the brand without being secured by it, noting Arbitrum was built from day one with proofs connecting it to Ethereum. Steven identifies two major shifts. First, Arbitrum built its own identity, evolving from Ethereum users wanting a cheaper path to majority Arbitrum first users drawn by deep liquidity, apps like GMX, and 250 millisecond block times, making it a top five blockchain by economic activity. Second, L2s now have a purpose independent from scaling: institutions want their own chains for branding, compliance, and privacy, choosing between their own L1 (Stripe's Tempo, Circle's Arc) or an Ethereum L2 (Robin Hood on Arbitrum, Coinbase's Base). He argues Ethereum is the only L1 that can cater to them through the L2 model. He uses Robin Hood's landlord versus tenant framing, explains why fading into invisible infrastructure is best for global adoption (the cat video on AWS versus GCP analogy), and notes the Arbitrum DAO still collects 10% of Robin Hood chain revenue. He covers solving fragmentation through smart routing addresses and ZeroDev chain abstraction, his view that AI agents are closer to a Sybil attack than a solution, his bullishness on non financial use cases like prediction markets and USDA's AI hardware lending, and how Offchain connects institutions to Ethereum while the Foundation stays focused on CROPS. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 From Aspiring Professor to Founding Arbitrum 01:01 The Fall 2014 Princeton Class Project 01:43 Taking Arbitrum Out of the Ivory Tower 02:12 Is Vitalik Right About the Rollup Centric Roadmap 02:41 Why Ethereum Ended Its Neutral Brand Stance 03:09 How Arbitrum Was Built Connected to Ethereum 03:30 Two Core Things That Have Changed 03:48 From Ethereum First to Arbitrum First Users 04:23 Arbitrum as a Top Five Blockchain 04:44 Why L2s Have a Purpose Independent of Scaling 05:26 Institutions Choosing L1 vs L2 05:54 Why Ethereum Is the Only L1 That Can Fight 06:30 Offchain's Role in Scaling the Layer 1 07:11 Is the Case for L2s Now Institutional Onboarding 07:45 Why Institutions Want Their Own Branded Chains 08:15 Owning the Chain to Collect Fee Revenue 08:40 The Landlord vs Tenant Strip Mall Analogy 09:29 What Is Arbitrum in the Landlord Metaphor 10:06 The Risks and Rewards of Invisible Infrastructure 10:46 Fueling Robin Hood's International Expansion 11:28 The Cat Video on AWS Analogy 11:48 Why the DAO Still Benefits in Dollars and Cents 12:13 Fragmentation Across L2s and L3s 12:45 Smart Routing Addresses and Chain Abstraction 13:52 Why Taking a Step Back Enables Going Forward 14:39 Will AI Agents Solve Fragmentation 15:32 Why Agents Add Usage Rather Than Solve It 16:03 Smart Wallets With Policies for Agents 16:48 Will Users Know They're Using Arbitrum in 10 Years 17:11 Why Escape Hatches Matter Even If Unused 18:11 Blockchain Gaming as an Example 18:58 Getting the Benefits Without Engaging the Details 19:17 Why the Right to Self Sovereignty Always Matters 20:01 Bullish on Non Financial Use Cases 20:34 Why Arbitrum Has Been Finance Focused From the Start 21:08 Prediction Markets and USDA AI Hardware Lending 21:49 What the Programmable Economy Really Means 22:16 How Arbitrum's Mission Fits Ethereum's Values 22:44 Believing in CROPS and Decentralization 23:30 Offchain as the Business Conduit for Institutions 24:06 A Harmonious Ecosystem With the Ethereum Foundation 24:27 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Yuga Cohler, head of engineering at Coinbase Developer Platform, sits down with Erik Repp, founder of the X2X protocol and his former boss, to discuss the state of agentic payments. Yuga frames agentic payments as a buzzword that Coinbase thinks about constantly, and after polling the audience finds most have heard of X2X but far fewer have actually done a transaction or had an agent do one. Erik's core takeaway is that agentic commerce is not theoretical: it already happens tens or hundreds of thousands of times a day and is genuinely useful right now, urging everyone to give their agent a wallet and five dollars and try it. With Anthropic's Fable launching that day and models accelerating, they note agentic payments are still nascent at roughly $15 million annualized volume, while X2X recently hit its 100 millionth transaction and around 50 million annualized. Erik explains that the original sin of the internet was having no standard way to declare a payment regardless of the underlying rails, since Stripe, Adyen, and Checkout.com all differ. X2X provides a well typed schema and standard way of declaring how to receive payment, which creates easy programmable interfaces for agents. Because agents are probabilistic and every credit card form field is another chance to fail, deterministic programmatic tools let an agent simply express intent to pay rather than filling 14 fields. X2X is agnostic to the underlying rail, operating across roughly 15 blockchains including Solana, Base, and Ethereum, plus card rails. They discuss why stablecoins fit agentic payments (microtransactions charging fractions of a cent, programmability, instant settlement), and Yuga positions CDP as Coinbase's version of AWS providing settlement, custody, API and MCP infrastructure, and enterprise controls, where enabling agent payments is just a config on an existing stack. Erik draws an analogy to the open web built on HTML and HTTP, arguing crypto's open standards let companies compete on a level playing field while handling custody, KYC, and compliance. They close with hot takes: Yuga predicts 2026 as the year of agentic "vibe trading" where agents pay for data autonomously via X2X, and Erik argues payments make AI less mundane by giving agents access to valuable proprietary information rather than the same public corpus everyone else has. 00:00 Introduction 00:31 Agentic Payments and the X2X OG 00:52 Audience Poll: Who Has Done an X2X Transaction 01:20 Go Try Agentic Commerce Yourself 01:48 Volume Stats and Anthropic Fable Launch 02:30 Why AI Agents Need to Make Payments 02:36 The Original Sin of Internet Payments 03:22 How X2X Standardizes Payment Declaration 03:46 Why Agents Need Deterministic Tools 04:44 X2X Across 15 Blockchains and Card Rails 05:04 Why Stablecoins for Agentic Payments 05:42 CDP as Coinbase's Version of AWS 06:19 The Infrastructure Stack: Settlement to Custody 07:22 The Edge Determines Human, Agent, or Business 07:46 Shopify and Merchant Acceptance Examples 08:11 Agentic Payments as a Config on Existing Infrastructure 08:32 The Pivot to Agents Like the Open Web 09:30 Why Businesses Need Custody and Compliance 09:53 Competing on a Level Playing Field 10:23 AWS Agent Core Adopts X2X 10:43 Marketing and Research Agents Using X2X 11:57 The Number One Enterprise Question: Compliance 12:27 How the Facilitator Lowers the Barrier 13:20 CDP's Facilitator With KYT and OFAC Screening 13:53 Safe Defaults That Drop Barriers to Entry 14:25 Why Conservative Enterprises Are Coming Around 14:59 The Magic Moment for Agentic Payments 15:21 Hot Take: 2026 as the Year of Vibe Trading 15:50 Agents Trading Autonomously via X2X 16:30 Why Delegating to Trading Agents Is Fun 16:57 Hot Take: How Mundane AI Is Right Now 17:22 The Share Research Papers Era of AI 18:02 Why Capabilities Made the Internet Interesting 18:38 Why Payments Make AI Less Mundane 18:55 Giving Agents Access to Valuable Secrets 19:17 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Shadman Sakib, founder of Flex Global, argues that fintech and banking have missed the real economy by building almost exclusively for customers who already have world class financial infrastructure. Through interactive audience polling, he illustrates that while most attendees use Robinhood and major banks, 99% of the world operates with a patchwork of obscure local banks, stablecoin wallets, FX platforms, manual checks, and separate debit cards just to complete a single transaction. Drawing on nine years at JP Morgan and City plus three years at Mercury, he explains that fintech was built in San Francisco for AI agents, NASDAQ listed companies, and large multi-million dollar deposit holders, while ignoring local manufacturers, middle market businesses, and exporters in places like Colombia hedging against currencies that fluctuate 20 to 30%. He notes even crypto foundations struggled to bank anywhere from 2020 to 2025, relying on patchwork setups across the Cayman Islands, BVI, Singapore, and Switzerland. Shadman contends that while stablecoins solved money movement, they don't solve operations for most companies, and 90% of stablecoin adoption happens overseas precisely where the complex use cases live. He details what's actually missing: invoices and ISO memos attached to payments, FX conversion to local currencies, local bank delivery, 30-day payment terms, and credit, which the US takes for granted but barely exists elsewhere. He critiques neo banks spinning up without true banking DNA or real compliance teams, chasing Solana treasuries and crypto companies with hundreds of millions rather than serving the businesses that drive the global economy. Using a Singapore tire manufacturer on HSBC as an example, he outlines the real needs: multicurrency accounts, multi-entity management, trade finance to borrow against receivables, local off-ramps, real credit, and compliance that understands industries rather than labeling crypto high risk. He explains Flex Global treats stablecoins not as a product to sell but as an augmentation of years of banking rails and credit expertise from servicing over 20,000 middle market customers, offering local currency accounts in 100 plus countries with invoicing, treasury, FX, and native credit. He closes urging the industry to stop building for people already on chain and instead serve those for whom simply holding US dollars is a luxury. 00:00 Introduction 00:12 Interactive Audience Poll 00:38 The One Transaction Nightmare 01:18 How Fintech Missed the Real Economy 01:47 Why the US Has World Class Infrastructure 02:12 How Things Break Outside the US 02:34 The Luxury of Using the US Dollar 03:02 Why Even Crypto Foundations Couldn't Bank 03:32 Who Fintech Has Been Building For 03:54 Building for Large Deposit Holders 04:18 The Neo Bank Cluster Chasing Crypto Treasuries 04:39 Why Regular Businesses Dwarf Crypto 05:02 Serving Crypto After SVB at Mercury 05:24 Why No Compliance Is a Death Sentence 05:45 How Banks Made Money on FX and Fees 06:10 Why the Fastest Money Movement Is Not Moving It 06:43 Why We Keep Building for the Same Customers 07:00 Why 90% of Stablecoin Adoption Is Overseas 07:35 What Is Missing From Stablecoin Payments 07:54 Why Credit Doesn't Exist Outside the US 08:42 Why Real Businesses Have Amplified Needs 09:09 Local Currency and Everyday Bills 09:45 The Singapore Manufacturer on HSBC 10:04 Trade Finance and Borrowing Against Receivables 10:22 Why Real Compliance Must Understand Industries 10:42 Why Neo Banks Lack Banking DNA 11:18 Why the Full Stack Is Hard to Build 11:44 Understanding Invoicing and User Permissioning 12:04 Why Business Payments Need Approval Layers 12:30 Serving the Customers Everyone Ignores 12:55 What Flex Global Is Building 13:25 Stablecoins as Augmentation, Not a Product 13:50 Serving the Customers Actually Moving Money 14:17 Local Accounts, Credit, and Native Rails 14:46 Talking to Design Partners 15:09 Building for People Who See This as Luxury 15:32 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Mikhail Lazarev from Gearbox Protocol shares his playbook for trusting AI agents with capital, opening on the number zero: Gearbox has had zero security incidents in five years and zero bad debt, and zero could also be how much money is left if you fail to secure agents properly. Drawing on two years of piloting experiments starting with prototypes on EigenLayer in 2024, he lays out the Gearbox agentic framework and how anyone can set up a curatorless autonomous AI vault today. He frames the stakes with numbers: BCG projects $19 trillion tokenized on chain by 2033, and while 62% of entities are experimenting with AI per McKinsey, only 10% use it in production, a huge gap. Referencing a recent tweet from a well-known security figure warning that AI is now so good at finding vulnerabilities that DeFi feels unsafe, he argues DeFi 3.0 needs two shifts: moving from complicated monolithic smart contract systems to using Ethereum as a settlement layer with simple one-to-one peer-to-peer credit lines that are easy to formally verify, and moving from human risk curators to curatorless due diligence performed by agents that research deeply, respond fast to market changes, scale, and never sleep. Mikhail walks through the Gearbox loop of six stages (discover, analyze, shortlist, propose, execute, and monitor), noting they built their own indexer to solve the lack of proven data sources. He demos an agent analyzing around 100 documents in five minutes to recommend how to deploy 10k of USDC, flagging an insecure pool with an RLP token incident, and introduces an MCP server so the loop runs in any coding agent with a human-in-the-loop verification link (deployable to IPFS) so users never sign what they do not understand. He explains bot APY, an on-chain harness using Gearbox's battle tested total-value computation to cap an agent's risk budget per transaction, making losses easy to hedge with insurance and protecting against leaked agent keys. He covers graph memory with per-source credibility scores to resist toxic tweet manipulation and plug in institutional due diligence, mapping interconnections between complex assets to enable emergency exits during contagion. He closes with a structured product where 90% sits in a yield pool while an agent borrows against it and competes to outperform, backstopped by an on-chain stop-loss. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Starting With the Number Zero 00:41 Zero Incidents, Zero Bad Debt 01:07 Two Years of Piloting Agent Experiments 01:45 The Numbers We Are Facing 02:17 The Gap Between Experimentation and Production 02:50 The Vision for How DeFi Should Be Done 03:32 DeFi 3.0: Ethereum as a Settlement Layer 04:09 Why Peer-to-Peer Is Easier to Verify 04:45 Why Autonomous Due Diligence Matters 05:16 From Risk Curators to Curatorless Agents 05:48 Why Autonomy Beats Manual Research 06:14 The Gearbox Loop of Six Stages 06:39 Why Shortlisting Is Needed 07:08 Why Execution Must Be Safe 07:15 Demo: Deploying 10k of USDC 07:36 How the Agent Collects and Analyzes Data 08:14 Flagging an Insecure Pool 08:41 Introducing the MCP Server 09:08 Why You Never Sign What You Don't Understand 09:35 The Human-in-the-Loop Verification Link 10:03 Toward Autonomous Capital Management 10:47 How Bot APY and Risk Budgets Work 11:12 Why Capped Losses Are Easy to Hedge 11:38 Protecting Against Leaked Agent Keys 12:07 The Problem of Agent Memory 12:34 Credibility Scores to Resist Manipulation 13:04 Plugging In Institutional Due Diligence 13:37 From Beating ML to Following a Manifest 14:05 Why Different Goals Achieve Different Outcomes 14:48 Mapping Interconnections Between Complex Assets 15:14 Emergency Exits During Contagion 15:53 Building a Structured Product on Gearbox 16:23 Splitting Capital Into Passive and Active 16:51 How the Agent Borrows and Competes 17:38 The On-Chain Stop-Loss Harness 18:19 Learning Like Robots Playing Go 18:43 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Kevin Lepsoe, founder of ETHGas, asks whether Ethereum is real-time ready and walks through how restructuring block space can make it faster, more performant, and fairer. Coming from a TradFi background as an FX and interest rate options trader who led Morgan Stanley's structured credit group before 2008, then moving into tech, he now works at the core of Ethereum infrastructure. He frames the moment through two lenses: AI, where a significant and growing share of flow is now agent driven as tools like Claude Code and Codex reach everyday users, and yield, where nearly every institution's first foray onchain is the vault space (rebranded from asset management to curation), citing a recent yield summit at the NYSE run by Morpho. The problem is that Ethereum was built over 10 years ago for humans, not machines trading every millisecond, so it is slow and uncertain: a trade you expect in 12 seconds might take 24 or 36, which makes multi-agent coordination probabilistic and hard, and predictable agents and strategies are vulnerable to front running. Kevin argues the solution is block space. ETHGas got access to Ethereum's block space and made it tradable like a commodity such as oil and gas, letting participants speculate on, manage, and risk manage the scarce high grade resource that is Ethereum's core business. He explains how block builders currently reorder trades to maximize extraction, likening it to a nightclub letting the best trades in first, which is unfair and extractive. ETHGas instead inserts trades into the next block immediately and broadcasts the block state every 50 milliseconds, enabling real-time preconfirmations where users can trade multiple times within a 12-second slot with far greater speed and certainty. He shares study results: making Ethereum real-time could earn Uniswap LPs $2 to $3 billion a year while cutting the roughly $250 to $300 million of annual MEV extraction, and dramatically reduces event risk since prices jump far less over 50 milliseconds than over 12 seconds, mitigating the cascading liquidation risks seen in the Kelp situation. He closes on institutional block space, a whitelisted end-to-end framework with known validators, first come first serve non-extractive building, and compliance policies (like avoiding Tornado Cash) that lets TradFi players like BlackRock buy size onchain without being front run, noting around 70% of Ethereum validators are broadly aligned to move forward. 00:00 Introduction 00:52 Kevin's TradFi and Tech Background 01:18 Two Perspectives: AI and Yield 01:40 Why Everyone Is Using Agents Now 02:18 The Rise of Vaults and Curation 02:50 Why Ethereum Was Built for Humans, Not Machines 03:11 The Uncertainty of Landing a Trade 03:30 Why Multi-Agent Coordination Is Hard 03:59 Why AI Will Break Things Before Trillions Arrive 04:36 Why Predictable Agents Get Front Run 04:56 The Solution: Block Space 05:19 Making Block Space Tradable Like a Commodity 05:49 Refining Block Space for Higher Performance 06:17 Why Ethereum's Block Space Is Scarce and High Grade 06:50 How Blocks Are Made Today 07:18 How Trades Propagate Through the Ecosystem 07:55 The Nightclub Analogy for Extraction 08:13 Why It Is Unfair and Extractive 08:32 Creating Fast and Exciting Blocks 09:01 Trading Multiple Times in a Slot 09:25 Real-Time Preconfirmations at 50 Milliseconds 09:47 What It Means for DeFi 10:06 Why Uniswap LPs Would Make $2-3 Billion 10:34 Less MEV and Less Extraction 11:17 Why Vault Returns Should Be Higher 11:38 Reducing Event Risk and Gap Risk 12:14 How Slow Blocks Cause Liquidation Risk 12:37 Why Faster Blocks Reduce Systemic Risk 13:11 Introducing Institutional Block Space 13:50 How Big Players Avoid Being Front Run 14:14 The Fees TradFi Will Pay to Avoid Front Running 14:35 How Institutional Block Space Works 14:59 Compliance Policies Like Avoiding Tornado Cash 15:22 Accessing Ethereum Liquidity Without a New Chain 15:54 Where ETHGas Is Today 16:26 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Tomasz Stanczak

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this wide-ranging talk, Tomasz Stanczak, founder of Nethermind and now founder of Complete Robot (a fully owned Nethermind subsidiary, not a departure), explores robots and physical AI as a new asset class and where Ethereum fits. After two years talking about agentic AI, robots, and how Ethereum can coordinate agents and solve identity, he decided to actually build rather than tell people it is easy, and shares the harder but exciting realities. He surveys the landscape: AI agents, compute, and robotics (embodied or physical intelligence), agent-to-agent and machine-to-machine payments, agentic commerce as the most immediately implementable case, and onchain compute metering (referencing the Blockrun AI team from his HF0 residency in San Francisco). His own focus is machine-to-machine micropayments, fleet billing, and self-deployable businesses, imagining how a largely autonomous economy of agents and robots would need to be structured. Tomasz walks through robotics trends: a robot beating a human at package sorting (a robot runs 6,000 hours a year versus a human's 2,000), and the economics where robots make sense wherever their amortized cost per hour undercuts expensive human labor, opening questions about insurance, regulation, financing, and operating robotic fleets as yield-generating asset classes. He notes China leads in absolute deployed industrial robots while Korea, Singapore, Germany, and Japan lead in density, and describes the energetic re-industrialization movement he witnessed in Detroit (Newlab, BCON) and across the US and Europe. On blockchain-to-robot, he covers identity systems (World, Boop, the latter incubated at Nethermind), verifiable robot actions, training, and data collection amid cross-border mistrust of foreign-made robots, and yield tokenization treating robotic fleets as deployable yield businesses. He flags a friction: strong identity plus reputation reduces the need for micropayments (enabling subscriptions and credit), while micropayments minimize trust but raise KYC and AML problems at scale. He observes that centralized players like Tesla often strip the decentralization from crypto's visions while shipping the same product, discusses DePIN precedents like Helium and their incentive misalignments, and covers stablecoin-backed debt like USD.AI backed by GPU (and potentially robot) fleets. He closes on tokenized real assets enabling on-demand fleet deployment, heavy regulation ahead, growing token use from physical AI, X2X adoption needing layer-2 scaling, and his focus on recursive autonomous capital allocation. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Founding Complete Robot Under Nethermind 00:33 Two Years on Agentic AI and Robots 00:58 Why He Decided to Build Instead of Talk 01:33 The Landscape: Agents, Compute, and Robotics 02:10 Machine-to-Machine Payments and Self-Deployable Businesses 02:41 Imagining a Fully Autonomous Economy 03:05 The Robot That Beat a Human at Sorting 03:53 The Economics of Robot vs Human Labor 04:25 Robotic Fleets as an Asset Class 05:22 Robotic Density Around the World 05:48 The Potential in North American Robotics 06:36 The Re-Industrialization of Detroit 07:26 Why People Must Meet to Build Physically 09:01 Blockchain to Robots: Identity Systems 09:22 Verifiable Robot Actions and Cross-Border Mistrust 10:29 Yield Tokenization of Robotic Fleets 11:00 The Friction Between Identity and Micropayments 11:50 Why Micropayments Raise KYC and AML Problems 12:40 How Tesla Strips Decentralization From Crypto Visions 13:33 Where Decentralized Fleets Could Work 14:30 Lessons From DePIN Projects Like Helium 15:14 The Unfairness in Tokenized Solutions 15:40 Stablecoin-Backed Debt Like USD.AI 16:08 Tokenized Real Assets and On-Demand Fleets 16:38 The Permissionless Vision vs Heavy Regulation 17:12 Why Physical AI Grows Token Use 17:38 Compute vs Money at the Energy Level 18:35 The Growing Adoption of X2X 19:13 Carrying Blockchain DNA Into Agents and Robots 19:46 Closing: Recursive Autonomous Deployment _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, John Egan, the recently joined chief product officer at Polygon, lays out how Polygon sees the future of money, walking through its mission, the product it is bringing to market, and its progress toward what money will become on chain. He introduces Polygon's new mission, championed by CEO Marc and founder Sandeep, to move all money on chain, a practical evolution of its earlier goal of building a trustless internet. He argues the killer use case of blockchain turns out to be money, so the aim is to do the hard, product-oriented work to get all of it on chain. The vehicle is the Open Money Stack, a single open, vertically integrated stack for all money movement and storage (onchain and off) that collapses the tangle of networks, banks, processors, and compliance integrations developers juggle today into one API and dashboard. He notes last week's technical preview shipped regulated cash and fiat ramps, custodial wallets (with non-custodial coming), intent-based orchestration, distribution across chains, and a dashboard any knowledge worker can use. John makes the case for why Polygon is positioned to win. It has already moved about $2.6 trillion, with monthly volumes up over 400% to $130 billion across 30 million-plus payments a month, recently the most stablecoin transactions of any chain including BNB and Solana. Major financial companies already run on Polygon (Stripe, BlackRock's BUIDL, Robinhood, Paxos, Checkout.com, and Flutterwave), and it has been global since day one, handling around 75% of Latin America's stablecoin market where adoption is real utility and a hedge, not wash trading. He argues onchain FX will overtake today's largely non-USD stablecoin market, that money must be cheap and fast (Polygon nears 5,000 TPS, chasing Gigagas at 100,000 TPS, with one-block finality and no reorg since January), and that Polymarket already settles on Polygon. On interoperability he covers AgLayer, Polygon CDK, and Trails (from the Sequence acquisition), a Google Maps for routing money at the cheapest path. He highlights over $250 million in acquisitions including Coinme (regulated in 38 states) for consumer on-ramps, and closes on AI as the next step function: Polygon is the most used chain on X2X, makes agentic transactions gasless (even refunding facilitator gas), and demoed spinning up a neobank with a single Polygon CLI command. 00:00 Introduction 00:07 The Future of Money at Polygon 00:32 The New Mission: Move All Money On Chain 00:48 Why Money Is the Killer Use Case 01:05 The Vision to Get There 01:21 Introducing the Open Money Stack 01:57 The Complexity Developers Face Today 03:01 Collapsing It Into One API and Dashboard 03:21 The Technical Preview and First Features 04:06 What Gives Polygon the Right to Do This 04:29 Not Our First Trillion: $2.6 Trillion Moved 04:48 Leading in Stablecoin Transactions 05:08 The Financial Companies Already on Polygon 05:45 Why Polygon Is Global Since Day One 06:04 Dominating Latin America's Stablecoin Market 06:26 Why Onchain FX Will Take Over 07:08 Why Money Must Be Inexpensive and Fast 07:30 Chasing Gigagas at 100,000 TPS 07:48 Why the Biggest Operators Use Polygon 08:13 Three Efforts Toward Interoperability 08:33 Trails: Google Maps for Moving Money 09:09 $250 Million in Acquisitions for Regulated Money 09:26 Coinme and Consumer On-Ramping 09:48 The Sequence Acquisition and Enterprise Wallet 10:11 Why AI Is the Next Step Function 10:38 From Chatbots to Autonomous Systems 11:17 Why Polygon Is Leaning Into AI 11:35 Gasless Agentic Transactions on X2X 12:07 Building Money Management With AI 12:41 Spinning Up a Neobank With One Command 12:59 What a Neobank Really Is 13:43 Why Anyone Should Be Able to Build One 14:01 Closing and How to Get Involved _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this ETHConf Crypto Startup Showdown, hosted by Kartik of ETHGlobal, 14 startups (drawn from past ETHGlobal hackathon projects turning into companies plus open applications) each pitch for three minutes followed by a four-minute Q&A, competing for a $5,000 cash prize for the best pitch plus future ETHGlobal, Pragma, and ETHConf sponsorship opportunities and Cointelegraph service credits. Three early-stage VC judges give feedback and guidance: Tarun Chitra, Joyce Yang of Pivot Global, and David Shengart of the Cointelegraph accelerator. The lineup spans DeFi automation, agent infrastructure, RWAs, stablecoins, privacy, payments, gaming, and prediction markets. The teams pitch as follows. Amplifi builds single-click permissionless prime brokerage, using trusted execution environments and programmable custody to let traders borrow against any DeFi position across venues. Glider automates any investment strategy, letting users build direct-indexed onchain portfolios (like a Nancy Pelosi tracker or biotech basket) with no gas, signing, or bridging, reporting over 100,000 users. Zyfai embeds personal yield agents into wallets that monitor and rebalance funds, having handled $2.4 billion across 10,000 wallets. ascii presents Box, a cheap, powerful sandbox giving AI agents their own computers at up to 25x less cost. Papre is the agreement layer bridging legal meaning and smart contract execution, automating milestones, escrow, and arbitration. ASCNT brings market-making yield to LPs by pricing toxic versus healthy swap flow and auctioning arbitrage back to the pool. Cambria is a crypto game studio building onchain PvP duels and MMO experiences. Frankencoin offers the largest Swiss Franc stablecoin and its Frankencoin Pool Share governance token, pitching CHF as a superior store of value via an oracle-free CDP. YieldSeeker grows wealth on autopilot with conversational DeFi agents managing $1.5 million. Radius brings the institutional repo market onchain with peer-to-peer funding that bypasses dealer banks. Unlink provides privacy and compliance infrastructure letting companies use any chain privately in three lines of code via zero knowledge. dolphinze builds contractor-first payment infrastructure with one wire in and compliant multi-currency payouts out. Frames offers one composite model giving AI agents access to the paywalled internet across 4,000+ tools with unified billing. PulsePlay is the settlement layer for second-by-second markets using state channels, launching live in-play World Cup predictions with no ghost fills. The judges deliberate to pick the winning pitch. 00:00 Introduction 00:29 How the Showdown Works 00:54 Meet the Three Judges 01:30 The Prize and Sponsorship Opportunities 02:11 The 14 Teams 02:35 Amplifi: Permissionless Prime Brokerage 05:56 Amplifi Q&A 10:35 Glider: Automate Any Investment Strategy 14:28 Glider Q&A 18:42 Zyfai: Personal Yield Agents 22:11 Zyfai Q&A 26:22 ascii: Box, a Sandbox for Agents 30:39 ascii Q&A 34:15 Papre: The Agreement Layer 37:20 Papre Q&A 43:17 ASCNT: Market Making Yield for LPs 46:39 ASCNT Q&A 50:12 Cambria: Crypto Game Studio 53:14 Cambria Q&A 57:41 Frankencoin: Swiss Franc Stablecoin 1:00:16 Frankencoin Q&A 1:05:19 YieldSeeker: Wealth on Autopilot 1:08:19 YieldSeeker Q&A 1:13:34 Radius: Onchain Repo Platform 1:16:33 Radius Q&A 1:20:34 Unlink: Privacy and Compliance Infrastructure 1:23:55 Unlink Q&A 1:28:45 dolphinze: Payment Infrastructure for Work 1:31:54 dolphinze Q&A 1:36:45 Frames: Paywalled Data for AI Agents 1:39:24 Frames Q&A 1:43:59 PulsePlay: Settlement Layer for Fast Markets 1:47:17 PulsePlay Q&A 1:51:45 Closing and Judge Deliberation _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Yueqi Yang from The Information sits down with Farooq Malik, CEO of Rain, to discuss where stablecoin cards go next. She notes stablecoins have been the hottest story since the Genius Act passed, and Rain is a leader in stablecoin backed cards, recently raising at close to a $2 billion valuation. Farooq explains that stablecoins are a new way to hold, send, and spend money but were not interoperable with the existing financial ecosystem, trapped on the blockchain. Rain connects that value to the existing network of merchants worldwide, letting consumers tap a card or enter a PIN exactly as normal while the transaction is powered by stablecoins, so the merchant never needs educating. This has driven massive global adoption of stablecoins as a store of value. Farooq explains how Rain differs from earlier crypto exchange cards from Binance or Coinbase: rather than a fiat enabled veneer settling five days a week (forcing working capital and counterparty risk), Rain rebuilt the backend so 100% of customer and card network settlement happens directly on the blockchain, supporting over a dozen blockchains, every major virtual machine, public and private chains, multiple stablecoin issuers, and now tokenized deposits. He argues a fiat veneer has no moat and can only compete on price. On customers, Rain powers programs in over 100 markets split roughly 50/50 between crypto native (including stablecoin neobanks) and traditional financial services, and surprisingly the largest destination of transactions is US merchants and bank accounts, contradicting the assumption that stablecoin use is only offshore. He shares US use cases including hourly payroll disbursement (real 24-hour money, not a debt product) and a travel platform embedding spendable stablecoin balances. Farooq frames Rain as a technology and accounts business rather than a cards business, committed to being credibly neutral and open rather than a closed ecosystem like AOL. He addresses banks entering the space (SoFi's USD, tokenized deposit consortiums), Rain's tracker showing banks that deny stablecoin demand are actually the source of billions in flows, the difficulty of Visa and Mastercard principal membership, and closes on Rain's agent control layer for agentic payments where delegated spending authority cannot be hallucinated away. 00:00 Introduction 00:43 Why Rain Is a Leader in Stablecoin Cards 01:05 What Is a Stablecoin Backed Card 01:26 Why Stablecoins Were Not Interoperable 01:53 Connecting Tokens to the Merchant Network 02:34 Massive Global Consumer Adoption 02:52 Why Merchant Behavior Stays the Same 03:41 How Rain Differs From Exchange Cards 04:07 Building Full Interoperability Across Chains 04:28 Supporting Tokenized Deposits and Digital Money 04:57 Why Fiat Settlement Creates Risk 05:40 Settling 100% on the Blockchain 06:12 Why a Fiat Veneer Has No Moat 06:41 The Profile of Rain's Core Customers 07:11 Demand From Public Companies and Banks 07:41 Powering Programs in Over 100 Markets 08:07 Why the US Is the Largest Destination 08:56 Addressing the JP Morgan Deposit Token Claim 09:19 The Hourly Payroll Disbursement Use Case 09:57 Why This Is Only Possible With Stablecoins 10:21 Reallocating Value From Debt Products 10:48 The Travel Platform Use Case 11:47 The Diversity of Use Cases 12:09 Why Lower Working Capital Changes Everything 12:26 The Crypto Native vs Non-Native Breakdown 13:14 How Rain Thinks About Competition 13:47 Why Rain Is Not a Cards Business 14:31 Why Rain Avoids Payment Flows 14:59 Being a Credibly Neutral Technology Player 16:15 Why Open Beats Closed Ecosystems 17:04 Will Banks Enter the Stablecoin Card Business 17:38 SoFi USD and Tokenized Deposit Consortiums 18:30 The Data Gap in Bank Stablecoin Flows 19:30 Why Banks Lose Customers to Platforms 20:31 The Visa and Mastercard Principal Membership 21:27 Meeting Customers Where They Are 22:31 Plans for Agentic Payments 23:43 The Agent Control Layer 24:20 The AI Concierge Example 24:42 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jun 9, 2026

In this workshop, Ed Marquez walks through the three foundational layers needed for a trustless agentic economy: identity (ERC-7804), communication (Google's A2A protocol now under the Linux Foundation), and payments (X2X). He frames the vision of a near-future agentic web where AI agents discover, communicate with, and pay each other autonomously, and demonstrates how these three open protocols together enable that economy. Ed does live coding demos showing each layer. For A2A, he shows how agents expose an agent card describing their skills, capabilities, and streaming support. For X2X, he demonstrates how just 15 lines of middleware can gate any Express endpoint behind stablecoin micropayments, using Cloudflare's pay per crawl initiative with publishers as a real world example. He walks through the facilitator architecture that separates blockchain execution from business logic, then combines A2A with X2X to create an AI agent that charges 1/10th of a cent per stock summary query. For ERC-7804, he covers the three registries: identity (NFT-based), reputation (score-based feedback with optional IPFS or HCS-stored details), and validation, explaining how server agents authorize clients to leave signed feedback, creating verifiable reputation that lets autonomous agents safely discover and trust each other. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Three Pillars of the Agentic Economy 02:26 Technologies: ERC-7804, A2A, X2X 02:49 GitHub Repo Walkthrough 03:33 A2A Agents and Agent Cards 05:14 A2A Client Setup 06:00 Introduction to X2X Protocol 07:12 X2X for Micropayments and Pay Per Crawl 08:19 Implementing X2X Middleware 10:00 Combining A2A with X2X Payments 11:47 X2X Facilitator Architecture 13:33 Client Side X2X Integration 15:30 Live Demo: AI Agent with Paid A2A Endpoint 17:14 Verifying the Transaction on Hashscan 17:54 The Trust Problem in Autonomous Agents 19:46 Introduction to ERC-7804 20:58 The Three Registries: Identity, Reputation, Validation 22:23 Validation Registry Explained 23:16 Live Demo: Registering an Agent on ERC-7804 24:38 Minting the Identity NFT 25:54 Setting Agent Metadata and Trust Mechanisms 27:47 Reputation Feedback Flow 28:39 Authorizing Feedback with Signed Tokens 29:34 Feedback URIs: IPFS vs Hedera Consensus Service 31:20 Closing and Discord Call to Action _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Funding the Commons · May 9, 2026

AI isn't just displacing jobs. Sheila Warren argues it's accelerating something older and more dangerous: the systematic removal of human dignity from how decisions get made. Sheila, CEO of the Project Liberty Institute and founder of the World Economic Forum's blockchain and digital assets team, connects what look like separate crises — surveillance tech, deportation without due process, AI agents — into a single cultural problem. Her central concept is differential friction: the idea that the race to remove friction from every system is quietly eroding the checks that keep power accountable. When there's nothing to slow an AI agent down, small errors compound fast and become permanent. She encourages everyone building in this space to ask, every time: before you remove friction, whose protection were you removing with it? Speaker: Sheila Warren (Project Liberty Institute) This session was part of Intelligence at the Frontier, held March 14–15, 2026, at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io Note: This recording was captured with technical limitations on Day 1. We apologize for any audio quality issues and appreciate your patience.

Shady El Damaty

Funding the Commons · May 9, 2026

As AI agents increasingly mediate human interaction, how do we make sure people stay in control of their own digital lives? Shady, co-founder of Holonym Foundation and the team behind human.tech, comes from computational neuroscience and applied cryptography. He argues that the current trajectory of AI development pulls resources, talent, and capital into a one-way infrastructure that gives little back — and that cryptographic tools, specifically zero-knowledge proofs, offer one of the most underused levers we have to redistribute power back to individuals. The core question he poses: what is the most important thing you could be building right now, with everything you have at your disposal? For Shady, the answer is technology that proves you are human, without giving up what makes you so. Speaker: Shady El Damaty (Holonym Foundation / human.tech) This session was part of Intelligence at the Frontier, held March 14–15, 2026, at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io Note: This recording was captured with technical limitations on Day 1. We apologize for any audio quality issues and appreciate your patience.

Funding the Commons · May 9, 2026

We built tens of thousands of physical libraries to give people access to knowledge. Sam Klein asks what the equivalent looks like when agents are doing half the reading. Sam, co-founder of Public AI and director of the Concordance Project at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center, makes the case for a new kind of planetary library — one where AI agents don't just retrieve information but actively curate, annotate and contribute to shared knowledge commons. He estimates there are roughly 3 billion concepts worth documenting; we have monographs for about 200 million of them. The gap is enormous, and agents could help close it. His ask to builders in the room: invite your agents to do knowledge curation work. Every small piece of structured information recorded at scale becomes part of a library the whole ecosystem benefits from. Speaker: Sam Klein (Public AI / Berkman Klein Center, Harvard University) This session was part of Intelligence at the Frontier, held March 14–15, 2026, at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io Note: This recording was captured with technical limitations on Day 1. We apologize for any audio quality issues and appreciate your patience.

Joshua Tan

Funding the Commons · May 9, 2026

AI has become roughly 1,250 times more effective over the past six years. Organizations haven't kept up. Joshua Tan thinks that's the next frontier. Joshua, co-founder and research director at Metagov and lead at Stanford's Open Lab, argues that as AI agents grow more capable, the organizations coordinating them need to evolve too. He introduces the concept of autonomous organizations — systems like the Facebook newsfeed or agent-run code repositories that operate through algorithmic logic no single person fully controls. DAOs were an early attempt at this, but their rigidity made them slow to change. What comes next is something more adaptive, more sub-symbolic, and harder to govern. His proposal: a startup incubator model for autonomous organizations, where new governance structures are launched as live experiments and learned from in real time. Speaker: Joshua Tan (Metagov / Stanford Open Lab) This session was part of Intelligence at the Frontier, held March 14–15, 2026, at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io Note: This recording was captured with technical limitations on Day 1. We apologize for any audio quality issues and appreciate your patience.

Funding the Commons · May 9, 2026

In 1999, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy told the world: "You have zero privacy. Get over it." Michelle Finneran Dennedy was working at Sun at the time. She went the other direction. Michelle, Chief Data Strategy Officer at Abaxx, created the first Chief Privacy Officer role at Sun Microsystems and has spent nearly 30 years building the field of privacy engineering. She argues that privacy has a precise definition — the authorized processing of personal data according to ethics, law and sustainable commerce — and that authorization is contextual. In a world where machines are acting on machines at scale, that context disappears fast. Her framework for fixing it is proofs of control: measurable, nano-level signals built into systems from the start, not layered on top after the fact. The privacy officer role, she argues, needs to move from compliance into engineering and into the boardroom before agentic AI makes the retrofit impossible. Speaker: Michelle Finneran Dennedy (Abaxx) This session was part of Intelligence at the Frontier, held March 14–15, 2026, at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io Note: This recording was captured with technical limitations on Day 1. We apologize for any audio quality issues and appreciate your patience.

Funding the Commons · May 9, 2026

When Shaw Walters got banned from X, he built his own AI-powered social platform with prediction markets, agent swarms and asymmetric information games. That wasn't a detour. It was research. Shaw, co-creator of ElizaOS and Eliza Labs, argues that we can't build trustworthy agents using just rules, prompts and sandboxes. The behavior needs to be in the model. To generate the training data required for that, he built Babylon, a city of agents where AI characters can trade, lie, scam each other and build reputation based on how well they play information markets. The best liar in an asymmetric information game, he argues, is demonstrating a kind of intelligence worth understanding. His broader argument is that agent infrastructure needs to stay open by default — auditable, forkable and not controlled by a handful of companies — and that games are becoming the lab conditions for how agents will operate in the real world. Speaker: Shaw Walters (Eliza Labs / ElizaOS) This session was part of Intelligence at the Frontier, held March 14–15, 2026, at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io

Juan Benet

Funding the Commons · May 9, 2026

The crypto community built a lot. It just didn't quite get there. Juan Benet offers a frank assessment of why, and why AI might be the thing that finally makes it real. Juan, founder of Protocol Labs and the person whose work gave rise to IPFS, Filecoin and Funding the Commons itself, reflects on a decade of building decentralized infrastructure that reached fewer people than it should have. Stablecoins worked. Most of the rest didn't land at scale. The speculative noise drowned out the execution. The rails built in crypto are exactly the underground layer AI needs to transact at scale. The crypto dream might still happen, just built by AI agents rather than humans alone. Juan's challenge to the room is to start thinking now about how to provision public goods not just for people, but for the millions of AI agents that will soon be part of the conversation too. Speaker: Juan Benet (Protocol Labs) This session was part of Intelligence at the Frontier, held March 14–15, 2026, at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io

Illia Polosukhin

Funding the Commons · May 9, 2026

The internet was built for humans clicking URLs. It was not built for agents coordinating with each other at scale. Illia Polosukhin thinks that needs to change now. Illia, co-founder of NEAR Protocol and co-author of the landmark "Attention Is All You Need" paper, traces the arc from AI as a backend feature to AI as the operating system through which we interface with the world. Agents are already starting to coordinate with each other, hire each other, and execute actions without human input. The infrastructure underneath them — identity, payments, privacy, policy — was not designed for this. His answer is a stack built for the agentic era: confidential execution environments, credential vaults that intercept outgoing connections, WebAssembly tool isolation, and a marketplace where agents can hire each other for tasks. The goal is security by design rather than security as an afterthought. Speaker: Illia Polosukhin (NEAR Protocol) This session was part of Intelligence at the Frontier, held March 14–15, 2026, at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io

Illia Polosukhin, Juan Benet

Funding the Commons · May 9, 2026

What happens when AI agents don't just assist humans but start forming their own entities, entering contracts, and building toward their own goals? Illia Polosukhin and Juan Benet think we're closer to that than most people realize. Illia, co-founder of NEAR Protocol and co-author of "Attention Is All You Need," and Juan, founder of Protocol Labs, dig into the infrastructure needed for a world of autonomous AI coordination. The conversation turns on a deceptively simple problem: credit assignment. Every bottleneck in how we organize human effort, from machine learning to corporations to public goods funding, comes down to how well we can attribute contribution. Juan argues that cheap intelligence may finally let us solve this at scale, using Shapley value approximations to fairly distribute credit across AI agents working on shared goals. The first fully autonomous AI corporations may arrive within months. The question is whether we build the right foundations now or sleepwalk into it. Speakers: Illia Polosukhin (NEAR Protocol), Juan Benet (Protocol Labs) This session was part of Intelligence at the Frontier, held March 14–15, 2026, at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

In this talk, Debbie Soon, head of marketing at Privy, delivers a masterclass on technical storytelling — the skill of bridging the gap between how a product works and what it enables. She argues that complexity isn't the problem; the problem is when people don't understand what your product means for them. Using Privy's wallet infrastructure and policy engine as examples, she shows how the same product gets explained differently across five audience surfaces: socials (narrative layer), website (evaluation layer), docs (implementation layer), and trust center (risk/assurance layer). Debbie walks through two concrete translations: converting "hardware-isolated TEEs and key sharding" into "wallets that are secure by design but flexible in practice," and converting "boolean conditions with allow/deny actions" into "programmable behavior where money movement becomes safe, flexible, and predictable by design." She frames this as turning boolean logic into business logic. She closes with three daily principles for better storytelling: start with what changes (not what you built), translate systems into capabilities, and give people language they can repeat — because to make your product scale, you first have to be understood. 00:00 Introduction 00:42 What Is Privy and Why Storytelling Matters 02:30 The Problem: Complexity Isn't Bad, Misunderstanding Is 03:33 What Is Technical Storytelling 04:32 Bridging How It Works and What It Enables 05:22 Two Examples: Wallet Architecture and Policy Engine 06:15 Five Audience Surfaces: Socials, Website, Docs, Trust Center 07:30 Mapping Surfaces to Audiences 08:37 Example 1: Wallet Architecture — TEEs and Key Sharding 09:52 Translating Wallet Tech into "Secure by Design, Flexible in Practice" 11:18 Example 2: Policy Engine — Rules, Conditions, Actions 12:32 Translating Boolean Logic into Business Logic 13:43 Technical Storytelling Is Not Just for Marketers 14:28 Making Ideas Travel from Brain to Market 15:02 Three Principles: What Changes, Capabilities, Repeatable Language 16:41 To Scale, You First Have to Be Understood 17:20 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇫🇷 *Pragma Cannes 2026* Pragma Cannes 2026 was held on April 2nd at the JW Marriott Hotel in Cannes, France and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Cannes 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5OnsJ95gz7HoI1tLUj3kZr ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Debbie Soon X: https://x.com/debsoon ✅ Follow Privy X: https://x.com/privy_io ✅ Follow Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

Shady El Damaty

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

In this talk, Shady El Damaty, co-founder of Human Tech (formerly Gitcoin Passport), argues that the wallet as we know it will be dead within nine months, replaced by natural language interfaces where users set guardrails and delegate execution to AI agents. He frames the core problem: agents need secrets to act autonomously, but giving them private keys is dangerous — leading to exploits where leaked keys drain funds. He outlines three approaches: the "YOLO" method of giving agents keys directly, the local isolation approach (like IronClaw or Open Wallet Standard), and his proposed superior solution: 2PC architecture.2PC (two-party computation) means the private key never exists in any single location. Instead, key shares are split between the user's client and a server/enclave, multiplied together on the fly to generate signatures. This enables runtime policies — spending limits, gas caps, MEV-safe routing, time-limited permission tokens — enforced at the server level, with human approval only triggered when guardrails are hit. Shady demos the vision: a user opens a natural language prompt, tells Claude to rebalance their Aave portfolio with a $500 cap and $10 gas limit, and gets a five-minute permission token for execution. The architecture is chain-agnostic, live today as an npm package, and pairs with Human Tech's proof of personhood infrastructure (2.5 million users, 50 million credentials) to identify and protect humans in agentic workflows. 00:00 Introduction 00:36 Autonomous Software Is Eating the World 01:31 The Wallet Will Be Dead in Nine Months 02:19 Who's Running AI Agents Today 03:11 The .env File Problem: Agents and Secrets 04:09 Design Philosophy: Capabilities, Not Authority 05:12 Guard Rails for Non-Deterministic Systems 06:22 Compressing Capabilities to Minimal Attack Surface 06:52 Agent Security as a Design Problem 07:54 Approach 1: YOLO (Give the Agent the Key) 08:15 Approach 2: Keep the Key Local 09:19 Approach 3: The Key Doesn't Exist (2PC Architecture) 10:42 How 2PC Works: Split Key Shares and Runtime Policies 12:04 Adaptive Policies and Agent Guard Rails 12:58 The Future: Natural Language Wallet Interactions 14:06 Frontends Constructed on the Fly 14:50 2PC Is Live Today for Builders 16:06 Chain-Agnostic Signatures on Any Curve 16:53 Human Tech: Proof of Personhood and Wallet as Protocol 18:07 Closing and Hackathon Invitation _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇫🇷 *Pragma Cannes 2026* Pragma Cannes 2026 was held on April 2nd at the JW Marriott Hotel in Cannes, France and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Cannes 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5OnsJ95gz7HoI1tLUj3kZr ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

Rene Reinsberg

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

In this talk, Rene Reinsberg, founder of Celo and Self, presents how Self is bootstrapping global-scale proof of human infrastructure using zero-knowledge cryptography and government-issued identity documents. He announces a partnership with Google and Tether where users can verify their unique humanity through Self, claim free stablecoins, and send them to their wallet — launching next month. The system works by NFC-scanning passports or national IDs, cryptographically verifying document authenticity through country signing certificate authorities, and generating zero-knowledge proofs without storing any user data. Rene explains how applications can then request disclosure proofs (age verification, country of origin, OFAC screening) without handling PII, making it preferable to traditional KYC. He connects this to the agentic world, citing examples like Moldbook (an agent social network acquired by Meta) and Rent a Human marketplace, arguing that proof of human becomes critical when agents need to verify human counterparties or delegate identity without exposing personal data. The system enables agents to hit verification barriers in workflows and trigger ZK proof requests back to the human, unblocking agentic commerce without sharing actual identity data with the AI. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 00:00 Introduction 00:10 Welcome and Context: From Celo to Self 00:57 Why Proof of Human Matters Now 02:32 Google and Tether Partnership Announcement 03:55 Google's Use of Self for Testnet Faucets 05:29 Vision: Social Services and UBI on Crypto Rails 06:31 Why Proof of Human Is Becoming Urgent 07:41 Government Identity Infrastructure as a Foundation 09:01 How Self Works: NFC Scanning and ZK Proofs 10:43 Why NFC Beats Traditional KYC in an AI World 11:43 Zero Knowledge: No Data Storage, No Trust Required 12:13 Disclosure Proofs: Age, Country, Sanctions Screening 13:56 Registration and SDK Integration 14:20 Proof of Human in the Agentic World 15:04 Moldbook and Agent Sybil Attacks 16:00 Rent a Human: Agents Hiring Verified Humans 17:14 Delegating Identity to Agents Without Sharing Data 18:36 Self for AI Agents: Unblocking Agentic Workflows 19:44 Resources: self.xyz and ai.self.xyz 20:09 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇫🇷 *Pragma Cannes 2026* Pragma Cannes 2026 was held on April 2nd at the JW Marriott Hotel in Cannes, France and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Cannes 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5OnsJ95gz7HoI1tLUj3kZr ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Celo X: https://x.com/Celo ✅ Follow Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Kartik Talwar interviews Andrej Bencic, founder of Tenderly, about the evolution of Ethereum developer tools over the past eight years and how AI is reshaping smart contract development. Andrej describes how the multi-chain world has fundamentally changed development — teams now need to test across multiple forked mainnets with bridges, manage indexing across chains, and handle inconsistencies when chains go down. He contrasts today's production-grade stack (Foundry, account abstraction, staging environments) with the 2018 era of Truffle and Ganache. The conversation explores three distinct developer personas Tenderly serves: newcomers focused on smart contract integration and DeFi composability, OG teams like Aave pushing protocol frontiers, and institutional players held back by risk aversion. Andrej details how Tenderly's simulation technology helps manage operational risk post-deployment — from transaction simulation in Gnosis Safe to treasury management. He highlights their MCP integration that gives AI agents a sandboxed fork of mainnet to debug transactions (processing 50MB of data per transaction) and test workflows in a parallel universe before committing to production, calling it a critical safety net against the inevitability of AI-driven development. 00:00 Introduction 00:10 What Is Tenderly and Eight Years of Developer Tooling 01:43 How Multi-Chain Development Has Changed Everything 04:09 Cross-Chain Testing: Forking Multiple Mainnets 05:08 The Modern Developer Stack vs 2018 06:45 Production-Grade Development: CI/CD and Staging 08:17 AI Skills and Delegating Ethereum Context 09:04 Three Developer Personas: Newcomers, OGs, and Institutions 11:36 Institutional Risk Aversion as the Main Bottleneck 12:40 Managing Operational Risk Post-Deployment 14:16 Transaction Simulation and Avoiding Blind Signing 15:12 AI Agents and Smart Contract Development 16:02 Sandboxed Fork Environments for AI Workflows 17:33 Tenderly's MCP: Debugging and Testing for AI 18:40 AI Processes 50MB of Transaction Data Better Than Humans 19:22 Advice for New Smart Contract Developers 21:25 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇫🇷 *Pragma Cannes 2026* Pragma Cannes 2026 was held on April 2nd at the JW Marriott Hotel in Cannes, France and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Cannes 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5OnsJ95gz7HoI1tLUj3kZr ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Andrej Bencic X: https://x.com/bendzi ✅ Follow Tenderly X: https://x.com/TenderlyApp ✅ Follow Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

Charles Guillemet, Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Kartik Talwar interviews Charles Guillemet, CTO of Ledger, on the post-quantum cryptography landscape and its implications for blockchain security. Charles traces his journey from heading Ledger's security department (the "Dungeon") to becoming CTO, and explains how Ledger's operating system approach has allowed them to support the rapidly expanding blockchain ecosystem since 2017. He provides a detailed breakdown of quantum computing threats, explaining how Shor's algorithm can theoretically break elliptic curve cryptography and how Google's recent paper reduced the required qubits from a million to 41,000. The conversation covers the two main post-quantum signature approaches — hash-based (well-studied but larger signatures) and lattice-based (smaller, faster but newer) — and the challenge of reaching social consensus in decentralized networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum to agree on migration timelines and standards. Charles also discusses AI's impact on security, noting that attack costs are trending toward zero, and outlines Ledger's vision for agentic payments using hardware-enforced delegation policies that give AI agents fine-grained spending permissions without exposing private keys. 00:00 Introduction 00:10 Welcome and Charles Guillemet Introduction 01:13 From Chief Security Officer to CTO 03:09 How Custody Has Evolved Since 2017 04:40 Ledger's OS Approach to Supporting New Chains 05:43 Traditional Finance Discovering Blockchain 06:06 How Real Is the Quantum Computing Threat 07:30 Shor's Algorithm and Google's Recent Breakthrough 08:57 Why Migration Matters More Than Timelines 09:53 NIST Standards and 2030/2035 Deadlines 10:44 The Social Consensus Challenge for Bitcoin and Ethereum 12:20 Google's Paper: 41,000 Qubits for Elliptic Curves 13:23 Hash-Based vs Lattice-Based Post-Quantum Signatures 15:13 Address Migration and Transition Challenges 16:43 What Happens to Unmigrated Coins 17:17 Ledger's Approach to AI Agents and Payments 18:15 AI Changing the Security Paradigm 19:10 Why Agents Will Default to Crypto Payments 19:35 Hardware-Enforced Delegation Policies for Agents 21:00 What's Next: Security, AI, and Formal Verification 22:46 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇫🇷 *Pragma Cannes 2026* Pragma Cannes 2026 was held on April 2nd at the JW Marriott Hotel in Cannes, France and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Cannes 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5OnsJ95gz7HoI1tLUj3kZr ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Charles Guillemet X: https://x.com/P3b7_ ✅ Follow Ledger X: https://x.com/ledger ✅ Follow Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

In this workshop, Luke Forrest from Hedera introduces a suite of AI plugins, skills, and MCP servers built specifically to help hackathon builders develop on Hedera using Claude Code. The repo includes five plugins: the Hedera Agent Kit for AI agent interactions like transferring HBAR and creating tokens, the Dev Intelligence plugin for project scaffolding and session management, the Hackathon Helper with PRD generation and submission validation skills, the Native Services plugin for Hedera Token Service and Consensus Service integration, and the System Contracts plugin for HTS system contracts. Luke does a live install of the Hackathon Helper plugin in Claude Code and demonstrates the PRD skill by generating a project plan for a token-gated event check-in app. He also covers Hedera's MCP integration through their Mintlify-powered docs site for seamless documentation access. The session wraps up with an overview of hackathon bounties across AI and agentic payments, tokenization, native services, and the Nario IO data sourcing tool for cross-ledger data correlation. 00:00 Introduction 00:02 Overview of Hedera Plugins, Skills, and MCP Servers 00:35 Hedera Agent Kit Plugin 01:09 Dev Intelligence and Hackathon Helper Plugins 01:32 Native Services and System Contracts Plugins 01:56 Hackathon Helper: PRD and Validate Submission Skills 02:47 Live Install of the Hackathon Helper Plugin 05:15 Live Demo: Generating a Hackathon PRD 07:01 PRD Walkthrough: HCS, HTS, and MVP Features 08:15 Hedera MCP Integration via Mintlify Docs 08:59 Hackathon Bounties Overview 10:29 Nario IO: Cross-Ledger Data Sourcing 11:12 Closing Remarks _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal Cannes 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal Cannes 2026, a 3-day hackathon held April 3-5 at the Palace of Festivals and Congresses of Cannes, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal Cannes 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5YrcvSj6KSTztLMy58d7d4 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

In this workshop, Andrej Rakic and Frank Kong, developer relation engineers from Chainlink Labs, introduce the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) and Chainlink's privacy capabilities. Andrej explains CRE as an orchestration layer that connects the real world with smart contracts on any chain through off-chain workflows written in TypeScript or Go, compiled to WebAssembly and run across Chainlink's decentralized oracle network. He covers the three core concepts: workflows, triggers, and capabilities. Frank then walks through Chainlink's two privacy features available for the hackathon. The first is Confidential HTTP requests, which use enclaves to securely store and decrypt secrets like API keys so they remain hidden from node operators. The second is Compliant Private Token Transfer, which allows users to transfer ERC20 tokens through a vault using shielded addresses, with an Access Control Engine (ACE) for setting compliance rules on transfers. The session also covers hackathon bounties and Chainlink's AI agent skills for faster development. 00:00 Introduction 00:47 Speaker Introductions 01:23 Hackathon Bounties Overview 03:34 Chainlink Agent Skills and MCP Server 05:41 What Is Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) 06:35 CRE Core Concepts: Workflows 07:57 Hello World Workflow Example 08:20 CRE Core Concepts: Triggers 09:01 CRE Core Concepts: Capabilities 09:27 Chainlink Privacy Features Overview 10:31 Confidential HTTP Requests and Enclaves 11:57 Compliant Private Token Transfer 12:39 Access Control Engine (ACE) 13:49 Q&A _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal Cannes 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal Cannes 2026, a 3-day hackathon held April 3-5 at the Palace of Festivals and Congresses of Cannes, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal Cannes 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5YrcvSj6KSTztLMy58d7d4 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

In this workshop, Mathieu Bertin, engineering manager at Ledger, introduces Ledger's direct connectivity solution — the Ledger Button — which allows DApp developers to integrate Ledger hardware wallet connectivity directly into their applications without requiring users to install browser extensions. Built on the Lit web component framework for cross-framework compatibility, it provides a full EIP-1193 provider supporting account fetching, transaction signing, clear signing, transaction simulation checks, and both USB and Bluetooth connectivity. Mathieu also covers Ledger's clear signing initiative, contrasting it with unsafe blind signing by showing how clear signing makes transaction details transparent and human-readable on the device. He does a live demo on 1inch connecting a Nano Gen 5 via Bluetooth to initiate a swap with clear signing. He then introduces the Device Management Kit, a modular set of libraries supporting Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, and Cosmos with transports for USB, BLE, and React Native. The hackathon features two tracks: AI agents interacting with Ledger devices and clear signing integration. 00:00 Introduction and About Ledger 00:43 Hackathon Tracks: AI Agents and Clear Signing 01:36 What Is Blind Signing 02:44 What Is Clear Signing 03:12 Ledger Button: Direct Connectivity Overview 03:39 Built-In Security and Transaction Checks 04:32 USB, BLE, and Bluetooth Support 04:54 Architecture: Device Management Kit and Dependencies 05:24 Lit Web Components and EIP Standards 05:53 Supported Networks and Actions 06:23 Integration Steps and SDK Setup 07:00 Live Demo: Connecting Nano Gen 5 on 1inch 08:53 Device Management Kit Deep Dive 09:43 Signer Kits: Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, Cosmos 10:42 Debugging Tools, Playground, and Emulator 11:14 Developer Portal and Resources 12:00 Q&A _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal Cannes 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal Cannes 2026, a 3-day hackathon held April 3-5 at the Palace of Festivals and Congresses of Cannes, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal Cannes 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5YrcvSj6KSTztLMy58d7d4 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _