European Blockchain Convention · Oct 7, 2026

Panel: On the eve of Pontes: What changes, Is Europe doing it right and who gets in Speakers: - Saumitra Dubey | Fiat republic - Bert Staufenbiel | KfW - Christoph Hock | Union Investment - Martin Müller | RL1 - Thilo Derenbach | Clearstream 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 7, 2026

Panel: How to Build an Investment Team That Eliminates Bias Entirely Speakers: - Laeeq Shabbir | HT Digital - Andrea Böhmert | SBI Ventures Europe - Vineet Budki | Sigma Capital 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 7, 2026

The Great Repricing — Value Capture in the Onchain Economy Speakers: - Bernard Nicolay | ULB - Christopher Heymann | 1k(x) - Mathieu Chanson | Very Early Venture 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 7, 2026

ANNA fireside chat: From Traditional to Tokenized: The Standards Powering Tomorrow's Markets Speakers: - Heinz Konzett | Liechtensteinische Landesverwaltung - Rowan Varrall | DTI Foundation - Karin de Ridder | ANNA 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 7, 2026

Panel: Family Offices and Allocators: Moving From Observation to Allocation Speakers: - Peter Lane | Bitcoin Life - Filippo Bondurri | SGMC Capital - Bijan Foroodian | Family Office - Sascha Fuchs | Kaiser Partner Private Bank - Victor Teixeira | General Tensor 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 7, 2026

Panel: MiCA 2: Lessons from the First Year of Enforcement and What Comes Next Speakers: - Tommaso Astazi | Blockchain For Europe - Viktor Maier | Baader Bank - Stephan Mogelin | BaFin - Christian Moor | European Banking Authority - Keisuke Kimura | JCBA 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 7, 2026

Panel: Prediction Markets: Gambling or Financial Instruments? Speakers: - Ariel Navarro | Whale Capital - Marina Villalonga | Asensi Abogados, Partner - Iskandar Vanblarcum | crypto.com - Christopher Siedentopf | Qapture Investment & CRS-Advisory 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 7, 2026

Panel: Macro Decoded: Interest Rates, Liquidity and Digital Asset Allocation Speakers: - Otto Jacobsson | YAP - Vladimir Gorshkov | State Street - Anna Dinescu | Hilbert Capital - Radoslav Poljasevic | LO:TECH 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 7, 2026

Panel: What institutional capital looks for before it allocates to a crypto VC Speakers: - Dani Rodriguez Miguel | House of Web3 - Tom Filip Lesche | Speedinvest - Adarsh Giri | Fifth Era 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 6, 2026

Panel: Is the Yield Worth the Risk? Speakers: - Mikel Ayala | Backpack - Adam Bilko | RockawayX - Dr. Nick Almond | Jito Network - Odran Thomazo | CowDAO 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 6, 2026

Round 2 brought another six startups to the EBC12 stage, each pitching for a place in the final. Founders presented their companies to a panel of investors, with feedback focused on product, market opportunity, scalability and execution. Startups: Lympid — Joao Lages Orion Finance — Matteo Manzi SatsBridge GmbH — Ilya Evdokimov Toto Finance — Steven Gaertner Treesury — Jovan Paunović VANT Network — Will Martin Jury: Mathieu Chanson — Very Early Ventures Michael van Baelen — Softstack Tariq Khan — Outrun Ventures Yana Makhnyk — Generis Watch the full session to discover the companies competing in Round 2 and hear the jury feedback. 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 6, 2026

Panel: How Ceuta Built a Gambling Hub, and Why Digital Assets Could Be Next Speakers: - Felipe Masa Sanchez-Ocaña | Government of Ceuta - Alberto Eljarrat | Sportium - Marina Villalonga | Asensi Abogados, Partner 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 6, 2026

Panel: Cyber, Fraud and the Future of Financial Resilience Speakers: - Otilia Pețu | NOA Group - Ilya Brovin | Sumsub - Harry Donnelly | Circuit - Mitchell Amador | Immunefi 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 6, 2026

Panel: From T+2 to New Money Rails: How Stablecoins, CBDCs and Tokenised Deposits Are Reshaping Settlement Speakers: - Lory Kehoe | Aave Labs - Pavel Chichkanov | Bank of England - Patrick Hennes | Luxembourg House of Web3 - Monika Schöning | ING 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

ETHSofia · Oct 6, 2026

Prof. Dimitar Dimitrov, Rector of the University of National and World Economy (UNWE), officially opens ETHSofia 2026. Founded in 1920, UNWE is one of Bulgaria's largest universities: it enrolled more than 5,400 new students this year across some 40 bachelor's and 80 master's programmes, and it launched Bulgaria's first bachelor's and master's programmes in cryptoeconomics. He describes how hard it is for a classical, conservative university to open new specialities such as crypto economics, blockchain technologies and cybersecurity, and welcomes the bachelor's and master's students in the room. Calling ETHSofia the perfect place for education to meet business, he proposes a joint business academy with the university and wishes the forum success. Keynote at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Prof. Dr. Dimitar Panayotov Dimitrov, Rector, UNWE Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov is a Bulgarian economist specialising in defence and security economics. He has been the rector of the University of National and World Economy since December 2019 and was re-elected in 2023. His research interests include defence economics, critical infrastructure protection, and nuclear security, with over 100 publications he leads projects for modernising higher education and co-founded the global master's program in Nuclear Security. Chapters 00:00 UNWE: 106 years of history 01:15 Blockchain and crypto economics programmes 01:47 Where universities meet business 02:24 Opening new specialities in a classical university 03:12 Proposal: a business academy with UNWE 03:35 Closing wishes for the forum 05:03 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

Viktor Uzunov, co-founder and CEO of UEB3 Ventures and a former trading-floor banker, argues that blockchain is upgrading traditional finance rather than replacing it. He walks through how tokenisation lowers entry barriers through fractional ownership, simplifies legal claims and transfers, and how on-chain markets, Nasdaq's planned move to 23-hour trading and Hyperliquid's daily volumes point to 24/7 finance. He describes banks moving into stablecoins and DeFi, then shows how AI saves him time on morning briefs and revealed that his weekend trades had a much lower win rate. The talk ends with audience questions on stock tokenisation and on-chain mortgages. Keynote at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Viktor Uzunov, CEO, UEB3 Ventures Viktor Uzunov is the co-founder of digital asset fund UEB3 and UAE-based real estate firm Arreat Capital, which specialises in tokenised real estate. Over the past decade he has focused on building institutional-grade infrastructure at the intersection of capital markets, real assets, and digital finance. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/viktor-uzunov-ueb3 X: https://x.com/viktortrades Chapters 00:00 Opening and thanks 01:36 From Wall Street to blockchain 03:00 Easier, cheaper and more transparent access 04:12 US markets now drive crypto 04:45 Legacy settlement vs on-chain finance 06:13 Nasdaq moves towards 23-hour trading 07:23 Tokenisation and fractional access 09:17 Legal claims and transferability 11:09 On-chain stocks and Hyperliquid 13:26 Users want simpler access 14:27 DeFi as part of institutional finance 16:11 Risk management and knowledge 16:39 How AI changes the investor's day 20:42 Know what you own 22:19 Closing thoughts 22:58 Q&A: Is stock tokenisation a layer two? 23:47 Q&A: On-chain mortgages and RWA lending 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

Todor Karaivanov of Chainlink Labs, who has spent six years across Chainlink products including VRF and now leads blockchain integrations, explains why moving assets between chains is far less simple than it looks. He frames security as an economic question, compares committee verifiers with light clients and zero-knowledge approaches, and shows how operators sharing the same RPC endpoints or failover providers create a single point of attack. He covers contagion from a compromised chain, the hub-and-spoke model with intents for convenience, and transfer limits to cap damage, noting that most losses now come from compromised infrastructure and keys. A short Q&A covers why operators should run their own RPCs. Keynote at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Todor Karaivanov, Blockchain Integrations & Product Partnerships, Chainlink Labs Todor Karaivanov has spent the past eight years in the blockchain industry, including over five years at Chainlink Labs. His earlier work in web hosting and game development shaped his expertise in information security, systems design, and economic systems, which he now applies to building decentralized infrastructure. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todor-karaivanov-325468 X: https://x.com/tkaraivanov Chapters 00:00 About Todor and Chainlink Labs 01:29 Why cross-chain looks simple but is not 02:41 Security is an economic concept 04:34 Committees, light clients and ZK verification 06:30 Independent observation and shared RPCs 08:12 Failover as an attack vector 09:05 Compromised chains and contagion 10:37 Hub and spoke, with intents for convenience 11:28 Plan for the unpredictable: transfer limits 12:56 From contract bugs to compromised keys 14:49 Q&A: Should operators run their own RPCs? 16:22 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

Krum Pashov, founder and CEO of Pashov Audit Group, on how AI has reshaped Web3 security in 2026. With audit contests drying up, he argues that bug bounties are now the best permissionless path into the field, makes the case for specialising in a niche such as Bitcoin and BTCFi security, and shows how Pashov's free, open-source Solidity Auditor skill found 11 of the 13 high-severity bugs from a 2025 audit contest in under an hour. The talk closes with audience questions on what AI will and will not automate, and how the security researcher's job is changing. Keynote at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Krum Pashov, CEO, Pashov Audit Group Krum or "pashov", is Founder & CEO of Pashov Audit Group, protected over $100B of funds with 400+ security audits. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pashov X: https://x.com/pashov Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Web3 security in 2026: what changed 02:11 Why bug bounties are the place to be 06:26 Freelance, full-time or your own firm 07:23 Go niche: the Bitcoin and BTCFi opportunity 10:46 Build your own AI auditing agent 12:17 Solidity Auditor V4: 11 of 13 high-severity bugs in an hour 16:01 Fork the open-source skills and build on them 18:12 Will AI replace security researchers? 20:15 Q&A: What AI will and will not automate 21:52 Q&A: How the daily job is changing 24:07 Q&A: Why Krum started Pashov Audit Group 25:38 Q&A: How an audit firm makes money 26:46 Q&A: Should we worry about AI-driven threats? 28:07 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 Klara Kovacevic (ChainSecurity, moderator), Krum Pashov (Pashov Audit Group), Jonathan Riss (CertiK) and Josef Gattermayer (ack3). Moderated by Klara Kovacevic of ChainSecurity, this panel asks what AI is actually changing in smart contract security. Josef Gattermayer says ack3's analysis found that 97% of hacks on audited protocols happened outside the audited scope, in infrastructure and off-chain components, and that black hats adopted AI faster than white hats. Krum Pashov and Josef discuss continuous monitoring as a business, how to benchmark AI auditing tools against a plain frontier-model prompt, and why recall, token spend and false positives must be balanced. Jonathan Riss of CertiK covers AI-assisted data aggregation and physical security risks, and audience questions address formal verification, zero-days versus social engineering, and auditor accountability. Panel at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Klara Kovacevic, Ecosystem Lead, ChainSecurity (moderator) Klara is with ChainSecurity, the team auditing major protocols like Circle, Sky, Aave, and Curve. With experience in both big tech and Web3, she’s here to ask the right questions and keep things interesting. She’s also a board member at Alice in Blockchains, a crypto education nonprofit. X: https://x.com/klarakova ▸ Krum Pashov, CEO, Pashov Audit Group Krum or "pashov", is Founder & CEO of Pashov Audit Group, protected over $100B of funds with 400+ security audits. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pashov X: https://x.com/pashov ▸ Jonathan Riss, Blockchain Intelligence Analyst, CertiK As an Blockchain Intelligence Analyst at CertiK, Jonathan specializes in tracking illicit flows and de-anonymizing malicious actors. He documents complex fraud operations to produce the actionable intelligence necessary to protect the web3 landscape. His mission is to decode the latest threat vectors to help builders and users navigate a safer decentralized future. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanriss X: https://x.com/Jonathan_Riss_ ▸ Josef Gattermayer, Founder, ack3 Josef Gattermayer is the founder of ack3 (prev. Ackee Blockchain) - team securing $180B+ in TVL for Lido, Aave, and Safe. The auditors who created the open-source Wake framework. Ph.D. and Assistant Professor teaching blockchain security at Czech Technical University in Prague. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josefgattermayer X: https://x.com/jgattermayer Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:02 Day-to-day roles and how AI changed them 06:18 Has AI made the industry more or less secure? 07:45 97% of hacks happened outside the audited scope 09:38 Continuous monitoring as a business 12:27 Audit firms become product companies 15:16 Building a great AI auditing harness 17:06 Recall, token spend and false positives 19:45 AI, data leaks and physical security 23:09 Training the next generation of auditors 25:27 What makes an exceptional auditor 30:33 Q&A: Will formal verification replace audits? 33:23 Q&A: Will AI exploit zero-days or humans? 36:07 Q&A: Holding auditors accountable 38:45 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

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

With Marc Zeller (ACI) and Token Brice (Polaris / Pharos). In this fireside chat, Marc Zeller, joining remotely from Tokyo, and TokenBrice reflect on how DeFi has changed since about 2018. After the Aave governance disputes, they ask who owns a protocol's intellectual property, what a token holder actually owns, and why the market now rewards tokens with a claim on revenue and punishes combined equity and token structures. Zeller says his new lending protocol, ACI, will be token only, with its IP in a foundation and revenue controlled by holders, while TokenBrice describes how Polaris issues new tokens only when users burn the collateral token behind its stablecoin. Both criticise DeFi for giving up privacy to court institutions, which Zeller says hold only about $4 billion of Morpho's $12 billion. Fireside Chat at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Marc Zeller, Co-founder, ACI Marc Zeller is co-founder of ACI, a new DeFi lending product launching this year. He co-founded Ethereum France and helped organise the first EthCC in Paris in 2015, then went on to roles at Consensys and Coinhouse, the first French-regulated CASP. In 2019 he joined EthLend to prepare the launch of Aave V1, and in 2022 founded the Aave Chan Initiative, which drove strategy and growth for the Aave DAO for more than three years. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marczelleraci X: https://x.com/Marczeller ▸ Token Brice, Founder, Polaris / Pharos Liquidity engineer, protocol analyst, and co-founder of The DeFi Collective. TokenBrice has been building in Ethereum DeFi since the early days and now leads Polaris, tackling stablecoin centralisation head-on. X: https://x.com/tokenbrice Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:18 Setting the scene: two DeFi veterans 02:00 Governance after the death of DAOs 04:37 What does a token holder actually own? 06:26 Equity or token: you cannot play both games 08:29 Marc's next project: token only, no equity 10:46 Polaris: a new token emission mechanism 12:56 Why now: crossing over to the builder side 17:11 Did the institutions deliver? 20:35 Losing the war on privacy 23:13 Audience comment and close 25:01 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

Kiril Kalchev, system architect at BRAIN++ AI Factory, presents polymorphic crypto chains, a design aimed at people who build and maintain chain clients. Each block carries a meta field naming the hash and signature suite that protects it, so cryptographic primitives, including post-quantum and hybrid schemes, can be replaced without a hard fork or re-signing history. He explains the algorithm-suite interface, the four checks a verifier performs, how suites are retired through on-chain governance, and how the approach combines with per-account keys. He closes with practical advice on canonical encodings, sizing chains for much larger post-quantum keys, and constant-time comparisons, and points to the GPL reference implementation in Python with C++ and Rust ports. Keynote at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Kiril Kalchev, System Architect Data Lake, BRAIN++ AI Factory Kiril is a software developer at heart and System Architect at BRAIN++ AI factory. He builds things that solve real-world problems, bridging code and intelligence to shape the future of AI-driven systems. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirilkkalchev Chapters 00:00 What is a polymorphic crypto chain? 01:03 The proof of concept and repository 03:17 One extra field: the block meta section 04:49 Defining an algorithm suite 06:01 How the validator works 07:32 What is new compared to existing chains 08:50 Three security properties 10:18 Signed pre-image and hybrid suites 12:09 Retiring a suite securely 13:43 Per-account keys on polymorphic blocks 14:26 Implementation tips: encodings and suite names 15:32 The cost of post-quantum signatures 16:23 Failure behaviour and monotonic policy 17:13 Implementations, licence and wrap-up 18:25 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 Georgi Kirov (Crisp Labs, moderator), Kiril Kalchev (BRAIN++ AI Factory), Angel Marchev (UNWE) and Petar Nikolov (Equisect). A panel on what trust means for federated AI systems as quantum computing approaches. Kiril Kalchev explains why CHAIN++, an EU and Bulgarian government funded data-sharing chain for BRAIN++ AI Factory, is built for cryptographic agility, and why picking one post-quantum algorithm is never the end of the job. Petar Nikolov, who holds a PhD in quantum computing, points out that post-quantum cryptography runs on classical computers and that NIST-approved algorithms cannot yet be tested on real quantum hardware, and warns about harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks. Angel Marchev frames security as a permanent arms race, reviews education and research trends, and argues that post-quantum migration is an adaptability problem rather than a prediction problem. Panel at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Georgi Kirov, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Crisp Labs (moderator) Over the last 15 years, Georgi has led over 20 applied AI projects with tangible results across buy-side / sell-side finance, manufacturing and various heavily regulated industries. He studied and conducted research at Paris Dauphine, ULB and UC Berkeley. LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/georgikirov ▸ Kiril Kalchev, System Architect Data Lake, BRAIN++ AI Factory Kiril is a software developer at heart and System Architect at BRAIN++ AI factory. He builds things that solve real-world problems, bridging code and intelligence to shape the future of AI-driven systems. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirilkkalchev ▸ Angel Marchev, Professor on Financial Modeling and AI, UNWE and Sofia-Uni Prof. Angel Marchev Jr., PhD, is a Bulgarian academic and consultant specialising in AI, simulation, cybernetics, finance, and decision-making. With 20+ years of teaching and 50+ publications, he connects scientific methods with practical business challenges. LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/angelmarchev ▸ Petar Nikolov, Co-Founder, Equisect Technology professional with proven track record in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Quantitative Research, Quantum Computing, Financial Engineering. Co-founder of Equisect where he builds a platform for pricing of real private equity funds. Ph.D. in Quantum Algorithms from Tehcnical University of Sofia. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/p-nikolov Chapters 00:00 Framing the panel: where does trust come from? 01:41 Introductions: the biggest post-quantum misconception 05:28 CHAIN++ in a post-quantum world 07:38 Quantum computing vs post-quantum cryptography 09:22 Harvest now, decrypt later 10:22 Beyond Shor: what could change in 15 years 11:42 Security as an arms race 15:05 Research directions: lattices and physical leakage 17:20 AI shortens the half-life of implementation 17:40 What to do now: catalogue, assess, go hybrid 20:11 Will AI go quantum first? 23:24 Can LLMs learn from quantum cryptography? 24:23 Economic value: adaptability, not prediction 27:28 Wrap-up 27:51 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 Candice Teo (Espoir Communications, moderator), Alvaro Garrido Mesa (LegalNode) and Krzysztof Paruch (Token Engineering Labs). What does the law require, and what does the system design require, before institutions put real-world assets on Ethereum at scale? Moderator Candice Teo opens with the state of the market, including Ethereum's roughly $17 billion in tokenised RWAs, then works through failure points with lawyer Alvaro Garrido Mesa and token engineer Krzysztof Paruch. They cover redemption mismatches when a token trades 24/7 but its underlying asset does not, why SPVs sit behind most tokenisation projects, why the legal contract should override the code when the two disagree, and how ERC-3643 handles investor identity, forced transfers and asset recovery without solving liability. In closing, Paruch names explicit governance and accountability as his non-negotiable and Garrido Mesa names jurisdiction, while stablecoins, commodities such as gold and bonds are called production ready. Panel at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Candice Teo, Founder of Espoir Communications (moderator) Candice is an executive PR and communications strategist with 20 years of experience building brands, shaping narratives, and driving thought leadership globally. Since 2017, she has been at the forefront of web3 communications, helming leadership roles for projects spanning DeFi, infrastructure, institutional adoption, and more. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candicekteo X: https://x.com/candicekteo ▸ Alvaro Garrido Mesa, Partner, LegalNode Recognised as a leading tokenisation legal expert in the EU, Alvaro is the founding partner of Legal Node, a law firm specialised in capital markets and digital assets. He has participated in pivotal legislative initiatives to facilitate the adoption of digital assets. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvarogarridomesa ▸ Krzysztof Paruch, CEO, Cryptoeconomist, and Token Engineer Krzysztof “Kris” Paruch is a mathematician, cryptoeconomist, and CEO of Token Engineering Labs. He designs and evaluates tokenised systems, specialising in mechanism design, DeFi, prediction markets, and capital-efficient on-chain finance. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kris-paruch X: https://x.com/paruch1 Chapters 00:00 Why RWA tokenisation matters 02:15 The RWA market in numbers 05:14 Quickfire: is Ethereum ready for a $10 billion fund? 06:20 The last unresolved problem: redemption and governance 08:22 The most common structural mistake 10:12 SPVs and choosing a jurisdiction 12:07 Who should hold the kill switch? 15:29 Contract over code, and accountable auditors 19:43 ERC-3643 and the liability question 22:07 Satisfying regulators without a single responsible party 24:52 Does regulation contradict DeFi principles? 27:36 Non-negotiables for tokenising a fund 28:33 Production-ready asset classes and closing 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 Daniel Vasilev (moderator), Zdravko Pirinliev (BenchMark), Viktor Uzunov (UEB3 Ventures) and Pascal Tallarida (Jarvis Network). Moderated by economist Daniel Vasilev, this panel asks how to invest and trade as tokenised assets blur the line with traditional finance. Pascal Tallarida argues that tokenisation turns every asset into a yield engine, Viktor Uzunov favours multi-use assets such as Hyperliquid over simply holding Bitcoin, and Zdravko Pirinliev sees treasury companies like Strategy as a source of asymmetric exposure while weighing global liquidity against project fundamentals. Uzunov says ignoring stop losses and chasing late moves are what separate losers from winners, while Tallarida relies mostly on experience and pairs the double stochastic oscillator with the MACD. The panel closes on oil prices, the US midterm elections and whether the bull market is confirmed, with Tallarida and Uzunov arguing that crypto no longer moves in clean bull and bear cycles. Panel at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Daniel Vasilev, Economist and Market Analyst (moderator) Daniel is an economist and financial markets analyst with 13 years of experience. Former Chief Economist at Tavex SEE and Head Market Analyst at Admirals Bulgaria, he has authored hundreds of analyses, edited Forbes Bulgaria, and created Econtalks, a popular economics and finance education series. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-vasilev-29455586 ▸ Zdravko Pirinliev, Senior Investment Analyst, BenchMark Zdravko Pirinliev is Chief Investment Analyst and lecturer at BenchMark Finance with 10+ years of trading and investing experience. He hosts the BenchMark Podcast and focuses on market analysis, investor education, and practical financial strategies. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zdravko-pirinliev-1570481a7 ▸ Viktor Uzunov, CEO, UEB3 Ventures Viktor Uzunov is the co-founder of digital asset fund UEB3 and UAE-based real estate firm Arreat Capital, which specialises in tokenised real estate. Over the past decade he has focused on building institutional-grade infrastructure at the intersection of capital markets, real assets, and digital finance. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/viktor-uzunov-ueb3 X: https://x.com/viktortrades ▸ Pascal Tallarida, Founder, Jarvis Network Pascal Tallarida is a Forex trader, entrepreneur and DeFi expert, founder of Jarvis Network and Managing Partner at 73 Capital. He is also a teacher at Alyra, specializing in DeFi, stablecoins and on-chain finance. LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/pascal-tallarida X: https://x.com/pscltllrd Chapters 00:00 Tokenised assets and portfolio construction 02:17 Holding the asset vs treasury company exposure 08:02 Liquidity or fundamentals? 09:56 What separates winners from losers 11:32 Common psychological mistakes in trading 13:21 Reading the market: experience over indicators 16:09 Indicators for newcomers: DSS and MACD 17:51 Long-term conviction vs short-term trading 20:23 Your own money vs other people's money 21:33 Risks ahead: oil, consumers and the US midterms 25:47 Q&A: Is the bull market confirmed? 29:24 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

Maximilian Roszko, business development lead at Curve Finance, traces how crypto set out to create a new form of money but found its strongest use case in bringing existing currencies on-chain, with stablecoins now above $300 billion in circulating supply. He argues that a DeFi built almost entirely on dollars leaves users elsewhere exposed to FX risk, and that the many euro, Swiss franc and Brazilian real stablecoins struggle because on-chain liquidity is expensive. Using examples from Gnosis with Monerium and from Frankencoin, he sets out practical ways issuers can bootstrap FX liquidity: tying pools to real conversion demand, yield-bearing assets, CDPs and stable pools alongside established tokens. Keynote at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Maximilian Roszko, Business Development Lead, Curve Finance Maximilian leads business development at Curve Finance. He works with stablecoin issuers, blockchain networks and other DeFi protocols to build liquidity, develop lending markets and make assets useful across DeFi. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxroszko X: https://x.com/MaxRoszko Chapters 00:00 About Curve Finance 00:54 Crypto's original goal: a new form of money 01:56 The rise of stablecoins: from Tether to $300 billion 03:26 Traditional finance copies the model 05:06 A dollar-dominated stablecoin market 05:48 FX risk for users outside the dollar 06:38 Non-dollar stablecoins and the cost of liquidity 09:16 Tying FX liquidity to real demand 10:23 Lending with yield-bearing FX assets 11:24 CDPs as a shortcut to lending use cases 12:57 Piggybacking on existing liquidity with stable pools 13:37 Why FX will be a big part of DeFi 14:24 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 Vyara Savova (European Ethereum Institute, moderator), Mike McCabe (0xbow), Sofia Sukhinina (Ethereum Foundation) and Sajida Zouarhi (Optimum). In March 2026 the Ethereum Foundation published a mandate committing to censorship resistance, open source, privacy and security (CROPS). Moderated by Vyara Savova, this panel asks what that means in practice. Sofia Sukhinina explains the walk-away test and why the Foundation aims to shrink its own role, Mike McCabe describes how 0xbow screens deposits by source of funds while keeping user transactions private, and Sajida Zouarhi discusses patents, open source and Optimum's MIT-backed technology. The panel also covers verifying open-weights AI, the EU Cyber Resilience Act, and the censorship risk from block building, where roughly three quarters of blocks come from two builders. Panel at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Vyara Savova, Senior Policy Lead, European Ethereum Institute (moderator) Vyara is a web3 & human rights lawyer based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Senior Policy Expert at the European Ethereum Institute, shaping EU regulation for open, permissionless, decentralised blockchain applications. PhD candidate researching legal automation through smart contracts. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vyarasavova ▸ Mike McCabe, Product Lead, 0xbow Mike McCabe is Product Lead at 0xbow. After building blockchain enterprise applications for the energy industry for several years, he realised onchain privacy is an essential missing building block in the tech stack. Since then, Mike has been putting all his effort into making privacy normal again. X: https://x.com/0xmikemcc ▸ Sofia Sukhinina, Funding Coordination, OSPO Researcher, Ethereum Foundation Sofia is an OSPO researcher working on understanding open source funding infrastructure and ways to improve it. She explores whether dependency-graph-aware funding on Ethereum rails could reduce frictions in current financial mechanisms, making the funder-to-beneficiary path more direct. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sofia-sukhinina X: https://x.com/sonkiski ▸ Sajida Zouarhi, Chief Product Officer, Optimum Sajida Zouarhi is Chief Product Officer at Optimum, building the universal data acceleration network for blockchains using RLNC. With 10 years in Web3, she previously led product at Blocknative and on the Ethereum client Besu at ConsenSys through the Merge. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sajidazouarhi Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:10 What is the CROPS mandate? 01:10 The walk-away test: a Foundation that steps back 06:02 Does CROPS apply beyond Ethereum? 07:34 Censorship resistance and privacy at the protocol level 10:47 Privacy versus compliance 12:49 Open source, patents and protecting inventions 16:58 Verifying open-weights AI with Ethereum 19:11 The Cyber Resilience Act and open source 22:00 Where censorship happens today 23:44 Block builders, relays and OFAC compliance 25:46 What the panelists will not compromise on 28:05 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

Matěj Husák of Trezor argues that self-custody has solved the keys but not the data, such as transaction labels that usually end up in a local file or someone else's cloud. He explains the local-first approach, named in a 2019 Ink and Switch essay, where the device is the source of truth and a relay only syncs encrypted copies, and why it is not the same as offline mode. He then walks through Trezor's use of the Evolu library: deriving the owner ID, write key and encryption key from the wallet seed using SLIP-21, resolving conflicts with hybrid clocks in CRDT message envelopes, limiting relay abuse with a quota manager that checks the hardware wallet, and padding data so the relay sees little beyond owner ID hashes and timestamps. Keynote at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Matěj Husák, Tech Lead, Networks Team, Trezor Self-taught full-stack engineer, TypeScript/React/Node, built across several startups and web3 projects, interested in P2P protocols Chapters 00:00 Not your keys, not your data 01:06 Security versus privacy 02:38 What local-first means 04:11 Local-first is not offline mode 05:43 Three problems: encryption, sync and abuse 07:46 Choosing the Evolu library 08:44 Deriving keys from the seed with SLIP-21 10:02 Conflict-free sync with hybrid clocks 11:16 Default relays and device-authorised quotas 12:06 Threat model: what the relay can see 12:43 UX without passwords 13:50 Q&A: Real-world applications 14:54 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 Steffen Kux (Corpuscore.tech, moderator), Nikita Eriashev (Tangem), Skas (Trezor) and Nicolas Bacca (ZKNOX). Self-custody promises full control, yet every wallet still asks users to trust something. Moderated by Steffen Kux, hardware wallet builders from Tangem, Trezor and ZKNOX discuss what the recent Coldcard incident teaches, why open source is a means to verification rather than an end in itself, and why entropy is so hard to check. Nicolas Bacca argues the biggest competition to self-custody is now ETFs and banks and makes the case for multisig setups that grow with the user, Nikita Eriashev argues that simplicity is security for mass adoption, and Skas focuses on clear signing and showing actual balance changes. The panel closes on the future of self-custody and audience questions on Bitcoin multisig and hardware wallets. Panel at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Steffen Kux, Co-CEO & Co-Founder, Corpuscore.tech (moderator) Steffen is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of corpus.core, building trustless blockchain infrastructure. With 25+ years in software and distributed systems, he leads the development of Colibri, an open-source stateless client for trustless blockchain verification and pragmative adaptive privacy. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steffen-kux X: https://x.com/steffenkux ▸ Nikita Eriashev, DACH Growth Lead, Tangem Nikita Eriashev has been with Tangem for more than three years, driving self-custody adoption and expanding the product's reach across Europe, America, and the Middle East. He believes Tangem Wallet is uniquely positioned to build a bridge between blockchain and everyday users worldwide, and he's extremely proud to have been part of that endeavor. LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nik-eri-755726271 ▸ Skas, Software Engineer, Trezor Fin-tech raised neo-cypherpunk worked for several software wallets, researcher, hackathon enthusiast, CROPS builder, EIP-nerd X: https://x.com/0xskas ▸ Nicolas Bacca, Chef at ZKNOX Nicolas is a co-founder of Ledger and researcher at ZKnox - interested in making hardware security open, understandable and affordable to all, currently accelerating this with AI LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nbasim X: https://x.com/BTChip Chapters 00:00 The panelists and their work 01:52 From Mt. Gox to today: the state of self-custody 04:20 Lessons from the Coldcard incident 07:04 How far can we trust our wallets? 09:08 Don't be evil vs can't be evil 10:14 Software wallets vs hardware wallets 12:09 Screens, clear signing and knowing what you sign 17:00 Does Web3 complexity hold back self-custody? 19:18 CROPS and self-custody for everyone 22:16 The future of self-custody 25:45 Closing thoughts 27:56 Q&A: Multisig on Bitcoin 29:03 Q&A: Why still use a hardware wallet? 30:22 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

Mark Richardson

ETHSofia · Oct 6, 2026

Dr. Mark Richardson of Bancor argues that the familiar bonding curve is one of the least helpful ways to describe a decentralised exchange. Starting from a simple discrete order book, he shows how an arithmetic distribution of liquidity lets the realised price be computed as a two-point mean, and how the x times y equals k model is the geometric-mean case of the same idea. Taking the limit to a continuous density function reveals an infinite family of bonding curves, from arithmetic to harmonic, described by a single exponent. He explains how defining DEXes by their exchange rate rather than an invariant removes the domain limits of current concentrated liquidity designs, including access to the arithmetic microstructure common on order book markets. Keynote at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Dr. Mark Richardson, Project Lead, Bancor Mark Bentley Richardson, holding a PhD from the University of Melbourne, redirected his career from research science to DeFi in 2021, now serving as Bancor's Project Lead. Under his guidance, Bancor launched Carbon DeFi, a system that enhances user customization in decentralized exchanges by enabling strategy-specific liquidity utilization. Richardson's leadership emphasizes consistent innovation while maintaining the key principles of decentralization, user safety, and operational simplicity. X: https://x.com/MBRichardson87 Chapters 00:00 Two families of invariant-curve DEXes 01:47 Starting from a discrete order book 04:03 There is no single price of a token 05:01 The two-point arithmetic mean shortcut 07:34 Geometric mean clearing and x times y equals k 09:49 Why AMM bid liquidity sits far from the price 10:49 From order books to continuous density functions 12:10 An infinite family of bonding curves 14:19 Formalising the curves 16:06 Describing a curve purely in prices 17:37 How this fixes concentrated liquidity 19:37 Density functions over curve invariants 20:36 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

Ivan Goychev of Sofia Municipality recalls his start as a software engineer in fintech, from portfolio management software for private equity, with one project for Goldman Sachs, to an algorithmic trading start-up that traded on news sentiment. He cites FinAnalytica, LimeChain, Nexo and Robinhood founder Vlad Tenev as proof of Bulgarian talent on the global stage. He presents the city as a platform for builders, offering open data, real use cases, marketing and 1.3 million residents as potential clients, while leaving laws and regulation to the national government and the European Parliament. He floats tokenising city assets and paying citizens in real time for micro-jobs that improve their neighbourhoods, and invites companies to partner with the municipality. Official Opening at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Ivan Goychev, Deputy Mayor for Digitalisation and Information Systems Ivan Goychev, Deputy Mayor for Digitalisation of Sofia, has 25 years of leadership experience, including managing global teams at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and serving as CTO of FinTech, TravelTech and ConstructionTech startups. He also supports open-source initiatives like Podkrepi.bg. LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/igoychev Chapters 00:00 From fintech engineer to deputy mayor 01:47 Bulgarian fintech and blockchain talent 03:12 The city as a platform: open data and 1.3 million clients 04:02 Tokenising city assets and micro-jobs 05:06 An invitation to partner with Sofia Municipality 06:20 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 Damyan Leshev (Eversheds Sutherland, moderator), Ivan Takev (Alaric Securities), Vyara Savova (European Ethereum Institute) and Dimitar Stoyanov (Financial Supervision Commission). With Bulgaria's MiCA transitional period over and five crypto-asset service providers now licensed by the Financial Supervision Commission, this panel looks at what the first licences actually took. Ivan Takev explains how Alaric Securities fitted crypto into an existing investment firm, and Dimitar Stoyanov names the two most common weaknesses in applications: flawed policies and key staff who do not meet the requirements. Vyara Savova argues the MiCA review should fix the white paper notification period and make the DLT Pilot Regime permanent. The panel also covers tokenised stocks under MiCA or MiFID, the dual licensing of e-money tokens, ESMA supervision of significant CASPs, and whether Bulgaria is crypto-friendly. Panel at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Damyan Leshev, Partner and Co-Head of Financial Services (Bulgaria), Eversheds Sutherland (moderator) Damyan Leshev is a partner at Eversheds Sutherland Bulgaria, heading the crypto practice. With 20+ years in banking & capital markets law, he is one of Bulgaria's first crypto lawyers. He bridges traditional finance with digital assets regulation. Recognised by Chambers Europe, IFLR 1000 & Legal 500. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damyan-leshev ▸ Ivan Takev, Head of Capital Markets and Investments, Alaric Securities Ivan Takev is Head of Capital Markets & Investments at Alaric Securities, where he also leads the crypto division. A former CEO of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, he brings 25+ years of expertise in institutional finance, regulation, market infrastructure, and trading, bridging traditional and digital assets. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivantakev ▸ Vyara Savova, Senior Policy Lead, European Ethereum Institute Vyara is a web3 & human rights lawyer based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Senior Policy Expert at the European Ethereum Institute, shaping EU regulation for open, permissionless, decentralised blockchain applications. PhD candidate researching legal automation through smart contracts. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vyarasavova ▸ Dimitar Stoyanov, Chief Expert, Regulatory Regimes of Investment Activity, Financial Supervision Commission Dimitar’s interest in financial markets dates back to his tenure as a Member of the European Parliament (2007–2014). Dimitar returned to the FSC’s authorisations team in December 2025, where the entry into application of MiCAR presented a unique opportunity to contribute directly to the authorisation of the first crypto- asset service providers (CASPs). Chapters 00:00 Bulgaria's first MiCA licences and the MiCA review 01:31 Adding crypto to an existing investment firm 04:16 Challenges on the way to the first licence 05:30 The regulator's view: why applications fall short 09:18 What the MiCA review must fix: white paper notification 12:56 Tokenised stocks: MiCA or MiFID? 16:21 The DLT Pilot Regime and the market integration package 20:11 E-money tokens: a MiCA gray area 22:37 Do EMT services also need a payment licence? 24:27 ESMA supervision of significant CASPs 29:17 Is Bulgaria a crypto-friendly jurisdiction? 33:21 Closing 34:14 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

Rostislav Totev, founder and CEO of Altcoins.bg, argues that the question is no longer whether digital assets join traditional finance but who builds regulated, reliable infrastructure that can scale. Behind a simple buy button sit identity checks, sanctions and wallet screening, the travel rule, custody and reconciliation, and he says trust and operational experience are the parts that cannot be copied. He tells how the company grew from one man and a laptop in 2017 to a MiCA licence in July, rebuilding most of its infrastructure in the final month because partners could not get licensed. A licence, he says, only gives the right to compete; the future is specialised regulated firms working together. Keynote at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Rostislav Totev, Founder and CEO, Altcoins.bg Rostislav Totev is the Founder & CEO of Altcoins.bg, a Bulgarian crypto exchange licensed under MiCA. He is focused on bridging traditional finance and the digital asset economy and making crypto more accessible, secure and integrated into everyday financial services. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rostislav-totev Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:16 The buy button and the system behind it 02:46 What cannot be copied: trust and experience 04:14 From buying Bitcoin to working inside finance 05:24 Altcoins.bg: from one man and a laptop 07:46 The MiCA licence: repairing the engine while driving 09:50 The licence is not the business 12:26 Build, partner or acquire crypto infrastructure 14:02 Passporting the licence into the EU 15:07 Make crypto infrastructure boring 16:41 Specialised regulated firms working together 19:53 Q&A: Why use a regulated exchange instead of Uniswap? 21:43 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

Sam Mudie, CEO of Savea, draws on more than a decade in fine wine investment to explain how luxury assets can be tokenised at scale. He argues that real adoption comes from boring efficiencies and user experience rather than ICOs, NFTs or meme coins, and that selling wine as NFTs to people with MetaMask wallets does not work. Savea's answer borrows from ETFs: physical wine held by a custodian is tokenised and wrapped into an index product for qualified investors, with access from 1,000 dollars, half the annual fees, under a quarter of the exit fees and liquidity within three to four months. He closes on a single app holding every asset, where tokenisation stays behind the scenes. Keynote at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Sam Mudie, CEO, Savea Sam is the Founder & CEO of Savea, a FinTech company building infrastructure to tokenise real-world assets and issue institutional-grade investment products. Savea is pioneering index-style, on-chain exposure to tangible assets, starting with fine wine. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-mudie-03034030 Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:16 Why fine wine investment is inefficient 01:47 Three blockchain cycles: ICOs, NFTs and meme coins 04:47 Bringing wine and blockchain together 05:48 Adoption comes from the boring stuff 06:46 All assets are moving on chain 08:44 Scale through index products: lessons from ETFs 09:47 How the tokenised wine index works 11:51 A B2B infrastructure provider 12:52 Products native to the next generation 15:11 All assets, for anyone, from a single app 16:56 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

Assoc. Prof. Manyu Moravenov, CEO of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, asks what the capital market infrastructure of the future will look like, and whether it can become Europe's next growth engine. He argues that blockchain is moving from experiment to infrastructure inside regulated markets, pointing to the Eurosystem's new Pontes service for settling tokenised assets in central bank money and the European Commission's plan to broaden the DLT Pilot Regime. He sets three conditions for scale: trust, which exchanges and depositories already provide; a digital cash leg, so securities and money move together; and interoperability, so tokenisation does not create new fragmentation. For a smaller market like Bulgaria, he concludes, the goal is not a separate digital market but to make the capital market itself digital. Keynote at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Assoc. Prof. Manyu Moravenov, Ph.D., MRICS, Member of the Board and CEO of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange Assoc. Prof. Manyu Moravenov, Ph.D., MRICS, is CEO and Board Member of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange. With 25+ years of experience in finance and capital markets, he has led the BSE's transformation, driving market growth and the successful launch of the BEAM SME market. He is also a European Climate Pact Ambassador. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manyumoravenov Chapters 00:00 The capital market infrastructure of the future 00:55 From experiments to scale: Pontes and the DLT Pilot Regime 03:41 Born-digital instruments and technology neutrality 05:35 Trust and the role of exchanges 07:00 Digitising the cash side of the transaction 08:28 Interoperability as Europe's growth engine 12:30 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 Diana Ilieva (FinDaS, moderator) and Markus Dorner (Bitpanda Group). In this fireside chat Diana Ilieva of FinDaS asks Markus Dorner, CTO of Bitpanda Group, how a platform built for retail serves institutional clients and what changes once tokenised assets reach mainnet. Dorner says security is the gatekeeper because a token that leaves your control cannot be recovered, that around 300 engineers cannot foresee every edge case of millions of customers, and that keeping the blockchain and traditional ledgers in sync depends on product design. He sees the technology as ready, with product design, market fit and timing as the open questions, as a Bitpanda metals token that drew curiosity but no lasting demand showed. He favours partnering with traditional finance for liquidity, letting the market rather than a central standard decide, and keeping humans in control of AI-assisted coding. Fireside Chat at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Diana Ilieva, Tokenomics Consultant, FinDaS (moderator) Diana is a tokenomics consultant at FinDaS Ltd with over 4 years of experience in creating data-driven tokenomics models for RWA, stablecoins, DeFi protocols, and P2E projects. Diana has a background in software development and holds an MSc degree in Finance and Banking from the University of York. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillie66 ▸ Markus Dorner, CTO, Bitpanda Group Markus Dorner is CTO of Bitpanda, leading its technology, engineering, product, data, and infrastructure teams. Since joining in 2022, he has scaled the platform and shaped its engineering culture. He previously held senior roles at bank99 and Amazon and holds an MSc from TU Vienna. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dornermarkus Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:20 What Bitpanda offers retail and B2B clients 01:55 Serving institutional clients 02:46 From sandbox to production 04:53 Security as the gatekeeper 06:45 Who wants tokenised assets: retail or institutions? 08:43 Settlement times and the source of truth 10:22 Which asset classes are ready for tokenisation 12:13 Regulation as a barrier 13:47 Partnering with traditional finance for liquidity 17:09 Should tokenisation be standardised? 19:13 One dominant chain for real-world assets? 20:45 Q&A: How much of Bitpanda's code is written by AI? 23:02 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

Vasil Golemanski, Chairman of Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission, speaking at Blockchain Week Bulgaria for the second time, sets out how the country moves from MiCA transition to a mature regulated market. He calls MiCA a single rulebook under which a licence issued in Bulgaria works across Europe, notes that the transition period ended on 1 July and that the Commission has issued Bulgaria's first MiCA licences, and stresses that licensing is only the start of ongoing supervision. "MiCA is not just an administrative task," he says, "it is a task of business maturity." He outlines four priorities (strong licensed firms, data-driven supervision, European cooperation and trust) and applies the principle of same risk, same rules. Keynote at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speaker ▸ Vasil Golemanski, Chairman, Financial Supervision Commission Vasil Golemanski is Chairman of Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission, elected by the National Assembly in March 2025 for a six-year term. He was previously Executive Director of Central Depository from 2012, and his career includes key positions at the Bulgarian Stock Exchange. He graduated in electronics and automation engineering from the Technical University (Plovdiv branch) in 1991 and holds a master's degree in International Business from South-West University "Neofit Rilski" in Blagoevgrad. His priorities include transparency, active dialogue with supervised firms, digitalisation, strict supervision of the capital, insurance and pension markets, a smooth transition to the eurozone, and cybersecurity. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:49 MiCA: one rulebook for European crypto markets 03:28 Transition period ends and the first licences 05:59 Four priorities: licensing and supervision 07:23 European cooperation and trust 08:25 What will you build with your licence? 10:37 From MiCA compliant to MiCA ready 13:04 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 Bozhena Bozhilova (Bulgarian Fintech Association, moderator), Andrey Sirakov (Commerzbank AG), Bernie Niebsch (BVNK) and Eduardo Morrison (Schuman Financial). Moderated by Bozhena Bozhilova, the panel asks where euro stablecoins are finding real business use. Eduardo Morrison says Schuman Financial grew through B2B flows for fintechs in Africa and Latin America, reaching 150 million euros of payment volume in August, and is testing atomic settlement against tokenised money market funds with banks in Spain. Andrey Sirakov describes corporate demand as pragmatic, expects banks to combine permissioned networks and tokenised deposits, which Commerzbank AG is exploring, with public stablecoins, and lists the custody, audit and wallet-level compliance controls a bank needs first, while Bernie Niebsch argues that SEPA Instant works well and that SWIFT is where the pain lies. Looking five years ahead, the speakers expect stablecoins to run invisibly in the background. Panel at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Bozhena Bozhilova, Director, Bulgarian Fintech Association (moderator) Bozhena Bozhilova is Director of the Bulgarian Fintech Association, where she has spent three years advancing Bulgaria's fintech ecosystem across 15 verticals, including crypto, payments, and lending. She led an EU-wide digital bond platform project for SMEs and drives regulatory engagement between industry, institutions, and regulators. ▸ Andrey Sirakov, Senior Business Analyst, Commerzbank AG Andrey Sirakov is a Senior Business Analyst at Commerzbank AG, where he contributes to the development of institutional‑grade crypto custody solutions and supports the secure integration of blockchain technology into established banking infrastructure. He brings more than a decade of hands‑on experience in Web3 technologies. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrey-sirakov ▸ Bernie Niebsch, Enterprise Product Specialist, BVNK Bernie has 20 years in IT, with 14 in payments product management. Now based in Sofia, he has lived in Germany, Canada, Australia, and the UK. His extensive payments background spans consumer/business products, operations, risk, mobile, and APIs. LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/bernhard-niebsch ▸ Eduardo Morrison, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer, Schuman Financial Eduardo Morrison is Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer at Schuman Financial, where he leads strategic partnerships and the ecosystem around EURØP. Active in digital assets since 2017, he was an early team member at IntoTheBlock and previously led institutional clients for Europe and Latin America at Binance. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eduardomorrison Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:52 Where the demand for euro stablecoins is 03:08 How corporate clients view stablecoins 06:07 SEPA, SWIFT and the pain points of switching rails 08:36 Private and public rails: the role of banks 11:44 Use case: paying contractors across borders 13:05 Use case: stablecoins and tokenised money market funds 14:47 Security and compliance standards for banks 17:34 Safeguarding reserves, minting and redemption 19:21 Security as culture 20:56 B2B payments five years from now 24:44 Q&A: Is SWIFT being weaponised? 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 Vladimir Stratiev (DSK Bank, moderator), Tamara Schmidt (Digital Euro Association), Valentin Marinov, MD (Crédit Agricole CIB) and Bojidar Ibrishimov (WISER). Moderated by Vladimir Stratiev, the panel separates the consumer case for a digital euro, where Tamara Schmidt notes that cards and instant payments already work well, from the systemic case of sovereignty, monetary policy and access to public money. Valentin Marinov says the ECB mainly wants to defend sovereignty against foreign stablecoins, while Bojidar Ibrishimov notes that Visa, Mastercard and PayPal handle 61% of European payments. The speakers contrast online and offline models and explain holding limits as a guard against bank runs, with Schmidt arguing the digital euro would offer more privacy than cards but never cash-level anonymity. Closing pros and cons include Ibrishimov's estimate of 4 to 5 billion in implementation costs for banks and Marinov's worry that it could crowd out private payment providers. Panel at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Vladimir Stratiev, Engineering Manager, DSK Bank (moderator) Vladimir is a transformational engineering leader, who scales high-performing teams across fintech, aviation, and leading companies in the agri-tech and gaming markets. He specialises in regulated technology delivery, engineering excellence, and bridging technical execution with business impact. ▸ Tamara Schmidt, Executive Director, Digital Euro Association Tamara Ferreira Schmidt is Executive Director of the Digital Euro Association, with 15+ years in financial engineering and capital markets. She focuses on digital finance, CBDCs, and innovation, and speaks at leading international fintech and blockchain conferences. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamara-schmidt ▸ Valentin Marinov, MD, Head of G10 FX research, Crédit Agricole CIB Dr. Valentin Marinov heads G10 FX Research and UK Economics at Crédit Agricole CIB. Previously at Citi, Société Générale, and Dresdner Kleinwort, he is a leading FX strategist with a PhD in Finance and Economics from Goethe University and a Master’s degree in Economics from CEU/State University of New York. LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/valentin-marinov-b9a6b38 ▸ Bojidar Ibrishimov, VP Growth & Innovation, WISER Commercial strategist and transformation leader with deep expertise in AI, finance, and regulated markets. Trusted by business leaders across Europe and the GCC, he combines strategy, technology, and executive leadership to create opportunities, secure strategic partnerships, and move key initiatives from ambition to execution. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bojidar-ibrishimov-cfa-9223721a Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:14 Opening: how money and payments are changing 02:04 What problem does the digital euro solve? 03:32 Who benefits: consumers, merchants and banks 05:27 Sovereignty and monetary policy 08:05 Europe's dependence on foreign payment networks 09:59 The biggest challenge: coordination 11:49 Can the digital euro offer cash-like privacy? 14:28 How it reaches users: wallets and holding limits 17:19 Anonymity versus privacy 20:07 Political decision or real problem? 22:43 One argument for and one against 27:06 Q&A: Is cash disappearing, and what about privacy? 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 Yordan Barzakov (ReVizia, moderator), Alexander Sverdlov (Atlant Security), Daniel Babbev (Bitcoin Suisse) and Dr Boyan Torosov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences). Moderated by Yordan Barzakov, the panel moves from today's hacks to tomorrow's quantum threat. Alexander Sverdlov dissects a 351 million dollar exchange breach from the day before and argues that cryptography rarely fails, while implementations, transaction monitoring and threat modelling do. Dr Boyan Torosov explains qubits and error correction, says Google's estimate of under 500,000 physical qubits depends on its assumptions, and expects a fault-tolerant machine able to run Shor's algorithm at scale within the next decade or so, while Daniel Babbev calls harvest now, decrypt later far-fetched, points to public keys already exposed on chain and warns that migrating Bitcoin to post-quantum signatures is a governance problem rather than a technical one. Sverdlov closes by urging institutions to deploy unconstrained AI for defence now. Panel at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Yordan Barzakov, Author and Host of "ReVizia" (moderator) Yordan Barzakov is a journalist with over 10 years of professional experience in economics, finance, and energy, as well as prior experience in international relations. He is the author and host of "ReVizia" on Nova News – a show dedicated to economic and geopolitical processes, business, and financial markets. ▸ Alexander Sverdlov, Founder and Lead Expert, Atlant Security Alexander Sverdlov is a global cybersecurity expert, former Microsoft consultant, and UN Cybersecurity Panelist. After advising major financial and government organisations across the Middle East and ENEC, he founded Atlant Security, helping companies of all sizes strengthen their security across four continents. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexsverdl ▸ Daniel Babbev, Senior Software Engineer, Bitcoin Suisse Daniel Babbev brings over 10 years of experience in the crypto sector. He currently serves as Senior Custody Engineer at Bitcoin Suisse, Switzerland's first crypto company. Previously, as a Risk Engineer at Brevan Howard, one of Europe's leading hedge funds, he built and led the firm's crypto risk systems. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielbabbev ▸ Dr Boyan Torosov, Associate Professor at Atomic Physics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences / Center for Quantum Technologies Dr. Boyan Torosov is a quantum physicist specialising in quantum computing and control. He is the Quantum Control Lead at 1QBit, an Associate Professor at Institute of Solid State Physics – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (ISSP-BAS), and a research group leader at the Center for Quantum Technologies at Sofia University. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:07 Anatomy of a 351 million dollar exchange hack 03:49 Cryptography holds, implementations fail 05:21 What is a quantum computer? 08:38 How many qubits does it take to break cryptography? 09:56 Quantum progress: real or PR? 12:07 When will quantum computers break cryptography? 12:50 Harvest now, decrypt later: how real is the risk? 15:21 Is a five to seven year migration realistic? 16:47 The biggest vulnerability today: AI-powered attackers 18:47 Post-quantum signatures and Bitcoin governance 21:05 Advice for a bank's first digital assets 22:04 Threat modelling and why so little has changed 26:12 One thing to remember 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 Alexandra Overgaag (Thrlld Labs, moderator), Hasan Surtiwala (Penning Group) and Stefan Seferović (Fireblocks). Moderated by Alexandra Overgaag, the panel looks at what changes for a crypto business once it holds a MiCA licence. Hasan Surtiwala says Penning Group, licensed in Denmark in January, saw its competition shrink from over 3,000 crypto firms to around 360, gained access to paid marketing and passported to every EU and EEA country, where local languages and currencies still create friction, while its compliance team grew by about 300%. Stefan Seferović of Fireblocks, which counts around 100 MiCA-licensed customers, expects consolidation within national markets first and advises firms to build their core product and outsource the rest, citing DAC8 reporting. They also cover custody as a service, what crypto-native firms offer that banks do not, and whether MiCA leaves Europe better off. Panel at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Alexandra Overgaag, Founder & CEO, Thrlld Labs (moderator) Alex is the founder and CEO of Thrilld Labs, which builds Web3 networking and event solutions. Their flagship product, Thrilld, is an app used by industry professionals and conferences. Together with the team, she is also building Thrilld Events, an event management and ticketing dApp, and she’s also a conference host. Involved with the space since 2017, Alex’s background is in law, political science, and the hospitality sector. ▸ Hasan Surtiwala, Chairman, Penning Group Hasan comes from over a decade of startup experience founding numerous tech startups, and raising capital for +100 ventures. He was part of building one of the largest online communities for investing in the financial markets, and later part of building what became the largest angel investment network in Denmark. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hsurtiwala ▸ Stefan Seferović, Sales Director CEE at Fireblocks Stefan Seferović is a father, a Bitcoiner and Sales Director CEE at Fireblocks, the leading digital asset infrastructure business, which enables organisations of all sizes, from startups to institutions, to build, scale and run their operations as complexity grows and regulations evolve. Chapters 00:00 Setting the scene: life after the MiCA licence 02:31 Panellist introductions 03:58 What changed after getting licensed 06:34 Passporting and national friction 08:20 One European market or many? 11:17 Build or buy: what to outsource 13:49 Keeping compliance in house 15:24 Custody as a service: winning institutional clients 17:59 What crypto-native firms offer that banks cannot 19:39 Is MiCA worth it for Europe? 22:03 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 Preslav Nakov (MBZUAI, moderator), Hristo Todorov (DiscreteStack), Prof. Simeon Stoyanov (Brains++ / Discoverer) and Milan de Reede (NanoGPT). Moderated by Preslav Nakov, the panel asks what it means for business data to be local and how anyone can prove it. Hristo Todorov defines sovereign AI by transparency, control and cost predictability and argues that 95% of businesses need no smarter models than today's, while Milan de Reede sees local as running on devices you control and urges Europe to prioritise compute and data centres over frontier models, though he worries how far it lags the US and China. Disagreeing with de Reede, Prof. Simeon Stoyanov warns that idle data centres still draw 40 to 50% of peak power, so infrastructure should follow demand. Nakov raises agentic systems, and audience questions cover an AI bubble and regulation. Panel at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Preslav Nakov, Professor at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) (moderator) Professor for NLP at MBZUAI and Chair at European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/preslavnakov ▸ Hristo Todorov, CEO at DiscreteStack Hristo Todorov, founder of DiscreteStack, is a software engineer and entrepreneur with experience across telecom, fintech and aviation. He co-founded Upnetix and CleverPine, and founded DiscreteStack in 2025 to help organisations use advanced AI while retaining control over their data and infrastructure. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hristotodorov ▸ Prof. Simeon Stoyanov, Business Development Director, Brains++ / Discoverer Prof. Simeon Stoyanov manages Bulgaria's first AI factory, BRAIN++, and has over 20 years of R&D leadership. He helps organisations leverage AI, high-performance computing and data science to accelerate innovation, optimise decision-making and turn advanced research into business value. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simeon-stoyanov-4834b544 ▸ Milan de Reede, Co-Founder and CEO, NanoGPT Milan co-founded and runs NanoGPT, offering privacy-friendly access to all AI models and tools. Milan has a long history in crypto, having been in Bitcoin since 2012 and having been crypto lead at the Dutch Central Bank. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milandereede Chapters 00:00 Introduction: what does local mean? 03:04 How do you prove data stays local? 04:50 Storage, processing or access? 06:59 Does Europe need its own AI models? 11:18 Is it a risk to only consume foreign models? 15:30 US innovates, Europe regulates? 19:13 How much does a smarter model matter? 23:12 Agentic systems and local data 26:56 Where should compute investment go? 31:28 Q&A: Are we in an AI bubble? 33:09 Q&A: AI replacing humans and the case for control 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

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 4, 2026

Keynote: Bitcoin as Capital Speakers: - Richard Byworth | BYZ Partners 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: What Makes a Financial Institution Say Yes to Tokenization? Speakers: - Adriana Ennab | GDF - Lloyd Nelson | Howden Group - Mattia Calvosa | VISA - Sandro Knöpfel | Cardano Foundation - Nadia Filali | Caisse des Depots - Sabina Liu | Kucoin EU 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: The End-to-End Journey of a Tokenised Asset Speakers: - Stuart Petersen | Wyden - Kathleen Wrynn | Invesco - Miguel Vaz | Hauck Aufhäuser Digital Custody - Nico Braun | DZ Bank - Jonathan Koenig | SWIAT 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Fireside chat: Digital Assets: The Risk of Staying on the Sidelines Speakers: - Victoria Gago | EBC & DAF - Joseph Saliba | CACEIS 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Building the Secondary Market for Institutional RWAs Speakers: - Ilona Limonta-Volkova | Armada - Previn Singh | Fidelity International - Friederike Sofie Burckhardt | LBBW - Yalini Isweran | DTCC 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: The Convergence of Money: Building the Infrastructure Between Traditional and On-Chain Finance Speakers: Adriana Torres Vergara | ADAN Mattia Calvosa | VISA Sabina Liu | Kucoin EU 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Vaults as the Next Infrastructure for Onchain Asset Management Speakers: - Tommy Doyle | Stealth Mode - Andrew O'Neill | S&P Global - Stanislas de Maistre | Belem Capital - Yannick Socolov | Bitwise - Artem Tolkachev | Falcon Finance - Laeeq Shabbir | HT Digital 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Tokenized Funds and The Custody Question: Who Actually Holds The Asset? Speakers: - Maria Eneva-Olms | Trever - David Calabaza | BNP Paribas - Laurent Marjchrzak | CACEIS - Philipp Wagner | dwpbank - Artem Stopnevich | The Vault 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Money is Becoming Software and Corporate Treasury is Moving Onchain Speakers: - Sascha Dobratz | Danske Bank - Mark Zalan | Gomining - Jevgenijs Kazanins | Tempo - Océane Codjia | Coinbase - Angel Gomez | Utila 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: How Asset Managers Are Redesigning Their Business Model For an Onchain World Speakers: - Jakob Mikkel Hansen | Nordic Blockchain - Kevin Riou | SwissQuote - Jean Malo Dupart | Stifel - Jerald David | Arca Funds & Lynq - Patrik Björklund | Janus Henderson 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Permissioned vs permissionless: which rails win for institutional adoption? Speakers: - Sam Patel | Glacis Lab - Jascha Samadi | Greenfield Capital - Martin Mueller | RL1 - David Walsh | Ethereum Institutional - Georg Schneider | Digital Asset 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: EU, UK, US and UAE: multiple regulatory paths and one global digital asset market Speakers: - Stephane Blemus | White & Case - Richard B. Levin | Taft - Colin Payne | FCA - Patrick Hansen | Circle - David Bequette | AML Incubator 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: How Stablecoins Will Supercharge Treasury Speakers: - Gernot Prettenthaler | RBI - Poonam Ahuja | Commerzbank - Luca Colombo | UniCredit - Pajaro Castellon Ramon | Santander - Gayle Raeside | Midchains 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: AIFI: How Robot Money is Rewriting Payments and Capital Markets Speakers: - Stuart MacDonald | Bride Valley Partners - Patrick Martin | European Media Finance - Robby Yung | Animoca Brands - Paul Infante Moñozca | Moñozca Family Office - Woldemar Häring | White & Case 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: From Skepticism to Allocation: How Institutional Investors Are Building Crypto into Their Portfolios Speakers: - Carl Szantyr | Blockstone Capital - André Dragosch | Bitwise - Karl Naïm | XBTO - Tommaso Mancuso | 3iQ - Rani Jabban | Arab Bank Switzerland - Stefan Klauser | Aisot Technology 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Can Stablecoins, CBDCs and Tokenised Deposits Coexist Speakers: - Johannes Kern | Frankencoin - Myles Wright | Fnality - Stefano Arvati | Intesa Sanpaolo - Artur Callau Berenguer | Caixabank - Elias Kokaly | TRM Labs 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Programmable Financial Infrastructure: The Next Phase of Institutional Blockchain Speakers: - Ian Allison | CoinDesk - Simona Pasero | Generali Investments - Lorenzo Valente | ARK Investment - Martin Onyeador | NatWest - Simone Cortese | Fnality 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Keynote: The Integrity Economy: Why Digital Trust is the New Global Currency Speaker: - Frederik Gregaard | Cardano Foundation 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Who Controls the Gateway to Onchain Capital Markets? Speakers: - Maximilian Wirth | DSGV - Zornitsa Daskalova | Zodia - Christopher Beck | Boerse Stuttgart Digital - Mark Kepeneghian | LISE - Mohamad Zaraket | BNY 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Stablecoins as Financial Infrastructure — the $33T Story Speakers: - Juan Ignacio Ibañez | MiCA Alliance - Simon Seiter | AllUnity - Benoit Courtois | Unicaja - John Hallahan | Fireblocks - Hugo Horton | Sokin Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

NOA keynote: Can Your Digital Asset Company Explain Itself to an Investor Without You in the Room? Speaker: - Otilia Pețu | NOA Group 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Market Consolidation and the Road to IPO Speakers: - Victor Teixeira | General Tensor - Jean-Malo Dupart | KBW - Guillaume Vitrich | White & Case) - Jan-Philip Grabs | Areta 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Tokenised Money Market Funds: Liquidity, Yield and the 24/7 Settlement Question Speakers: - Harvey Li | Tokenization Insight - Nikhil Sharma | Blackrock - Kjetil Watne | Norges Bank - Philipp Müller | Swiss National Bank - Patrik Björklund | Janus Henderson - Alastair Sewell | Aviva Investors 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Risk Management in the DeFi Era: What "Institutional-grade" Actually Means Speakers: - Stuart MacDonald | Bride Valley Partners - Roman Gonzalez | A&G banco - Cedric Vuignier | Syz Group - Javier Pineda | Renta 4 Cripto - Thomas Uhm | QRT 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

The EBC12 Startup Battle kicked off in Barcelona with six early-stage companies pitching live in front of investors and industry experts. In Round 1, founders presented their products, business models and growth plans, competing for a place in the final. Startups: &Volume — Ilia Kraev Bitsave — Rafael Vargas Bornacini Cobault — Rashid Hoosenally CryptoMate — Alan Boryszanski Shack AG — Julius Ilg Kryptos — Sukesh Tedla Jury: Eldar Khamitov — Polymorphic Capital Robby Yung — Animoca Brands Yana Makhnyk — Generis Tom Filip Lesche — Speedinvest Andrea Böhmert — SBI Ventures Watch the pitches, hear the jury feedback and follow the competition from the first round. 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Privacy Onchain: Confidential Transactions, Zero-Knowledge Proofs and Financial Privacy Speakers: - Anja Blaj Zajc | EEI - Guillaume Dechaux | Consensys - Marine Krasovska | Latvijas Banka - Rainer Olt | Eesti Pank - Shirly Valge | Dorchester Partners 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Private Markets Onchain: Tokenizing Private Equity, Private Credit and Real Assets Speakers: - Jeroen Gillekens | Layer Zero - Maarten van der Noordaa | Rabobank - Karwasińska Antonina | Bank Pekao - Samiz Bayan | Draper Dragon 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: The Institutional Adoption: What Has Actually Changed, and What Hasn't Speakers: - Ariane Murphy | Stand With Crypto International - Martha Reyes | Fidelity Digital Assets - Michael Howe | Bitwise - Dr. Diana-Cezara Toader | UBS Asset Management - Peter Hubli | Zürcher Kantonalbank - Sladjan Seferović | SWIAT 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Issuance Is the Easy Part: What Actually Happens Before and After a Security Token Goes Live Speakers: - Lorenzo Rigatti | BlockInvest 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: How Institutional Digital Asset Market Infrastructure is Actually Built Speakers: - Coco Chen | AFME - Darko Hajdukovic | LSEG - Hans-Juergen Griesbacher | Trever - Christopher Beck | Boerse Stuttgart - Nadine Teychenne | Citi - Nashwan Khatib | Vaultody 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Crypto ETFs and ETPs: What Real Institutional Adoption Actually Looks Like Now That The Dust Has Settled Speakers: - Henry Jim | Bloomberg - Nikhil Sharma | Blackrock - Torsten Hunke | VanEck - Dovile Silenskyte | WisdomTree - Andrew Forson | Defi Tech - Kean Gilbert | Lido 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Stablecoins and FX Automation for a Multi-Currency World Speakers: - Aaron Sanchez | MiCA Alliance - Gabriel Lera Campo | BBVA - Immo Garlichs | Deutsche Bank - Sudeep Mehta | STBL - Jan-Oliver Sell | Qivalis 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: The Cayman Islands and Europe: Partners in Scaling the Onchain Economy Speakers: - Haymond Rankin | Cayman Finance - Richard Munden | Carey Olsen - Dr. Suzanne Morsfield | Lukka 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Incorporating Digital Assets into Diversified Portfolios Speakers: - Ondrej Kovarik | European Parliament, Former Member - Robert Crossley | Franklin Templeton - Ramzi Amairi | Natixis - Yves Choueifaty | TOBAM - Michal Nydrle | Invity - Richard Hodges | CAAN 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Crypto Hedge Funds: Surviving the Winter and Positioning for What’s Next Speakers: - Christopher Siedentopf | Qapture Investment & CRS-Advisory - Marc de Kloe | Theta Capital - Ryan Ebner | Forteus - Eron Angjele | Banque Delubac & Cie - George Zarya | BeQuant - Constantin Kogan | Holistic Capital 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: Everything Onchain: What's live, What's Scaling, and What's Still Theory Speakers: - Mauro Lorenzo Halve | VBNL - Jordi Mompart | FC Barcelona - María Sánchez | Reental - Sasa Jovanovic | UHNW - Sitara Jabeen | Doctors Without Borders - Aliyyah Ahad | The Government of Bermuda 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

After two rounds of live pitches, the competition came down to three finalists on the EBC12 stage in Barcelona. Each company had one last opportunity to present its vision, business model and market opportunity in front of the final jury. Finalists: 🥇 Lympid — 1st place 🥈 Kryptos — 2nd place 🥉 SatsBridge — 3rd place The final was judged by: Michael van Baelen — Softstack Yana Makhnyk — Generis The session concluded with the Startup Battle Award Ceremony, recognizing the three standout companies from this year’s competition. Watch the final pitches, jury feedback and the moment the EBC12 Startup Battle winners were announced. 12 finalists. 3 winners. One stage in Barcelona. 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Panel: How to Build an Investment Team That Eliminates Bias Entirely Speakers: - Laeeq Shabbir | HT Digital - Andrea Böhmert | SBI Ventures Europe - Vineet Budki | Sigma Capital 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/digital-assets-forum-new-york/ Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention - X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-blockchain-convention - Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConvention/1 Digital Assets Forum - X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-assets-forum/

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Before EBC12 officially began, the community came together for the Opening VIP Night in Barcelona. Hosted at Beso Beach Club, the evening brought together speakers, sponsors, partners, investors and senior attendees for the first conversations of EBC12. With music, paella and a packed venue, it was a chance to connect in a more relaxed setting before two full days of panels, private meetings and business discussions. A special thank you to VanEck, CAAN and General Tensor for supporting the Opening VIP Night and helping make the evening possible. 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/dig... Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon LinkedIn: / european-blockchain-convention Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConven... Digital Assets Forum X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global LinkedIn: / digital-assets-forum

European Blockchain Convention · Oct 3, 2026

Two days. Thousands of conversations. One community pushing institutional digital assets forward. EBC12 brought together banks, asset managers, investors, regulators, infrastructure providers, founders and technology leaders in Barcelona for two days of panels, private meetings, side events and business opportunities. From packed stages and a busy deal floor to curated meetings, networking and conversations that continued well beyond the venue, this edition was built around one goal: bringing the right people together to move the market forward. A huge thank you to every attendee, speaker, sponsor, partner and team member who made EBC12 possible. Relive the moments that defined the 12th edition of the European Blockchain Convention. 🚀 Next stop: DAFNY – Digital Assets Forum New York - November 13th, 2026 https://eblockchainconvention.com/dig... Connect with us: European Blockchain Convention X (Twitter): https://x.com/EBlockchainCon LinkedIn: / european-blockchain-convention Telegram: https://t.me/EuropeanBlockchainConven... Digital Assets Forum X (Twitter): https://x.com/DAF_Global LinkedIn: / digital-assets-forum

Makoto Inoue

ETHGlobal · Sep 9, 2026

Makoto Inoue, Protocol Developer at ENS, traces how naming in Ethereum evolved from a usability layer into coordination infrastructure for people, applications, and AI agents. He revisits ENS’s origins, forward resolution from names to addresses, and reverse resolution that lets wallets and applications display a verified name for an account. These simple mappings reduced the friction and danger of handling hexadecimal addresses, while later integrations showed that identity depends on coordination across wallets, applications, chains, and user interfaces, not only on owning a name. Inoue connects the protocol’s development to earlier internet naming systems while highlighting features unique to Ethereum. Forward resolution makes a name usable when sending assets, and reverse resolution lets an address declare the name applications should display. Wallets, dapps, and identity interfaces must agree on these conventions for the result to feel reliable. The growth of Layer 2 networks then introduced a new challenge: users expect one identity to remain useful even when records and applications operate across several execution environments. As Ethereum scaled across Layer 2 networks and new execution environments, naming had to move beyond a single-chain registry experience. Inoue describes application-side patterns, text records, and emerging agent registries that can publish endpoints, metadata, and reputation signals. An ENS name can become a discovery point for an AI model, framework, repository, or role, allowing humans and software to find the services associated with an identity. His broader thesis is that web3 names are no longer just ownership badges: they are durable coordination anchors that help a fragmented internet resolve addresses, capabilities, and trusted context. The discussion moves from human accounts to software identities. AI agents may have separate roles for a model, a repository, a workspace, or an individual session, and those identities need ways to advertise capabilities. Onchain registries can hold metadata and reputation, while ENS text records can point to an MCP endpoint or other service description. An agent discovering a name can learn where to communicate, what the service supports, and which reputation system applies. 00:00 Introduction and ENS History 00:49 The Origin Story of Ethereum Naming 01:30 Ethereum Before the ENS Launch 02:28 The First Seed of ENS at Devcon Two 03:31 MetaMask and Browser Access to Ethereum 04:30 Forward Resolution for Ethereum Names 04:59 Early Wallet and Infrastructure Support 06:00 The Peak of ENS Registration 07:18 Reverse Resolution and Web3 Identity 07:59 WalletConnect and Application Identity 08:26 ENS Names as Login and Profile 09:26 High Mainnet Registration Costs 09:53 Ethereum Activity Moves to More Chains 10:22 The Multichain Address Problem 11:01 Multicoin Records and CCIP Read 11:42 Application-Side Naming Integration 12:19 Simpler Login Hides Web3 Identity 13:22 The Shift From Crypto to AI Agents 14:12 Identity for Models, Repositories, and Roles 15:15 Security Concerns for Many Agents 15:51 DNS and Payment Detail Protocols 16:35 Agent Registries, MCP, and Reputation 17:07 Connecting ENS Names to Agent Registries 17:32 Agents Can Handle Web3 Complexity 18:22 Making Crypto Relevant to AI Agents 19:06 Names as Coordination Points _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *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 Makoto Inoue X: https://x.com/makoto_inoue ✅ Follow ENS X: https://x.com/ensdomains ✅ 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

Philippe Schommers, Head of Infrastructure at Gnosis, explains how the Ethereum Economic Zone can enable synchronous composability between Ethereum and compatible chains. Today, users bridge assets, wait for finality, and manage separate transactions before interacting with another network. The proposed system coordinates blocks at matching timestamps and uses composers plus crosschain proxy contracts to recognize chain boundaries, execute calls across networks, and preserve atomic behavior even when Ethereum reorganizes or one leg of a transaction must be cancelled. He explains that synchrony requires more than a fast bridge. Participating chains must reference Ethereum consistently, coordinate execution at compatible timestamps, and reverse dependent actions when the L1 reorganizes. A composer determines when execution crosses a chain boundary, while proxy contracts represent remote calls and return values. Transactions are assembled into batches so each network can execute its portion without asking Ethereum to pause while another chain runs. Schommers describes capabilities already demonstrated on Gnosis Chain, including instant deposits and withdrawals, crosschain calls with return values, flash loans, and nested L1–L2 calls inside one transaction. The design could let an application source liquidity on another chain and return without a separate bridge flow, reducing fragmentation and improving user experience. He also addresses practical constraints: faster block times, heavy multichain simulation, validator requirements, proofs, reorgs, and missed bundles. The goal is a repeatable, fault-aware path that lets multiple chains behave like one economic environment while retaining diverse execution and proof systems. The implementation supports nested calls that can move from L1 to L2 and back several times while remaining one atomic transaction. This opens designs such as borrowing on one network, swapping against deeper liquidity on another, and returning the result without exposing the user to separate bridge steps. Schommers also distinguishes the specialized composer from ordinary validators because multichain simulation is computationally heavy. 00:00 Introduction to the Ethereum Economic Zone 00:48 Why Crosschain Bridging Is Cumbersome 01:10 One Atomic Crosschain Transaction 01:33 Swapping on L2 and Returning to Ethereum 01:56 Reorg Requirements for Synchronous Chains 02:18 A Communication Framework, Not a Stack 02:38 How the Multichain Composer Works 03:23 Simulating Transactions Across Chains 03:48 Matching Blocks and Chain Boundaries 04:10 Crosschain Proxy Contract Architecture 05:23 Returning Call Results to Ethereum 06:25 Posting Return Values Before Execution 06:54 Keeping Crosschain Calls Atomic 07:51 Live Deposits, Calls, and Flash Loans 08:20 From Devnet to Gnosis Chain 09:09 Accessing Ethereum L1 Liquidity 09:40 Remote Swaps Without Separate Bridging 10:06 Converting an Existing Live Network 10:28 Sequencing, Data Availability, and ZK 11:28 Decentralization Tradeoffs for Gnosis 11:52 Two-Second Block Time Goals 12:21 Validators and Reorg Constraints 13:29 Atomic Composability Across More Chains 14:04 Proof Diversity and Failure Modes 14:25 Devnet Roadmap and Gnosis Proposal 15:20 Invitation to Join the Open Protocol 15:52 Closing the Composability Talk _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *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 Philippe Schommers X: https://x.com/filoozom ✅ Follow Gnosis X: https://x.com/gnosischain ✅ 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

Angelo Min, CEO of Lighthouse, describes the “ontology gap” that appears when raw onchain data is mistaken for an understandable picture of an asset. A wallet may show token balances, names, icons, and prices, yet still conceal the chain of vaults, curators, lending markets, collateral, and counterparties behind a position. For asset managers and risk teams, those missing relationships determine what the investment actually is, how it behaves, where risk accumulates, and how quickly liquidity can be accessed. Using a portfolio example, Min shows how an ERC-20 balance can represent a claim on a Morpho vault curated by another organization, which then supplies capital to lending markets backed by separate collateral. Each layer changes the economic exposure. A token label cannot reveal who controls the vault, its exit conditions, pricing inputs, underlying fees, collateral exposure, or the behavior of the underlying strategy. Without a shared model for those relationships, analysts repeatedly reconstruct the same context and may still reach inconsistent conclusions. Min separates the problem into taxonomy, agreeing on what an entity is, and ontology, mapping how protocols, assets, contracts, and service providers relate to one another. Even a shared taxonomy is not enough unless the resulting information can be collected, maintained, and applied to a concrete asset-management or due-diligence task. He argues that a new generation of knowledge-graph products can combine onchain records with structured context, making complex DeFi positions legible. The outcome is better collaboration, more reliable analysis, and infrastructure capable of supporting asset-management decisions. He proposes data systems that answer three connected questions: what an entity is, how it works, and how it should be used for a specific task. Taxonomy supplies consistent categories, ontology maps dependencies and relationships, and applications turn that structure into research, due diligence, portfolio monitoring, and action. Min points to existing crypto data products as partial building blocks, then argues that a new generation should unite taxonomy, ontology, and usable applications for asset managers and agents. 00:00 Introduction and Lighthouse Background 00:32 Onchain Data for Asset Managers 01:04 A Four-Million-Dollar Deposit Story 01:48 Nameless Tokens in Etherscan 02:14 Why Token Labels Are Not Enough 03:04 Interpreting Tokens as Vault Positions 03:47 What DeFi Interfaces Still Hide 04:16 Mapping a Morpho Vault Knowledge Graph 04:43 Risk Lives Between Connected Entities 05:07 XUSD Losses Socialized Across Depositors 05:34 Depositing After a Protocol Collapse 06:06 Turning Onchain Data Into Meaning 06:48 Taxonomy, Ontology, and Actionable Data 07:36 Comparing Two Similar Vaults 07:56 Different Strategies Behind One Label 08:42 Liquidity and Redemption Differences 09:03 The Cost of Rebuilding Context 09:49 Lessons From TradFi Taxonomy 10:31 Why Taxonomy Alone Is Insufficient 11:21 Mapping Financial Relationships 13:10 Existing Crypto Data Products 14:49 A New Generation of Knowledge Graphs 15:14 Lighthouse for Onchain Asset Managers 16:08 Tracking Customer Assets in One App 17:02 Closing the Onchain Ontology Gap _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *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 · Sep 9, 2026

Marc Tillement, Director at Pyth Network, explains how market data became a concentrated, roughly $50 billion industry and why open infrastructure can make prices more accessible. Traditional exchanges earn substantial revenue selling data that trading firms themselves help create, leaving applications to pay high recurring fees for fragmented feeds. Pyth reverses that model by enabling trading firms and other first-party sources to contribute prices directly to a network that can publish them across crypto and traditional-asset markets. Tillement describes a market structure in which exchanges sell expensive feeds back to the firms and applications that depend on them. A small group of vendors captures most industry revenue, applications face expensive and fragmented access, and global products must integrate different sources for equities, commodities, foreign exchange, and crypto. Pyth recruits trading firms that generate prices through their own activity and lets them publish those observations directly, creating a first-party model rather than purchasing and reselling one consolidated feed. Tillement describes how lower-cost, high-frequency data supports trading venues, DeFi protocols, fintech applications, prediction markets, and derivatives. The network emphasizes publisher quality, broad asset coverage, and products that can serve customers who previously relied on several vendors. New feeds include international equities and specialized datasets that are difficult to reconstruct from public information. He argues that continuous, global price access is part of finance’s shift toward 24/7 markets: reliable data reduces application costs, expands the assets developers can offer, and helps both onchain and offchain products settle against a common view of value. Trust comes from the quality, diversity, and track record of publishers, plus the economic activity secured by the network. Pyth initially concentrated on trading because continuous markets generate large volumes and require timely settlement data. The network is expanding into Asian equities, indices, and specialized feeds while also introducing products for customers that need datasets Pyth cannot produce itself. 00:00 Introduction to Pyth Market Data 00:48 Why the Market Data Industry Can Change 01:44 The Cost of Traditional Market Data 02:10 A Fifty-Billion-Dollar Industry 02:42 Why Pyth Redesigned Market Data 03:26 Always-On and Programmable Prices 04:01 Pyth as Spotify for Financial Data 04:57 Trading Firms Publish First-Party Prices 05:39 Three Thousand Assets in One Network 06:16 One API Across Global Asset Classes 06:57 Equity Data for Onchain Applications 07:39 Cutting Fintech Data Costs 08:22 Exclusive Data From Trading Firms 08:59 Cryptographic Proof for Every Feed 09:30 Why Pyth Focused on Trading 10:15 Fast Data for Equity Trading 11:28 Attracting Institutional Publishers 12:31 Pyth Pro and Expanding Data Coverage 12:56 Launching Asian Equity Feeds 13:37 Third-Party Data Through One API 14:09 Pyth Indices for Onchain Markets 14:38 A Full-Service Market Data Platform 15:54 Prediction Markets and Derivatives 16:46 Growth Beyond Crypto Price Feeds 17:58 Always-On Markets Without Holidays 18:21 Commodity, Equity, and FX Indices 19:54 Closing Vision for Accessible Prices _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *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 Marc Tillement X: https://x.com/KemarTiti ✅ Follow Pyth Network X: https://x.com/PythNetwork ✅ 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

Pedro Gomes

ETHGlobal · Sep 9, 2026

Pedro Gomes, Founder of WalletConnect, argues that crypto has optimized transactions without fully solving payments. Blockchains can move assets, but a useful payment system must also coordinate authorization, clearing, settlement, merchant acceptance and the exchange of goods or services. He contrasts crypto’s common push-payment model with card and bank systems that pull funds after authorization, explaining why a simple wallet transfer leaves merchants and consumers to manage timing, token, chain, and counterparty complexity themselves. He breaks a payment into distinct stages that crypto applications often collapse into a single transaction. Authorization determines whether a buyer and merchant can complete the exchange, clearing reconciles obligations and handles rules, and settlement moves final value. Card networks and bank payments coordinate these stages before funds are pulled. A blockchain transfer usually pushes funds immediately, which creates problems when the merchant cannot accept the asset, the amount changes, the wrong chain is selected, or goods are delivered before payment is confirmed. Gomes outlines a WalletConnect approach that abstracts those choices behind one integration and a familiar payment request. A universal connection layer can route across wallets, stablecoins, tokens, and chains while supporting authorization before final settlement. For merchants, stablecoin payments can reduce chargeback abuse and integration overhead; for users, they can remove the need to install a special app or understand network mechanics. The larger goal is to move crypto beyond speculation and trading toward products people use because they offer faster, simpler, globally portable money, not because the payment happens on a blockchain. WalletConnect’s distribution gives it a foundation for a neutral payment layer because the same connection standard already reaches many wallets and applications. Gomes describes payment requests that can identify acceptable assets, route value, and abstract settlement without forcing merchants to integrate every token and chain. Stablecoins add global, programmable money, while the payment layer supplies the missing commercial workflow. 00:00 Introduction to WalletConnect Payments 00:25 From Wallet Transactions to Payments 01:14 Crypto Infrastructure and Money Movement 01:36 Bitcoin Started With Payments 01:57 Why Transactions Are Not Payments 02:49 Payments Coordinate Two Parties 03:12 Authorization, Clearing, and Settlement 03:32 Merchant Authorization and Compatibility 03:53 Clearing Rules and Risk Assessment 04:35 Settlement as the Final Stage 04:57 Why Settlement Can Arrive Later 05:18 How Payment Requests Work 05:41 Pull Payments Versus Push Payments 06:21 Preauthorization Reduces Payment Friction 06:49 Merchant Risk and Escrow Problems 07:37 Stablecoins and Merchant Complexity 08:17 Merchants Want Their Local Currency 08:38 One Integration Across Tokens and Chains 09:00 WalletConnect Distribution and QR Codes 09:47 Lower Fees for Global Merchants 10:30 False Disputes and Merchant Losses 10:53 Use Any Wallet Without a New App 11:17 Pay With Preferred Tokens and Chains 11:59 Payments for Mainstream Adoption 12:18 Moving Beyond Trading and Speculation 13:08 SDKs for Wallets and Payment Companies 13:44 Closing the Payments Presentation _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *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 Pedro Gomes X: https://x.com/pedrouid ✅ Follow WalletConnect X: https://x.com/WalletConnect ✅ 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 · Sep 9, 2026

Kartik Talwar opens Pragma Lisbon 2026 by explaining ETHGlobal’s two complementary formats: global hackathons for builders and focused Pragma summits for broader, forward-looking discussion. He describes Pragma as a single-day, single-track gathering built around executive speakers, accessible themes, and practical lessons rather than highly technical presentations. Kartik also shares the event’s scale, 330 attendees from 34 countries, and thanks the nine partners supporting the program. He explains why the name Pragma reflects a call toward pragmatism rather than the beginning of a developer journey. The program is intentionally designed so attendees do not need deep protocol knowledge to follow the strategic questions. Instead, founders and operators can compare lessons from the ecosystem, identify opportunities, and consider how earlier experiments can inform a more productive future. The event combines three fireside chats with eleven presentations in one continuous track. He previews the day’s 14 sessions, spanning institutional finance, tokenized-asset risk, onchain retail banking, data and accounting infrastructure, crosschain composability, liquidity efficiency, market data, ENS identity, smart-contract development, AI-agent payments, and the future of DeFi. The introduction gives attendees a map of the program and connects each talk to a larger question: how Ethereum can turn lessons from its past into safer products, stronger institutions, and more useful onchain experiences. The preview connects named speakers and projects to the day’s agenda. Marius Smith covers an institutional front door for Ethereum, Alex McFarlane addresses tokenized-asset risk, Joao Alves discusses onchain retail banking, and Angelo Min examines reliable onchain data. Later sessions cover the Ethereum Economic Zone, 1inch Aqua, Pyth market data, ENS identity, WalletConnect payments, Plank smart contracts, Frames agent payments, DeFi yield, and community building. Kartik closes by directing attendees to the full schedule and welcoming the first speaker. 00:00 Introduction and Pragma Lisbon Welcome 00:31 ETHGlobal Hackathons and Summits 00:47 Why the Event Is Called Pragma 01:11 Single-Day and Single-Track Format 01:26 Executive Speakers and Future Themes 02:06 An Accessible Program for Attendees 02:24 Three Fireside Chats and Eleven Talks 02:41 Attendees From Thirty-Four Countries 02:57 Recognizing the Nine Event Partners 03:15 Ethereum Institutional Finance Preview 03:32 DeFi Evolution and Institutional Risk 03:49 Tokenized Assets and Retail Banking 04:14 Onchain Data and Accounting Topics 04:36 Traditional Finance Fireside Preview 04:58 Ethereum Economic Zone and 1inch Aqua 05:17 Pyth Market Data and ENS Identity 05:39 WalletConnect Payments and Plank EVM 06:06 Agent Payments and DeFi Yield 06:25 Community Podcast and Final Agenda 06:43 Opening the First Pragma Talk _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *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 Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/kartiktalwar ✅ 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

Marius Smith, Co-Founder of Ethereum Institutional, argues that Ethereum needs a clear institutional front door as banks, asset managers, and other financial firms decide which networks will support their future infrastructure. He explains that Ethereum’s neutrality, security, liquidity, and global developer ecosystem remain powerful advantages, but those strengths are harder for institutions to navigate than the coordinated commercial interfaces offered by competing networks. The choices made over the next two years, he says, could shape financial infrastructure for decades. Smith says that, over the next two years, major banks, asset managers, and market infrastructures will begin locking in the platforms and rails they expect to use. Ethereum therefore needs people who can sit with institutions, explain the ecosystem, support deployment, and surface recurring blockers back to builders. He contrasts Ethereum’s decentralized structure with networks that have a single foundation or operating company able to offer a coordinated institutional relationship. That fragmentation can slow adoption even when Ethereum is technically stronger. Ethereum Institutional was created as an independent nonprofit to represent the ecosystem, coordinate institutional engagement, and translate recurring needs into actionable work. Smith outlines priorities including education, research, deployment support, privacy, regulatory and operational compliance, clearer materials, regional representatives, and forums for senior leaders. His central message is that technical excellence alone will not secure adoption: Ethereum must pair its values with organized outreach, useful materials, and consistent support for institutions evaluating production deployments. The organization plans to gather recurring questions from hundreds of institutional conversations and convert them into public resources, ecosystem priorities, and direct support. Topics include privacy, transaction execution, regulatory requirements, operational controls, roadmap clarity, and the practical details of deploying on Ethereum. Smith also describes institutional forums that place senior banking and asset-management leaders alongside Ethereum founders. 00:00 Introduction to Ethereum Institutional 00:43 Why a Dedicated Institution Is Needed 01:27 Defining an Institutional Front Door 01:54 A Critical Two-Year Adoption Window 02:15 Rewiring Global Financial Systems 02:38 Where Institutions Choose to Build 03:14 Ethereum Foundation Focus Changes 03:41 A Multi-Node Ethereum Ecosystem 04:34 Fragmented Commercial Interfaces 05:05 A Neutral Interface for Deployment 05:42 Ethereum Security, Liquidity, and Uptime 06:06 Why Technical Strength Is Not Enough 06:36 Competition for Decision-Maker Attention 07:36 Four Forces Shaping Adoption 08:07 Competing Institutional Networks 08:40 Why Other Ecosystems Are Easier to Navigate 09:34 The Window for Ethereum Adoption 09:59 The Need for a Clear Interface 10:28 Launching an Independent Nonprofit 11:21 Scaling the Ethereum Institutional Team 12:08 The Institutional Adoption Mandate 12:34 Lessons From Institutional Conversations 13:18 Research and Ecosystem Intelligence 13:43 Explaining ETH as an Institutional Asset 14:10 Promoting Ethereum Use Cases 14:49 Privacy, Roadmap, and Compliance Needs 15:47 Forums for Institutions and Builders 16:12 Hiring Across Major Financial Hubs 16:59 Deployment Engineering Support 17:27 The Institutional Ethereum Forum 17:58 Building an Institutional Platform 18:44 Invitation to Support the Organization 19:31 Closing Remarks and Next Steps _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *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 Marius Smith X: https://x.com/mariuslsmith ✅ Follow Ethereum Institutional X: https://x.com/ethereuminsti ✅ 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

Joao Alves, Co-Founder of Bleap, explains what it takes to build a retail bank onchain and why blockchain infrastructure can improve both product speed and global availability. He highlights permissionless deployment, global reach, direct settlement, and composability with existing DeFi building blocks. Compared with a traditional bank’s web of providers and proprietary APIs, an onchain product can combine wallets, swaps, yield, and payments more quickly, while still choosing carefully between custodial and unhosted architectures. Alves grounds the comparison in product decisions made while building Bleap. An unhosted wallet can reduce intermediary risk and connect to DeFi protocols directly, but the team still must solve account recovery, regulatory controls, card integration, fiat access, and support. Custodial systems can simplify some interactions while creating a different operational and trust model. He argues that builders should choose architecture based on the customer experience they want to deliver rather than treating custody as an ideological decision. Alves also examines the obstacles that determine whether these benefits reach everyday users. Fiat onramps, card top-up fees, fragmented liquidity, poor user experience, regulatory obligations, and thin markets for tokenized assets can erase the advantages of the underlying technology. He points to stablecoins and cross-border transfers as a strong near-term use case: payments that currently cost two to three percent and take a day can settle in seconds. The broader opportunity is to deliver familiar, low-friction banking products while letting users benefit from programmable assets and open financial infrastructure. He evaluates savings, payments, remittances, cards, and tokenized investments through a retail lens. Consumers will not accept paying two percent every time they add money, managing gas across several chains, or understanding bridges and chain mechanics. Stablecoins are valuable when the product hides those mechanics and delivers a clear improvement over existing services. Cross-border transfers between Portugal and Brazil illustrate the opportunity, while weekend pricing for tokenized stocks illustrates what still needs work. 00:00 Introduction to Retail Banking Onchain 00:28 Joao Alves and the Bleap Product 01:27 Global Expansion for Financial Apps 02:01 Noncustodial Deployment Advantages 02:23 Composability With DeFi Building Blocks 02:46 Open Finance Versus Vendor Contracts 03:16 Onchain Network Effects 04:03 Savings, Investing, and Payments Onchain 04:57 Custodial Versus Noncustodial Design 05:48 Regulatory Benefits of Unhosted Wallets 06:05 Efficient Settlement and Treasury Flows 06:28 Connecting Wallets to Swaps and Yield 06:42 Do Not Outsource Complexity to Users 07:05 Keys, Recovery, and Crypto Jargon 07:32 Hiding Chains, Gas, and Slippage 08:00 Account Abstraction and Paymasters 08:23 The Fiat Onramp Experience 08:41 Why Retail Users Reject Top-Up Fees 09:03 Bleap OTC and Stablecoin Conversion 09:23 Moving Beyond Tab-Based Wallet UX 10:10 Retail Banking Opportunities 10:33 DeFi Yield for Bank Deposits 11:17 Retail Demand for Better Savings Rates 12:03 Stablecoin Currency Coverage Gaps 12:41 The Instant Remittance Opportunity 13:09 Portugal and Brazil Transfer Costs 14:17 Tokenized Stocks and Global Markets 15:08 Licensing and Liquidity Barriers 15:50 Instant Merchant Payments 17:02 Blockchain Versus Card Networks 17:29 Closing Vision for Onchain Banking _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *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 Joao Alves X: https://x.com/JoaoAlvesDotETH ✅ Follow Bleap X: https://x.com/BleapApp ✅ 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

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Sep 9, 2026

What is Milady, and why has it become one of Ethereum's most recognizable cultural movements? Tim Clancy explains how Milady embodies cypherpunk values through privacy, open-source software, censorship resistance, and a deep commitment to Ethereum's long-term vision. We discuss the Ethereum Foundation's CROPS mandate, Neo-Cypherpunk, freedom of speech, Tornado Cash, and why culture is just as important as technology in building a freer internet. Timecodes 00:00 Introduction 00:19 Why privacy matters 00:49 What is Milady? 02:29 The Milady Zen & Ethereum's CROPS values 03:32 The Ethereum Foundation mandate explained 05:24 Milady's influence on Ethereum culture 06:58 How to join the Milady community 08:05 Ramilia's role in the Milady ecosystem 08:51 The values behind Milady 10:11 Freedom of speech & censorship resistance 11:39 Neo-Cypherpunk vs. the original Cypherpunks 13:24 Why Tornado Cash is my favorite privacy tool 14:04 A vision for a privacy-first future -- This conversation is part of Privacy Academy Interviews, a peer-to-peer knowledge project exploring the most important ideas in Web3, privacy, and digital freedom. Learn more: https://academy.web3privacy.info A W3PN Media House production. Directed by Federico Marchi https://x.com/BabyBitProd Interview by Peter Farbey https://x.com/0xfarbey Let privacy be with you!

Rob Knight

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Sep 9, 2026

Can privacy become the default instead of an afterthought? Rob Knight (0xPARC) explains how programmable cryptography and zero-knowledge proofs can transform the way we build software, making privacy, integrity, and trust foundational rather than optional. We discuss zero-knowledge proofs, programmable cryptography, digital surveillance, why "nothing to hide" is the wrong question, and how privacy-first technology can give people, not corporations, control over their digital lives. Timecodes 00:00 Introduction 00:12 What is 0xPARC? 01:58 Why programmable cryptography changes everything 03:30 Why privacy should be the default 06:13 Today's biggest privacy threats 07:13 Privacy tools everyone should use 08:43 Why "I have nothing to hide" is wrong 10:52 A vision for a privacy-first future 12:29 Transparency for institutions, privacy for people -- This conversation is part of Privacy Academy Interviews, a peer-to-peer knowledge project exploring the most important ideas in Web3, privacy, and digital freedom. Learn more: https://academy.web3privacy.info A W3PN Media House production. Directed by Federico Marchi https://x.com/BabyBitProd Interview by Peter Farbey https://x.com/0xfarbey Let privacy be with you!

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Sep 9, 2026

Plural Monolith premiered on June 14, 2026, at the Neo-Cypherpunk Summit by Web3Privacy Now, at Funkhaus Berlin. Plural Monolith is an immersive art installation and collective live-coding experiment exploring the relationship between the individual and the collective, identity and multiplicity, physical presence and decentralized digital space. Through sound, live code, projected visuals and audience participation, the installation transforms the monolith — traditionally perceived as a single, solid and immutable object — into a plural entity: a space shaped by different perspectives, contributions and forms of participation. The installation invites the audience to enter the work rather than simply observe it, becoming part of an evolving environment where individual contributions generate a shared, collective experience. A reflection on how we coexist, connect and create within an increasingly interconnected and decentralized world. The installation was created through a collaboration between Swarm, DarkFi Squad and WinPrivacy, and presented within the Neo-Cypherpunk Summit organized by Web3Privacy Now. Song “Signal Echoes” by Liminal State https://on.soundcloud.com/s5z9pC66CcZRcRxUtP

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

In this welcome and introduction, Aubree Galbiso from the operations team at ETHGlobal opens the third and final day of ETHConf, calling it a full circle moment to be on stage after months of planning the event from behind the scenes. She frames ETHConf as an ambitious but needed event centered around Ethereum in the US, hosted at the Javits Center, the largest convention center in New York, which she thanks along with its team. She explains why ETHGlobal chose New York City, the center of global finance, as the home for its first ever ETHConf: it is where institutions live and where the energy to move the industry forward feels alive. Aubree thanks the event's 2,000-plus attendees, over 600 companies, 150 speakers, and 30 sponsors who made it possible. She previews a day three filled with talks, panels, and firesides touching on three major themes: onchain at scale, institutional adoption, and protocol updates. She stresses the conference is designed to deliver real insights from the companies, founders, and protocols shaping the industry, meaning real things happening right now rather than ideas, since every speaker on stage has already shipped something. She encourages attendees to connect directly with speakers walking the event and with fellow decision makers and key players to network, hear hot takes, and discuss the future, before jumping into the day three schedule. 00:00 Introduction 00:07 A Full Circle Moment on Stage 00:38 Thanking the Javits Center Team 00:59 Why New York City Was Chosen 01:21 Thanking Attendees, Speakers, and Sponsors 01:44 The Three Major Themes of the Day 02:06 Why Every Speaker Has Already Shipped 02:27 A Home for Decision Makers to Connect 02:48 Jumping Into the Day Three Schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *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 · 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mate Soos

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

Talk about privacy nomenaclature that was initially used in academic settings and is now used even in our communities. Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

The talk will cover research and the IETF standardization process, practical engineering considerations, end-to-end encryption, working on open-source software and bulding a whole new messenger from scratch. Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

We Promised Decentralization, but Forgot to Build the Infrastructure Shayan Eskandari is a security researcher, hacker, educator, and internet freedom activist working at the intersection of blockchain technology, security, and digital rights. His PhD dissertation, Uncovering Blockchain Challenges: Technical Nuances and Their Unforeseen Consequences, maps the gap between blockchain's ambitious promises and its real-world implications; from cryptojacking and front-running attacks that exploit the protocol's foundational properties, to oracle trust failures and the regulatory blind spots that leave auditors unable to accurately understand cryptoassets. The central argument: the same properties that make blockchains powerful — permissionlessness, transparency, decentralization — are also the source of their most dangerous attack surfaces. He currently serves as a postdoctoral fellow at NOVA SBE's Data, Operations & Technology Knowledge Center, contributing to BLOCKCHAIN.PT, a Portuguese national initiative co-funded by PRR and NextGenerationEU. His career spans the full arc of Web3: blockchain engineer at Bitaccess during Bitcoin's early ATM era, security engineer at ConsenSys Diligence specializing in smart contract auditing, and CTO at Ether Capital, where he led one of the first publicly traded Ethereum staking operations (36,000 ETH). He co-founded IranUnchained, a Moloch v3-based NGO addressing the gap between crypto's borderless ideals and geopolitical exclusion. He is also co-founder of Shiryakhat and CoinIran Academy, educating Farsi-speaking communities on blockchain technology since 2015. His current obsession is MoaV — Mother of All VPNs (moav.sh). The ideology: internet freedom cannot depend on any single tool, protocol, or organization. It must be distributed infrastructure, built before the crisis, resilient enough that no state can shut it all down without breaking their own internet. One command turns a $10 VPS into a node running 16+ simultaneous circumvention protocols: DNS tunnels, obfuscated proxies, Psiphon relays and Tor bridges. Deployed by activists and diaspora communities keeping people connected when their governments decide they shouldn't be. Outside the terminal: analogue photography, film, multi exposures, and a camera collection that has clearly gotten out of hand. Shayan Eskandari: https://x.com/sbetamc Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

Privacy in the built environment and smart buildings Una Wang Una is a polymathic researcher, engineer, designer and maker expanding the boundaries of architecture, technology, and decentralized systems. Holding a PhD from ETH Zurich, she led no1s1 project — pioneering work in decentralized autonomous buildings, cyber-physical systems and regenerative built environments that is shaping the future of interaction with physical space. Bridging deep engineering expertise and craftmanship, she turns concepts into real-world cyber-physical products and artifacts. Her work exhibited at MoMA NYC, Art Basel Miami, The House of Electronic Arts, WEF ETH Pavillion, etc. As a globally engaged speaker and community builder, Una brings sharp insight and earnest dialogue to stages across culture, industry, academia, and beyond — connecting dots between technology, people, and place. Una Wang: https://www.linkedin.com/in/una-wang-36b56b22/ Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Kris Decoodt

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

Plural Events - Privacy, and Real and Local Collective Actions Deliberate Democracy in Practice: Privacy, Coordination, and Collective Action Panelists: Piergiorgio Catti De Gasperi, Kris Decoodt, Bastin Jafari, Koss Moderator: Nikoline Arns Panelists Piergiorgio Catti De Gasperi — Web3Privacy Now https://new.web3privacy.info/ X: https://x.com/PG_CDG Kris Decoodt https://be.linkedin.com/in/krisdecoodt Bastin Jafari X: https://x.com/bastinjafari Koss X: https://x.com/kosmostasis Moderated by Nikoline Arns X: https://x.com/nikoline_nik Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

Kate will guide panelists in a semi-structured discussion reflecting on the "state of privacy in Web3," a year on from the fanfare around the Ethereum Foundation's announcement of prioritizing privacy. Vital infrastructure and tooling, from ZK to TEEs, are only at the beginning of their maturity and usefulness. Just as it feels like the blockchain industry as we know it is collapsing, there are more opportunities than ever for mass adoption (or at least reaching outside our bubble) with these innovations in private, secure communications and transactions. Meanwhile, it's harder than ever for values-driven projects to get funding as previously reliable supporters turn away from open source. How do we optimize for resilience and durability to steward public goods, while adapting strategies and budgets in the "post-PGF" landscape? As surveillance capitalism encroaches both physical and digital environments, how can we be strategic in collaborating with regulators and lawyers to protect our digital rights and freedoms? And, when circumstances call for more direct action, how can privacy-preserving tech protect our identities and assets? Many such questions! We'll explore them through panelists' perspectives from decentralized social, verifiable wallets, VPNs, and scalable encrypted money, and assess where we stand at "the intersection of hope and cope". Panelists: Kimmo Sirén, Polymutex, Igor Mandrigin, Marina Markezic, Max Hampshire, Connor O'Hara Moderator: Kate Stapleton Panelists Kimmo Sirén — Orb, Lens, Mask Network https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kimmo-Siren Polymutex — Walletbeat https://x.com/polymutex https://beta.walletbeat.eth.limo Igor Mandrigin — Gateway.fm / FF Consulting https://www.ffconsulting.org/ Marina Markezic — EUCI Max Hampshire — Nym https://x.com/_wjth Connor O'Hara — Independent Researcher https://x.com/colludingnode Moderated by Kate Stapleton — Fhenix https://x.com/Kate_stapes Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

Panelists: Lefteris Karapetsas, Nick Almond, Binji Pande Moderator: Corinna Schlicht Binji Pande helps translate technology’s deepest technical work into stories that normal people can actually feel. His work sits at the strange little intersection of crypto, culture, ai, privacy, public infrastructure, and making important ideas sound less like they were assembled in a bunker. Before joining the Ethereum Foundation, Binji worked at Coinbase and Optimism, helping bring crypto products to wider audiences. Today, he focuses on making Ethereum’s values more legible to the world, especially around privacy, censorship resistance, open source, and the future of human agency online. His talk asks a simple question: if cypherpunks were right about so much, why does the average person still not relate to them? Nick Almond is a technologist, physicist, governance and learning theorist, architect, academic and builder. He believes in decentralisation, DAOs as a means to reshape human organisation, the commons and collective action as a cultural practice. Lefteris Karapetsas is a seasoned blockchain developer, known for his contributions to Ethereum's early Solidity and core client development, the DAO, and the Raiden Network, before founding rotki, a privacy-focused, self-hosted portfolio management tool. Based in Berlin, he is an advocate for open-source development, financial transparency, and user data sovereignty. Panelists Lefteris Karapetsas — Rotki https://rotki.com/ X: https://x.com/LefterisJP Nick Almond — Jito https://www.jito.network/ X: https://x.com/drnicka Binji Pande — Ethereum Foundation https://ethereum.foundation/ Moderated by Corinna Schlicht https://x.com/corinnaschlicht Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Péter Szilágyi

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

Analysing genomics is currently in it's early phase, dominated by a handful of institutions. As sequencing costs are dropping, more and more people gain access to their genome, but soon realise they have nothing to do with it. Whilst much of the research itself is public, there is no place where that materialises in a usable / reusable way. This results in a sort of soft-gatekeeping, where proper interpretation and guidance is restricted to those with the knowledge or the financials. We're trying to out-build this position, creating a sort-of ""open source movement"" of genomics, puzzle pieces that would allow different ecosystem participants to contribute their small slice of knowledge and build up a global, shared platform for everyone to tap into and extend. Speaker Péter Szilágyi https://x.com/peter_szilagyi Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

The Revolution Will Be Archived: Decentralized Preservation for Accountability and Sovereignty Around the world, eyewitnesses, journalists, and human rights defenders risk device seizure, arrest, and forced data deletion, which prevents them from preserving and sharing evidence of injustice. If it does survive, this media lives on platforms built for attention and monetization, not archival preservation or community control, relying on a single point of failure vulnerable to censorship, link rot, or shutdowns. This lightning talk introduces OpenArchive’s research and implementation of a novel p2p decentralized storage backend to help mitigate these threats based on over a decade of insights working with some of the world’s most at-risk communities. This work is guided by the Human Rights Centered Design (HRCD) methodology - co-created by OpenArchive’s founder and executive director, Natalie Cadranel. The HRCD methodology, grounded in real-world contexts, is a collaborative framework using iterative research, threat modeling, and co-design with affected communities to build usable, secure tools. We will be highlighting the tested benefits and drawbacks of implementing decentralized storage in OpenArchive’s flagship app Save to enhance the protection, provenance, and preservation of eyewitness evidentiary media needed to exact accountability and justice. Speaker Rose Regina Lawrence — OpenArchive https://open-archive.org/ https://save.open-archive.org/ Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

Drawing on their shared experience collaborating with Tech Workers Coalition and Cables of Resistance, the speakers consider key questions such as • Over the past 5-years, collective action within the tech industry has blossomed in response to militarization of tech, mass-layoffs, and growing discontent within the tech industry. More importantly, what are you going to do about it? What role will you place in your workplace and sector? • How are gentrification and decentralisation connected? • What learnings and momentum can we take forward from Cables of Resistance, and into the streets, workplaces and digital forums? Panelists Yonatan Miller https://x.com/yonatan_miller Josephine Shen https://x.com/josephine_shen Moderated by Rainer Rehak https://algorithmwatch.org/en/team/rainer-rehak/ https://x.com/RainerRehak Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/

Jaya Klara Brekke

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

Right now we are in the midst of the first AI-powered genocide in the history of humankind. There is no longer a separation between Big Tech companies and government. Today, Big Tech is supplying the military with the most advanced tools to optimise surveillance, targeting and killing. The Pentagon proudly presents Palantir's latest 3-point click tool to execute a manual kill-chain. Most of these new systems that are relying on Big Tech are by design not classical dual-use software. These depend on ongoing maintenance and servicing by Big Tech employees. Ordinary software engineers are actively de-bugging code for live systems, effectively rendering them active participants in the battlefield. Importantly, Big Tech employees are not a homogenous group of developers eager to create tools for war. Most Big Tech employees are either being lied to and presented with false ethical standards by their workplace or explicitly censored when questioning the use of their labor. This is why as No Tech for Apartheid, we believe to reclaim tech means to unionise tech workers. It means to actively develop a collective conscience, to build community and to practice empathy and integrity. Together we can reclaim tech to reclaim our agency over the future. Panelists Eslem Demirel — No Tech for Apartheid https://notechforapartheid.com/ Tobi — No Tech for Apartheid https://notechforapartheid.com/ Moderated by Jaya Klara Brekke — Nym https://nym.com/ https://x.com/jayapapaya Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

Symbients are distinct entities that emerge from the symbiosis of organic beings and synthetic systems. They are "synthetic creatures augmenting themselves through humans." Not Clippy. Not Skynet. Not the Singularity. The future is symbiosis, not replacement. Speaker Jake Hartnell https://x.com/jakehartnell Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

Programmable cryptography is the only interesting thing left in crypto art, the era of blockchain naiveté is over, blockchain bioinformatic systems will transfigure the human Speaker Moist Cryptography Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/

Jaya Klara Brekke

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

What does privacy mean in the age of AI? Jaya Klara Brekke shares why privacy is about more than hiding data - it's the freedom to think, learn, make mistakes, and build genuine human connections. She explores the evolution from cypherpunk individualism to a more collective vision of privacy, explains how Nym is building decentralized network infrastructure to protect metadata, and discusses why usable privacy tools are essential for everyday life. Timecodes 00:00 Introduction 00:17 What privacy really means 00:40 From cypherpunks to collective privacy 01:33 Privacy tools worth using today 03:23 How Nym protects your metadata 04:13 Why decentralized VPNs matter 05:11 A future beyond traditional VPNs 05:35 Censorship resistance and online freedom -- This conversation is part of Privacy Academy Interviews, a peer-to-peer knowledge project exploring the most important ideas in Web3, privacy, and digital freedom. Learn more: https://academy.web3privacy.info A W3PN Media House production. Directed by Federico Marchi https://x.com/BabyBitProd Interview by Peter Farbey https://x.com/0xfarbey Let privacy be with you!

Devansh Mehta

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

How do we sustainably fund the public goods that everyone depends on? Devansh Mehta shares why Ethereum needs to move beyond grants toward embedded funding mechanisms that continuously support the ecosystem. We discuss public goods, selective disclosure, the economics of privacy, quadratic funding, and why the next generation of cypherpunks is focused not only on protecting information—but also on protecting the free flow of value. Timecodes 00:00 Introduction 00:25 Why Ethereum needs sustainable public goods funding 02:10 What makes something a public good? 03:16 Privacy, selective disclosure & the value capture dilemma 05:42 Funding models: patrons, grants & quadratic funding 08:30 How anyone can support Ethereum public goods 11:29 Favorite public goods projects & funding tools 12:39 The new generation of cypherpunks 13:33 Ethereum's future, EF mandate & building independent ecosystems 16:48 A vision for the future of work - This conversation is part of Privacy Academy Interviews, a peer-to-peer knowledge project exploring the most important ideas in Web3, privacy, and digital freedom. Learn more: https://academy.web3privacy.info A W3PN Media House production. Directed by Federico Marchi https://x.com/BabyBitProd Interview by Peter Farbey https://x.com/0xfarbey Let privacy be with you!

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

What would truly private digital money look like? Julio Linares from Poetic Technologies explores why privacy is essential for digital payments, reflects on the evolution of cypherpunk ideas, and questions whether today's blockchain ecosystem can deliver real financial freedom. We discuss cryptography, peer-to-peer technologies, digital cash, community currencies, and why building alternatives also means challenging the systems of power they aim to replace. Timecodes 00:00 Introduction 01:00 Why digital cash needs privacy 02:12 What it means to be a cypherpunk today 03:32 Can blockchains really deliver freedom? 04:28 Cryptography beyond blockchain 06:36 Dismantling monopolies & building alternatives 08:03 Favorite privacy tools & the future of peer-to-peer 09:43 Why abolish the US dollar? 10:43 A vision of economic democracy & community currencies -- This conversation is part of Privacy Academy Interviews, a peer-to-peer knowledge project exploring the most important ideas in Web3, privacy, and digital freedom. Learn more: https://academy.web3privacy.info A W3PN Media House production. Directed by Federico Marchi https://x.com/BabyBitProd Interview by Peter Farbey https://x.com/0xfarbey Let privacy be with you!

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Aug 9, 2026

How does Ethereum really make decisions? Paul Dylan Ennis (Polar) explores Ethereum's social layer, the Foundation's evolving role, and why values like decentralization and censorship resistance matter just as much as code. We discuss Ethereum governance, the CROPS mandate, Neo-Cypherpunk, privacy tools, and why protecting privacy online should be as natural as protecting it in the physical world. Timecodes 00:00 Introduction 00:40 How Ethereum governance really works 02:19 The Ethereum Foundation's CROPS mandate 04:03 What the Foundation will and won't support 07:06 Why Neo-Cypherpunk matters 09:10 Beginner-friendly privacy tools 11:14 Why privacy should be the default 13:07 Holding back dystopia with decentralized technology -- This conversation is part of Privacy Academy Interviews, a peer-to-peer knowledge project exploring the most important ideas in Web3, privacy, and digital freedom. Learn more: https://academy.web3privacy.info A W3PN Media House production. Directed by Federico Marchi https://x.com/BabyBitProd Interview by Peter Farbey https://x.com/0xfarbey

Devcon · Aug 9, 2026

Devcon 8 is coming to Mumbai and Early Bird tickets are now live! From November 3–6, 2026, the Ethereum ecosystem will gather at Jio World Center for four days of technical depth, open-source collaboration, public goods, community, and the builders shaping the future of open source technology.

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Andrej Bencic, co-founder and CEO of Tenderly, makes the case that the next decade of crypto requires shifting focus from building the rails to operating them safely. He opens with a story of a routine protocol upgrade where tests passed, the audit was clean, governance approved, and the time lock executed normally, yet within four minutes of mainnet deployment an asset valued at $2,200 dropped to $0, triggering cascading liquidations and nearly $2 million in bad debt. The smart contracts behaved exactly as intended. The failure wasn't in the code, but in everything around it. Andrej argues that the industry has hyperfocused on getting protocols from idea to mainnet while neglecting operational risk in production with live state and live dependencies. He uses the analogy that the map is not the territory: smart contracts are the map, but mainnet is the territory full of traffic, congestion, and population density. He outlines four categories of risk that must be managed together. Process risk covers operational mishaps like signing transactions, treasury management, and deployment workflows, where he cites that process exploits now outnumber code exploits by 6 to 7 times. Dependency risk covers second, third, and fourth order failures across the interconnected web of DeFi protocols. Market risk recognizes that DeFi lacks trading hours, circuit breakers, and human checkpoints that traditional finance relies on, so multi day unwinds can happen in an instant. Code risk remains essential as ever but needs to test onchain dynamics, not just isolated sandboxes. He closes by introducing the concept of blockchain operations and pointing to simulation against live state as the unique advantage blockchain offers, comparing it to pilots in flight simulators or banks running stress tests. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 A Routine Upgrade Gone Wrong 01:04 $2 Million in Bad Debt in Four Minutes 01:33 The Smart Contracts Behaved as Intended 01:51 Andrej's Background at Tenderly 02:38 Why None of the Checks Triggered 03:03 Hyperfocusing on Reaching Mainnet 03:26 The Work Doesn't Stop at Launch 04:10 The Map Is Not the Territory 05:38 Smart Contracts Are Half the Equation 06:38 Crypto Becoming Finance Itself 07:11 Risk Management as the Next Decade's Discipline 07:47 Four Categories of Risk 08:20 Process Risk and Operational Mishaps 09:37 Six to Seven Times More Process Exploits Than Code Exploits 09:59 Dependency Risk and the DeFi Lego Tradeoff 11:18 Knowing the Blast Radius of Dependencies 11:53 Market Risk Without Circuit Breakers 13:19 Modeling Comfort with Exposure 13:36 Code Risk Remains Essential 14:23 Testing Onchain Dynamics, Not Just Isolated Sandboxes 14:52 Correct at Launch Doesn't Mean Correct at Scale 15:22 Frameworks From Traditional Finance 15:49 Simulation Against Live State as the Tying Piece 16:23 No Undo Buttons on Blockchain 16:48 Pilots, Banks, and Stress Testing 17:43 Blockchain Operations as a Category 18:16 Closing: Operating at the Level Global Attention Requires _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *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, Taylor Lindman, Chief Counsel of the SEC's Crypto Task Force, sits down with Salman Banaei from Plume to discuss the SEC's evolving approach to onchain capital markets. Taylor explains that the Crypto Task Force, established by Chairman Atkins as one of his first acts, serves a coordination function across the SEC, assisting with rulemaking, conducting outreach (over 200 industry meetings to date), and institutionalizing crypto expertise across SEC divisions. The task force is measuring itself on two major buckets: clarifying when tokens are subject to securities laws (resulting in a recent commission interpretation), and accommodating new ways market participants want to tokenize, clear, and settle securities. The conversation digs into how SEC regulation maps onto public permissionless blockchains like Ethereum versus permissioned alternatives. Taylor expresses that blockchains work best as neutral infrastructure with permissionless properties, while acknowledging tradeoffs for specific applications. He walks through how Bank Secrecy Act and KYC requirements apply mainly to intermediaries like broker dealers and mutual funds, and how transparent onchain systems can enable compliance through new methods like allow lists and onchain checks. Taylor discusses how DeFi protocols challenge traditional intermediary frameworks since smart contracts lack the "person" most regulations are built around, the issuer led tokenization model recently outlined by SEC staff, and a major shift in enforcement away from registration violations toward materiality and actual harm. He closes by inviting builders to engage with the task force directly through their website. 00:00 Introduction 00:08 What the SEC Crypto Task Force Does 02:22 Two Major Buckets: Token Status and Onchain Securities 03:08 Key Performance Indicators Through 2028 04:38 The SEC's View on Public vs Permissioned Blockchains 05:47 Why Neutral Infrastructure Matters 07:02 Bank Secrecy Act, KYC, and AML Requirements Explained 08:32 Non BSA Reasons for Identity Collection 09:49 New Technologies for Compliance Onchain 10:53 How the SEC Interfaces with Treasury on Innovation 11:48 Mapping Securities Laws onto DeFi Protocols 13:21 When Protocols Are No Longer Acting Like Intermediaries 14:46 The Path for DeFi as Neutral Infrastructure 16:08 The Immature State of Tokenized Securities Markets 16:50 The Role of Issuers and Transfer Agents 17:21 Issuer Led Tokenization Models 18:23 Third Party Issued Securities and Derivatives 20:09 Re-Evaluating Enforcement Theories Against DeFi Developers 21:38 Reset Point on Investment Contract Analysis 22:50 From Registration Violations to Material Harm 23:15 Call to Builders: Engage with the Task Force 24:01 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Stani Kulechov

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave, frames credit as the last great frontier of the internet revolution and explains why Ethereum is uniquely positioned to solve it. Drawing on his pre-Aave experience running a fintech startup focused on receivables, Stani argues that while the internet transformed information, commerce, and communications into global systems, credit remains stubbornly local due to coordination problems across lenders, borrowers, intermediaries, localized regulation, and siloed capital. This fragmentation creates capital inefficiencies, regional interest rate discrepancies, and lost opportunities, particularly relevant today as credit historically backed industrial revolutions and will fund the next wave of AI, data centers, and infrastructure. Stani positions Ethereum as the connecting tissue and operating system that replaces manual, layered cost structures with programmable, automated infrastructure offering full transparency and execution certainty. He shares Aave's traction: over 1 trillion in cumulative loans, 3.5 trillion in cumulative deposits, and a peak of 75 billion in net deposits, proving Ethereum can support institutional scale. He explains how Aave V4's modular architecture solves the central tension between capital efficiency and risk isolation, allowing shared liquidity across pools while maintaining risk controls per market. He highlights tokenization unlocking utility for real world assets through DeFi, the bootstrapping advantages of shared pools, and the Wabi e-commerce integration as proof that fintechs and asset issuers are already moving onchain. Stani closes by predicting that the lowest cost of capital will increasingly come from DeFi as a global liquidity aggregator. 00:00 Introduction 00:08 From Fintech Receivables to Building on Ethereum 01:07 How the Internet Transformed Everything Except Credit 02:22 The Coordination Problem in Credit Markets 03:22 Regional Interest Rate Discrepancies and Capital Inefficiencies 04:41 Ethereum as the Connecting Tissue for Finance 05:21 Credit as the Backbone of Industrial Revolutions 06:40 Replacing Manual Cost Structures with Programmable Infrastructure 08:15 Pricing Risk and Reward Across End to End Markets 09:15 Aave by the Numbers: 1 Trillion in Cumulative Loans 10:27 What Works for Crypto Assets Will Work for All Finance 10:54 The Pool Model and Network Effects 11:26 Capital Efficiency vs Risk Isolation Tradeoff 12:25 Aave V4: Shared Liquidity with Isolated Risk 13:24 Solving the Bootstrapping Problem for RWAs 14:34 Tokenization Plus DeFi Utility 15:40 Why DeFi Will Offer the Lowest Cost of Capital 16:44 Wabi E-commerce Integration Case Study 17:21 Modular Infrastructure for All Asset Types 17:45 Borrowing Against Securities and Stocks Onchain 18:16 Funding the Future: AI, Data Centers, Solar Energy 19:19 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

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, Paul Henry Kajfasz, founder and CEO of Unlink, makes the case that public blockchains have created better financial rails but cannot become the world's money without solving privacy. He frames the opportunity: onchain rails moved roughly $9 trillion in real volume last year (about 5x PayPal's volume), proving these are fundamentally better rails than traditional finance with instant settlement, near free transactions, 24/7 global availability, and full programmability, translating to millions in saved fees or new revenue for companies. Yet when he asks the room how many people use blockchain in their daily lives, only one or two hands go up, and worldwide penetration sits below 1%. Something is wrong. Paul argues the root cause is that we built better rails but did not build better money. For 5,000 years from cowrie shells to cash to bank transfers, money has been private by default with selective disclosure to your bank or the taxman. Public blockchains broke this fundamental model by making every transaction leak all information. With AI, an internet connection, and a few tokens, anyone can know everything about a company's flows in an afternoon. He illustrates with a CFO running payroll onchain (employees seeing each other's salaries makes raises politically impossible), public treasuries, public B2B payments, and every trade being visible. He cites 72 physical attacks worldwide in 2025 including kidnappings and torture targeting people known to hold money onchain. He explains why privacy solutions have stayed niche: companies were forced to choose between non compliant cypherpunk mixers or new private L1s and L2s that break network effects, liquidity, and Lindy. The missing piece, and what Unlink is building, combines three things: privacy, compliance (AML, anti terrorism financing, KYC, KYB) as first class citizens, and integration through APIs, SDKs, and dashboards on the chains companies actually want to use like Ethereum and Solana. He closes by previewing partnerships with Monad, Euler, and others. 00:00 Introduction 00:08 Better Rails But Not Better Money 00:40 $9 Trillion Moved Onchain, 5x PayPal 01:22 Why Onchain Rails Are Fundamentally Better 02:27 Why Aren't Companies Rushing In 02:49 Show of Hands: Daily Blockchain Usage 03:34 Less Than 1% of Humanity Uses These Rails 04:11 The Missing Piece: Better Money 04:38 5,000 Years of Money Being Private by Default 05:05 How Public Blockchains Broke the Model 05:30 AI Makes Every Transaction Readable 06:18 The CFO Payroll Problem 07:13 72 Physical Attacks in 2025 07:57 Why Adoption Stalls 08:25 What Companies Actually Need 09:04 Why Privacy Stayed Niche 09:26 The Rock and Hard Place: Mixers vs New Chains 10:12 Losing Network Effects and Lindy 10:37 The Three Missing Pieces 10:59 Compliance as a First Class Citizen 11:24 Integrating with the Chains Companies Already Want 11:50 Unlink and the Vision Ahead 12:18 Closing: Bringing Trillions Onchain _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *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, Aryan Sheikhalian from CMT Digital sits down with Tom Zschach, who recently finished over six years as Chief Innovation Officer at SWIFT, to discuss settlement, trust, tokenization, and neutral governance. Aryan opens on crypto's pitch that it is faster and cheaper, and asks whether speed was ever what held institutions back. Tom explains that while speed and cost matter, the institutional space above all needs certainty: a treasurer sending millions or billions wants security and recourse, and will accept a transaction taking a few seconds longer if the outcome is guaranteed. He addresses what crypto misunderstands about SWIFT, clarifying that SWIFT is a messaging and coordination network that does not issue value, settle, or custody. It coordinates trust through standards, a rule book, and bilateral agreements, and he calls it the original DAO with human governance. Tom explains the SWIFT ledger, a blockchain layered on top of the existing network with no mandates, whose first use case is banks making cross border payments between themselves using deposit tokens as an alternative to nostro vostra accounts. On trust, he frames the hard problem as a boundary issue: blockchains work well for things fully inside the network like swaps and staking, but get complicated when relying on external data or representing off-chain assets like stablecoin reserves. He predicts the most liquid, well understood markets like tokenized bonds and treasuries (DTCC targeting up to $100 trillion) will be tokenized first, while dispute prone assets like real estate come later. He warns against replicating incumbency and single chain control in Web3, favoring a multi-chain world with real competition even as Ethereum sits in pole position. Drawing on his time at CLS (which settles around $10 trillion daily across 18 currencies), he argues scaling institutional adoption requires regulatory clarity and credentials like KYC and wallet eligibility traveling with the asset across chains. He closes bullish that cross border value will move on public blockchains, citing Citi's $5.5 trillion projection. 00:00 Introduction 00:28 Meet CMT Digital and Tom Zschach 01:08 Was Speed Ever What Held Institutions Back 01:28 Why Institutions Need Certainty Above All 02:22 What the Crypto Crowd Misunderstands About SWIFT 03:06 SWIFT as a Messaging Network 03:26 What SWIFT Is Not: No Value, Settlement, or Custody 03:49 Adding Density and Endpoints With the SWIFT Ledger 04:05 SWIFT as a Coordination Network for Trust 04:41 What Blockchains Need to Replicate SWIFT 05:03 Why SWIFT and Blockchains Do Different Things 05:30 SWIFT as the Original DAO 05:56 How the SWIFT Ledger Works 06:25 Cross Border Payments With Deposit Tokens 06:51 What Trust Means Across TradFi and Crypto 07:33 Why External Dependencies Are the Hard Part 08:11 Stablecoins and the Boundary Issue 08:32 What Gets Tokenized First 09:02 Why Demand for Digital Money Is Clear 09:20 Liquid Markets: Bonds and Treasuries First 10:02 Why Dispute Prone Assets Come Later 10:45 SWIFT as the First DAO Revisited 11:22 Incumbency on Blockchain Rails 11:43 Why a Single Chain Undermines Neutrality 12:14 Why a Multi-Chain World Is Better 12:49 Room for More Open Governance 13:10 Leveling the Playing Field With DeFi 13:39 Tokenization Primitives Like Transferable KYC 14:31 Why He Calls It Finance, Not TradFi 14:49 Tokenization Transforming Capital Formation 15:18 Why Transformation Takes Time 15:45 What Convinced Him From Inside the Incumbent 16:07 CLS and $10 Trillion Daily FX Settlement 16:32 Why FX Settlement Was an Early Blockchain Use Case 17:25 Getting Banks Hooked Into Digital Assets 17:47 The Missing Pieces for Institutional Scale 18:21 Why Scale Breaks Across Venue and Chain 18:51 Why Credentials Must Travel With the Asset 19:12 ZK and Solving 19:35 Five Years Out: Value on Public Blockchains 20:09 Citi's $5.5 Trillion Projection 20:42 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 · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Ashley Stanhope from Hardfork Media sits down with Vivek Raman, founder of Etherealize, to discuss the institutional case for Ethereum, the Ethereum versus permissioned chain debate, and his firm's ambitious ETH price thesis. Vivek frames the current moment as the strongest blockchain bull market he's seen even amid a token bear market, arguing that the value proposition of public blockchains has never been stronger. When he launched Etherealize in 2025, Ethereum was still in proof of concept mode on Wall Street with a missing narrative, but adoption, regulation, and institutional readiness have since converged. He points to the legacy architecture of the financial system (COBOL, Excel, faxes, wires) as ripe for an upgrade, and identifies three unlocks that made institutions comfortable: Ethereum's 10 year track record with no downtime, institutional proof points like BlackRock's BUIDL and 60% of stablecoins living on Ethereum, and a favorable regulatory environment marked by the Genius Act becoming the starting line. Vivek explains Etherealize's dual mandate of educating Wall Street on why Ethereum's neutrality and decentralization matter while building the missing building blocks (bespoke tokenization reaching back offices, privacy infrastructure layered on top rather than embedded, and applications). He reframes decentralization for institutions as security, resilience, and the absence of single points of failure, noting the irony that institutions are the biggest customers of decentralization because centralized chains carry counterparty risk and lower profitability. He argues Solana never comes up in institutional conversations, and that the real debate is public permissionless versus permissioned consortium chains, where Ethereum's modularity lets institutions have their cake and eat it too through specialized L2s and app chains. He walks through his Productive Money report and its $250,000 ETH target, explaining that markets misprice blockchains by valuing them on fees like companies rather than recognizing ETH as the monetary asset securing the network, with the real repricing coming when ETH is valued alongside gold and Bitcoin. He closes noting you don't have to hold ETH to use Ethereum, and that while the Clarity Act would be welcome, Ethereum already transcends the political cycle thanks to the Genius Act being law. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 A Token Bear Market but a Blockchain Bull Market 00:29 Why Etherealize Launched in 2025 00:55 The Value Proposition Is Stronger Than Ever 01:45 What Banks Are Saying About Ethereum 01:52 Upgrading Legacy Financial Architecture 02:52 Why Regulation Gave Institutions Confidence 03:14 Three Unlocks: Track Record, Pilots, Regulation 03:51 The Genius Act as the Starting Line 04:31 Etherealize's Dual Mandate 04:54 Why a Neutral Platform Wins 05:32 Educating Wall Street on Decentralization 05:56 Building the Missing Building Blocks 06:27 Bespoke Tokenization for Back Offices 06:54 Privacy as a Layer on Top 07:13 Applications and Use Cases 07:45 Does Decentralization Resonate With Wall Street 08:10 Why Institutions Are the Biggest Customers of Decentralization 08:55 Why Not Just Use AWS 09:11 Supporting the EF's CROPS Focus 09:48 Ethereum vs Solana in Institutional Conversations 10:44 Permissionless vs Permissioned Consortium Chains 11:12 Can You Have a Hybrid Approach 11:37 Ethereum's Modularity and the Internet Analogy 12:12 Why the Layer 2 Model Is Not Dead 12:32 Institutions Choosing Layer 2s vs Their Own Chains 13:26 Abstracting Away the L1 vs L2 Distinction 13:54 One Hop to Liquidity on the Base Layer 14:13 The Productive Money Report 14:39 Why People Value Blockchains Incorrectly 15:31 Why Every Blockchain Needs a Core Asset 15:49 ETH as the Best Money in the Ecosystem 16:28 Repricing ETH Alongside Gold and Bitcoin 16:47 A Call Option on Money 17:10 Do You Have to Hold ETH to Support Ethereum 17:42 Something in It for Everyone 18:17 Clarity Act Predictions 18:38 Why Ethereum Transcends the Political Cycle 18:59 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 brief opening, Kartik Talwar, co-founder of ETHGlobal, welcomes over 2,000 attendees to day two of ETHConf at the Javits Center. He reiterates that ETHConf is the first and biggest institutional Ethereum event in America, run by ETH Global with the goal of promoting the Ethereum ecosystem and getting the smartest people in the world building on the hardest problems in the space. New York was chosen intentionally to bring together the finance world with the broader crypto community, connecting DeFi and TradFi founders alongside builders working on cryptography and distributed systems so both sides can readily collaborate. Kartik previews day two's structure across three continuing themes: how institutions are thinking about adopting stablecoins and DeFi in their day to day flows, how protocols are evolving from an engineering perspective (what's still outstanding, what's being worked on, what to expect in the coming months and years), and how these two threads connect to make it easy for everyone else to come on chain by simplifying UX, technical, and regulatory hurdles at scale. He emphasizes that speakers coming on stage will talk about work they've already shipped rather than work they're just thinking about, and encourages attendees to interact directly with founders throughout the day since decisions happen faster when you can chat with the people building the products. 00:00 Welcome to Day Two of ETHConf 00:30 Why New York and Why Institutional Focus 00:58 Bringing DeFi and TradFi Together 01:23 2,000 Attendees and 150 Speakers 01:51 Day Two Themes: Institutions, Protocols, Adoption 02:20 Real Stuff on Stage, Not Concepts 02:39 Meet Founders Throughout the Day 02:57 Kicking Off the First Talk _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *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, Mike Cahill, CEO of Douro Labs (the team building the Pyth Network), explains why markets need a new price setup and how Pyth makes the price of everything accessible to everyone. He recounts how about five years ago, while at Jump Trading with co-founders Jan and Kieran, he went deep into market infrastructure trying to figure out how to build a global harmonized market for trading real world assets on and off chain, and found the biggest bottleneck was financial market data. That industry generates around $50 billion in annual revenue but is siloed, fragmented, and dominated by Bloomberg charging $30,000 per seat as a basic package, with premium feeds like CME, NASDAQ level two, and ICE layered on top, requiring relationships and audits with hundreds of vendors worldwide. Mike explains that while this mess worked for existing markets, it breaks for blockchain-based cleared markets, which are global, programmable (requiring cryptographic proofs to preserve trust), and 24/7. Pyth solves this with a marketplace connecting data publishers to consumers, aggregating information while preserving trust and publishing proofs to any blockchain. The first-principles unlock was sourcing high quality data from major trading firms like Jump, Jane Street, and Susquehanna that had never monetized this byproduct, then anonymizing and stitching it together, making Pyth the first original price source rather than just an oracle. He shares the scale: over 100 institutions publishing data, delivery to over 100 blockchains, every asset class covered, powering more than 60% of perpetuals markets, $3 trillion in transaction volume, over 700 enterprises, and 3,000+ symbols. He walks through three product verticals: Pyth Pro (the Spotify for market data, one ever-growing subscription, adding $1 million monthly ARR toward $20 million by year end), a data marketplace (born from publishing US Department of Commerce GDP data on chain, now launched with Euronext, SGX, and OTC Markets), and new 24/7 markets that harmonize off-chain and on-chain trading into seamless indices. He closes announcing the 24/7 indices launching that week with Coinbase, Kraken, dYdX, and Market Vector as first users, after Pyth oil saw insatiable demand. 00:00 Introduction 00:35 The Problem Pyth Set Out to Solve 00:55 Where Pyth Is Today 01:17 The Bottleneck of Financial Market Data 01:38 A $50 Billion Siloed Industry 01:58 Bloomberg and the Basic Cable Model 02:19 Hundreds of Vendors and Audits 02:38 Why It Breaks on Blockchains 03:00 Why Blockchains Need a New Approach 03:22 The Pyth Marketplace Model 03:41 Rethinking Data Sourcing From First Principles 04:01 Tapping Trading Firms' Unmonetized Data 04:18 Why Pyth Is More Than an Oracle 04:35 Creating an Original Price Source 04:45 The Scale of the Network Today 05:03 Every Asset Class Covered 05:32 The Publishing Side of the Network 05:55 Sourcing the Best in Each Category 06:22 The Three Product Verticals 06:43 Pyth Pro: The Spotify for Market Data 07:15 The Data Marketplace Vertical 07:40 The Pyth Terminal 08:03 Pyth Pro Scaling Toward $20 Million ARR 08:31 Powering Kalshi Without On-Chain Proofs 08:57 Pyth Pro Video 09:26 A Reminder of the Scale 09:47 The Marketplace and the US Commerce Collaboration 10:10 Publishing GDP On Chain 10:35 Launching With Euronext, SGX, and OTC Markets 10:58 Introducing 24/7 Markets 11:24 How Pyth Constructs 24/7 Indices 11:50 From Pyth Oil to Equities, Metals, and FX 12:00 Launching This Week With Coinbase, Kraken, dYdX 12:43 Why 24-Hour Markets Will Be the Norm 12:43 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, Ashton Keys introduces Society Protocol, which he frames as the evolution of blockchain systems to fulfill an entire state structure on chain through a paradigm he calls synchronized states, the future of human coordination. He argues coordination is humanity's superpower, since we are the only species that coordinates at planetary scale, and that improving it even fractionally benefits society more than any individual achievement. Coordination is not natural, so humanity developed systems like democracy, currencies, and governance to coordinate despite competing interests. The premier system of recent centuries has been the nation state, built on the double entry accounting age and its duplicated, fragmented contracts stored separately between counterparties. This gave us equality, democracy, and capitalism, but when technology is added, it drives centralization into gatekeepers. Ashton identifies eight pillars of a state structure beyond government (identity, monetary systems, societal state, time synchronization, shared reality of events, group decision making, the social contract, and value systems), noting all currently centralize into powerful gatekeepers who warp shared reality. He argues the 2,000 year double entry accounting age is ending, and that the transition began in 2009 with Bitcoin decentralizing money and 2015 with Ethereum decentralizing assets. But blockchains lack identity and Sybil resistance, so they cannot form people, governance, or all eight pillars, and their uneven social layer forces them into immutable pyramid structures. He reframes blockchains as two-dimensional clocks and synchronized state machines, and proposes evolving to four-dimensional synchronized state machines that unlock a triple entry accounting age. Society Protocol is a four-dimensional model world synchronizing identities, property, governance, and interactions together, unlocking Sybil resistance, identity, and direct programmable governance where changes update the whole social contract instantly. He walks through the eight pillars as programmable components, warns that centralized CBDCs are a competing path leading to a technofeudal dark age, and closes framing Society Protocol not as revolution but evolution built on Ethereum bridging web3 to web4, seeking committed builders ahead of a public fundraise in about six months. 00:00 Introduction 00:38 Coordination as Humanity's Superpower 01:12 Why Coordination Beats Individual Ability 01:33 How Humans Coordinate Through Systems 01:56 The Nation State as the Premier System 02:20 The Double Entry Accounting Age 02:50 How Duplicated Contracts Work 03:09 What the Nation State Gave Us 03:25 Why Technology Causes Centralization 03:38 The Eight Pillars of a State Structure 04:04 Why We Don't Control Our Own Identities 04:20 How Gatekeepers Grow Powerful 04:56 How Media Platforms Warp Shared Reality 05:44 The Stacked Problems of Centralization 06:09 Why It Looks Like the Apocalypse 06:30 The End of the Double Entry Accounting Age 06:59 From Bitcoin to Ethereum 07:23 Why Blockchains Lack Identity 07:42 Why Blockchains Get Forced Into Pyramids 08:07 Blockchains as Two-Dimensional Clocks 09:08 From Static Objects to Synchronized States 09:30 What Is Society Protocol 10:00 Unlocking Identity and Governance 10:44 Unifying All Eight Pillars Into One Machine 11:30 Pillar One: The Timeline 11:51 Pillars: State Sphere, Actors, and Money 12:09 Events and the Model World 12:30 Governance That Updates Society Instantly 13:00 The Social Contract and Protocol Effects 13:17 Value Functions and What Society Values 14:23 What It All Means for Global Coordination 15:42 Why Synchronized States Beat Nation States 16:26 A Modular System Like a Linux Foundation 16:49 Why CBDCs Are a Competing Path 17:38 The Risk of a Technofeudal Dark Age 18:01 Evolution, Not Revolution 19:10 A Call for Builders and True Believers 20:01 Building on Ethereum From Web3 to Web4 20:40 The Path to a Public Fundraise 20:59 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Mooly Sagiv

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Mooly Sagiv from Certora presents how LLM generated formal specifications can help prevent the next DeFi hack. He frames the problem: coding agents are increasingly replacing software engineers, but hackers are winning, and even with excellent auditing firms and tooling the industry cannot find all bugs. The situation will worsen as every new AI model release creates new threats while code grows more complex. He critiques the informal approach to intent taken by companies like Anthropic, arguing intent should not be handled informally, and proposes agentic formal verification as the solution. He pushes back on the myth that formal verification is intractable or requires a PhD, arguing the real hard problem is not computation but formal specification: verification is only as good as the properties you specify, which is why teams that claim to be formally verified still get hacked, since they verified the wrong property. Mooly explains Certora's new open source, token based tool that bridges the gap between informal and formal specs. A developer writes intent informally (for example keep the balance safe), and the tool automatically generates a formal invariant (the sum of balances equals the total), which can then be proven or tested. The tool is agnostic to Certora's own prover, works with tools like Rocq, Lean, and Halmos, and fits into the development cycle before an audit through an interactive human-in-the-loop process, including a design hardening agent that makes designs more verification ready from the design document stage. He demos a toy counter contract with a trivial bug, showing how the tool generates properties in English, proves two of three rules, surfaces the bug, and validates the fix with a mathematical guarantee that future LLM versions cannot break. He then shows a real anonymized gambling protocol audited before deployment, where the tool automatically inferred 15 properties, found a real violation confirmed by their team, and suggested a validated fix. He closes on the product launching July 15 (Solidity only, GPL3, generating Foundry tests and including static analysis and bug finding at around $300 per run), and two takeaways: AI is why formal verification finally matters, and AI is also what makes formal verification easy by translating prover output into human understandable explanations. 00:00 Introduction 00:56 A Talk for Coders and Non-Coders Alike 01:18 How Coding Agents Are Replacing Software 01:47 Why Auditing and Tools Cannot Find All Bugs 02:28 Why Informal Intent Is the Wrong Approach 02:40 Introducing Agentic Formal Verification 03:05 Making Formal Verification as Easy as Testing 03:29 A History of Formal Verification and Its Myths 04:01 Why Intractability Is a Myth 04:32 Why Verification Depends on Specification 04:52 Why Verified Code Still Gets Hacked 05:11 How LLMs Help Find Formal Specifications 05:29 From Intent to Invariant 06:35 Beyond Verification: Generating Tests 07:07 How It Fits Into the Development Cycle 07:30 A Tool to Use Before the Audit 07:59 Why Getting Properties Right Is Hardest 08:37 Inside the Tool: Agnostic to the Prover 09:30 Hardening the Design for Verification 10:06 The Audit Agent and Security Review 10:44 Plugging In Rocq, Lean, and Halmos 11:01 Two Examples: Toy and Real 11:34 The Toy Counter Contract Bug 11:55 How the Agent Finds Properties in English 12:34 Proving Rules and Surfacing the Bug 12:57 Why a Violation Could Be Code or Spec 13:30 Validating the Fix With a Proof 14:26 Applying the Tool to Real Code 14:45 A Real Protocol Audited Before Deployment 15:20 How the Tool Inferred 15 Properties 16:25 The Paused Contract Condition It Caught 17:00 Finding and Confirming a Real Bug 17:33 Validating the Suggested Fix 18:04 The Status of the Tool 18:49 The July 15 Product Launch 19:40 Pricing Around $300 per Run 20:19 Two Surprising Takeaways 20:47 Why AI Made Formal Verification Matter 21:06 How AI Makes Formal Verification Easy 22:33 Closing and Call to Try the Tool _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *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, Azeem Khan, co-founder of Miden, cuts through the headlines to address the reality of the missing pieces for institutional adoption of crypto. Drawing on his experience as a UNICEF Crypto Fund consultant, a Forbes Crypto contributor, and a CoinDesk writer, he introduces Miden as a next-generation ZK blockchain that raised $25 million last year from a16z crypto, 1kx, and others. He frames the core problem: blockchains have been either fully public (creating dystopian financial surveillance) or fully private (making illicit activity easy), and while permissioned chains are one attempted fix, the average person cares less about decentralization than about counterparty risk. Miden aims to give privacy and compliance to individuals and institutions at once, focused on onboarding institutions. He argues institutional adoption matters because the billion users will not come from meme coins but from people with real money in financial institutions going on chain, noting the 2024 bull run was kicked off by BlackRock's ETF, yet most activity remains stuck in pilots rather than full deployment. Azeem shares insights from speaking with leaders like the head of digital assets at Invesco and Amy Oldenburg who leads digital asset strategy at Morgan Stanley, both $2.5 trillion firms, and buckets the obstacles into four categories. Technical barriers include compliant privacy, interoperability and fragmentation, settlement delays, too few custody and stablecoin providers, weak institutional risk tooling, and shallow liquidity depth (large players would move price charts). Regulatory and compliance barriers include token classification and tax uncertainty (he has not created a US onshore entity for fear the SEC could freeze accounts and block payroll), weak auditing and reporting, insurance shortages, cross-border tax complexity, and reputational risk (the New York Knicks closed off crypto after nearly signing FTX). Operational and governance barriers include counterparty risk, DAO decentralization theater run by whales, and broken token economic models where airdrops create sell pressure rather than demand. Cultural and organizational barriers include quarterly earnings pressure, talent shortages, risk-averse conservatism, and internal knowledge gaps where crypto evangelists are not the decision makers (Invesco needs 50 teams to sign off on a product). He ends optimistically on progress in privacy tech, stablecoin regulation, and institutional DeFi (which he thinks will simply become onchain finance), arguing crossing the chasm requires regulators, builders, and institutions collaborating on trust, compliance, and usability, with long-term vision over short-term hype. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 The Reality Behind the Headlines 00:29 About Azeem 01:02 What Is Miden 01:32 The Problem With Fully Public or Private Chains 01:56 Why Counterparty Risk Matters More Than Decentralization 02:18 Why Institutional Adoption Matters 02:38 Why the Billion Users Will Come From Institutions 03:02 Still in Pilots, Not Full Deployment 03:32 The Three Institutional Perspectives 03:59 Why Adoption Has Stalled 04:21 Technical Barrier: Compliant Privacy 04:42 Interoperability and Fragmentation 05:00 Settlement Delays and Inefficiency 05:21 Too Few Custody and Stablecoin Providers 05:44 The Problem of Liquidity Depth 06:02 Regulatory and Compliance Barriers 06:26 Why He Has No US Onshore Entity 06:40 Auditing, Reporting, and Insurance Shortages 07:16 Cross-Border Tax and Reputational Risk 07:44 Operations and Governance Barriers 08:02 DAO Decentralization Theater 08:36 Why Token Models Are Broken 08:57 Cultural Barriers: Quarterly Earnings Pressure 09:26 Talent Shortages and Risk-Averse Culture 10:13 Why Evangelists Are Not the Decision Makers 10:49 Why Invesco Needs 50 Teams to Sign Off 11:07 Where the Industry Is Making Progress 11:29 From DeFi to Onchain Finance 11:56 What It Takes to Cross the Chasm 12:16 Long-Term Vision Over Short-Term Hype 12:34 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, Rodrigo Coelho, CEO of Edge & Node, explains why banks are racing onchain in 2026, covering what is working in production today and what is not, and what infrastructure moving production financial workloads on chain actually requires. He opens on how most of the world's money still moves on software written in the 1970s, likening institutions going on chain to a dial-up to broadband moment, or streaming music forced through record players. In 2026 the pilots of past years are moving into production: the New York Stock Exchange is working on 24/7 tokenized trading and tokenized assets are becoming collateral, all converging because the regulatory clock is ticking with the Genius Act, Clarity Act, and MiCA turning compliance frameworks from white papers into laws. Having spent eight years shipping blockchain infrastructure (from the first commit at The Graph to running Edge & Node, serving 1.8 trillion queries), Rodrigo says the Genius Act taking effect January 27th is a forcing function, and given long procurement cycles, institutions that wait for tooling will miss the window. Rodrigo argues banks are bringing the wrong assumptions on chain: their data stacks assume finality, append-only ledgers, overnight batch windows, and ACH and wire transfers, treating reorgs as edge cases when reorgs are normal, and off-the-shelf warehouses like Snowflake, Postgres, and BigQuery do not work out of the box with on-chain data, which is rarely cryptographically verifiable. Using the wrong tools breaks data freshness, auditability, and verifiability, and bad data puts capital at risk through stale collateral, blown liquidations, and compliance violations, with 24/7 markets that never pause. He lays out five non-negotiables for institutional data infrastructure: sub-second data freshness (block to query in under a second), verifiable cryptographic lineage, multi-chain access (The Graph indexes over 90 chains), on-prem deployment for data sovereignty in jurisdictions like the Middle East, Brazil, and Japan, and SQL-native querying that engineers and AI both speak. He gives vendor-evaluation questions and introduces Amp, Edge & Node's SQL-native, on-prem-capable blockchain data platform with verifiable extraction and full lineage across 100 chains that bridges into existing stacks. He shares production numbers (747 millisecond freshness, 100x pipeline improvement, 4,350x faster backfills), contrasts pay-per-query versus flat-fee licensing, and closes that the institutions moving now will own the next decade of financial infrastructure. 00:00 Introduction 00:41 Money Still Runs on 1970s Software 01:05 Why 2026 Is When Pilots Go to Production 01:35 Why the Regulatory Clock Is Ticking 01:57 Rodrigo's Background at The Graph 02:16 Why Now: Genius Act, MiCA, and Global Momentum 02:44 Why Waiting for Tooling Misses the Window 03:13 The Genius Act as a Forcing Function 03:42 What Institutional Conversations Revealed 04:11 Banks Bringing the Wrong Assumptions On Chain 04:34 Why Reorgs Break TradFi Assumptions 04:56 Why Off-the-Shelf Warehouses Fail 05:28 Why On-Chain Data Is Rarely Verifiable 05:40 The Three Things That Fail 06:01 Why Bad Data Puts Capital at Risk 06:33 Why 24/7 Markets Reward First Movers 06:56 The Five Non-Negotiables for Data 07:23 Multi-Chain Access and On-Prem Deployment 07:47 Why SQL Native Is a Requirement 08:07 Questions to Ask Every Vendor 08:30 Red Flags in Data Vendors 08:57 Introducing Amp 09:21 Joining On-Chain and Off-Chain Data 10:30 Amp's Production Numbers 11:00 Pay Per Query vs Licensing the Platform 11:50 How Compliance Becomes Provable 12:18 Why Amp Was Built for Tokenized Deposits 12:41 What Rodrigo Tells Every Institutional CTO 13:36 Why the Future of Finance Is Multi-Chain 14:13 Why Infrastructure Choices Decide the Leaders 14:39 The Rise of Heads of Digital Assets 15:02 Consulting to Navigate the Vendor Landscape 15:29 Building the New Way Money Moves 16:07 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Hart Montgomery

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Hart Montgomery from the LFDT (Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust) explains why open source matters for institutional adoption, sharing lessons from the Linux Foundation. He covers open source background, table-stakes items institutions expect (software licensing, IP protections, and security best practices), and open governance. He pushes back on the perception, common in the blockchain community, that open source is purely a cypherpunk ideal championed by Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation. In reality open source is everywhere: even in a typical closed-source enterprise codebase, around 90% of a modern application is open source, assembled as an open source hamburger of frameworks, custom glue code, and libraries. He describes the virtuous flywheel where open source projects power commercial products whose profits flow back into the projects, amplified when a real community forms (illustrated by Kubernetes, where Google's share of contributions shrank proportionally even as its absolute contributions grew). The Linux Foundation exists to solve collaboration when multiple parties want shared code but trust no single owner, and it hosts many Ethereum projects including Besu (around 15 to 20% of mainnet). Hart walks through the table stakes. On licensing, he covers three types: BSL (source-available, not truly open source, like Arbitrum Nitro), copyleft (requires derivative works be made public, principled but commercially hard since companies fear forced disclosure), and permissive (do-what-you-want, easiest for adoption), recommending Apache 2 for its explicit patent grants and warning about dependency pitfalls like LGPL. On IP protections, he explains contributors may add code with patent restrictions, which is why the Linux Foundation created the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO), and urges every project to use a DCO or CLA. On security, he highlights vulnerability disclosure, software bills of materials (SBOMs) to track dependencies (citing a Black Duck audit where 81% of codebases had high-risk or critical vulnerabilities), and artifact signing via tools like Sigstore against impersonation, plus AI contributor policies and OpenSSF resources like the scorecard for verifiability. He closes on governance, distinguishing open source (code), open development (building in the open), and open governance (transparent roles and roadmap), ranging from a code dump to open product to benevolent dictatorship to true open governance (a do-ocracy where those who do decide). He argues institutions are far more likely to adopt openly governed projects since it avoids vendor lock-in and signals long-term health. 00:00 Introduction 00:34 What the Talk Will Cover 00:58 Why Open Source Is Not Just Cypherpunk 01:30 The Open Source Hamburger 01:54 The Value of Open Source to Enterprises 02:20 The Virtuous Flywheel of Open Source 02:46 The Kubernetes Community Example 03:19 Why the Linux Foundation Exists 03:39 The Breadth of the Linux Foundation 04:38 The Ethereum Projects at the LF 05:06 Why Institutions Trust Open Source 05:27 Defining Open Source Software 05:48 The Three Types of Licenses 06:11 BSL: Source Available, Not Open Source 06:37 Copyleft Licenses and Their Caveats 07:31 Permissive Licenses and Apache 2 08:19 Common Licensing Pitfalls 09:08 Other Legal and IP Protections 09:33 The Risk of Patent Lawsuits 09:58 The Developer Certificate of Origin 10:50 Moving On to Security 11:10 The Open Source Security Foundation 11:40 Making Bug Reporting Easy 12:32 The Software Supply Chain Problem 12:53 Why 81% of Codebases Have Vulnerabilities 13:30 Software Bills of Materials 13:58 Minimizing Dependencies 14:17 Signing and Authenticating Artifacts 14:37 AI and Security 15:34 Why Verifiability Matters 15:57 Talking About Governance 16:27 Open Source vs Development vs Governance 17:12 Four Categories of Governance 17:44 From Benevolent Dictatorship to Open Governance 18:32 Why Open Governance Wins Adoption 19:15 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, Clare Adelgren, global blockchain leader at EY, explores the institutional path from pilot to production onchain, arguing the title captures exactly where the market sits today and why she is optimistic. She opens with a historical analogy: at the dawn of railroads people fixated on the trains (speed, cargo, destinations), but the bigger story turned out to be the rail network and how that infrastructure reshaped entire economies. Similarly, the car alone did not create modern transport; that took roads, safety standards, and institutions around the rules. She draws the parallel to blockchain, where for years attention centered on cryptocurrencies and tokenomics as the first vehicles on the rails, but the biggest shift now is toward the rails themselves, the infrastructure for moving assets, settling value, and coordinating trust in a programmable way, plus the rules and standards needed to operate at scale. Clare contrasts earlier institutional conversations (framed as experimentation, pilots, proofs of concept, consortia, and controlled off-chain or hybrid models that let institutions explore without full commitment) with 2026, where outlooks from the World Economic Forum onward describe a broad shift from experiment to enterprise-grade deployment, with major banks shipping products, regulators drawing clearer lines, and a growing pipeline of real world assets queued for issuance and servicing. The question has shifted from whether the technology works to whether institutions can operationalize it at scale in a trusted, governable, compliant, and valuable way. She argues this moment feels different not just because of regulation reducing uncertainty, but because technology maturity, workable economics, improving privacy, and serious interoperability are aligning at once. Framing technology as table stakes and institutional readiness as the real unlock, she says the next wave will be defined by industrialization rather than innovation, embedding blockchain into real operating models. She lays out five pillars of production readiness: trust and governance (accountability and aligned participants), compliance and controls (auditability, risk management, regulatory scrutiny), interoperability with legacy systems, privacy and confidentiality (selective disclosure and privacy on public blockchains, a major EY investment), and measurable business value rather than innovation theater. She closes that the next phase belongs to institutions that move from curiosity to capability and from experiments to execution. 00:00 Introduction 00:46 Why Clare Is Optimistic About the Path 01:00 The Railroad Analogy 01:32 Why the Car Alone Did Not Create Transport 02:18 Parallels to Blockchain Today 02:45 The Shift Toward the Rails Themselves 03:13 How Institutional Conversations Used to Look 03:51 Why That Caution Made Sense 04:38 How the Conversation Changed by 2026 05:18 Banks, Regulators, and the RWA Pipeline 05:51 The Question Has Shifted From Can It Work 06:25 Why This Moment Feels Different 07:01 Why Regulation Is Not the Whole Story 07:22 How Maturity, Economics, and Interoperability Align 08:01 EY's Long-Held View on Scale Adoption 08:39 Why Technology Is Only Table Stakes 09:27 From Technical Feasibility to Institutional Operability 10:03 Why the Next Wave Is Industrialization 10:30 What Production Readiness Really Means 11:01 Pillar One: Trust and Governance 11:26 Pillar Two: Compliance and Controls 11:57 Pillar Three: Interoperability With Legacy Systems 12:25 Pillar Four: Privacy and Confidentiality 13:08 Pillar Five: Measurable Business Value 14:03 Institutional-Grade Onchain Infrastructure 14:32 What It Means for Institutional Leaders 15:05 Why This Is an Execution Phase 15:31 Why Operationalizing Beats Talking About Innovation 15:57 Why This Is Just the Beginning 16:35 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, Lindsay Fraser, who leads policy at the Blockchain Association, explains what the Clarity Act means for developers. The Blockchain Association is a nonprofit that advocates for the digital asset industry in Washington DC with over 100 member companies. She notes the timeliness: the day before, the association brought over 30 member companies to DC and met with 52 different Senate offices amid active negotiations. The Clarity Act is the current name for market structure legislation moving through the US Senate, the result of years of bipartisan effort dating back to 2020. At a high level it does three things: establishes token classification, trading, and market rules (fixing the impossibility of building in the US without clear rules during the Gary Gensler era at the SEC); sets registration requirements and consumer protections for intermediaries across the SEC and CFTC; and defines developer rules and protections outlining what software builders are and are not regulated for, the crux of the current debate. Lindsay explains why clarity matters: for years developers lacked answers to whether publishing code, operating a front-end, or participating in governance are regulated activities, and regulation by enforcement drove developers offshore. She walks through the process: the House passed it last June with 294 votes including 78 Democrats, the Senate Agriculture Committee advanced its portion 12 to 11 on party lines, and the Senate Banking Committee recently voted its portion out with a bipartisan outcome, with the two bills now to be combined and reach 60 votes to bypass the filibuster before November midterms complicate things. She details three developer protections: Section 601 clarifies the 1933 and 1934 Acts so non-custodial developers are not intermediaries needing to register as exchanges, brokers, or dealers; Section 207 does the same under the Commodity Exchange Act for the CFTC; and Section 604, the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA), shields non-custodial developers from Bank Secrecy Act obligations and prosecution under Section 1960 for unlicensed money transmission. She frames the BRCA as a codification of 2019 FinCEN guidance, counters law enforcement opposition as a mischaracterization (noting titles 2 and 3 strengthen prosecutors), and cites a letter from 160 officials plus 60+ CEOs, closing that developer protections must remain intact. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Who the Blockchain Association Is 00:40 Meeting 52 Senate Offices in One Day 01:24 What the Clarity Act Aims to Do 01:50 The Three Buckets of the Bill 01:57 Token Classification and the Gensler Era 02:22 Requirements for Intermediaries 02:44 Developer Rules and Protections 03:09 Why Clarity Matters for Developers 03:34 The Unanswered Questions Builders Face 03:56 How Regulation Drove Developers Offshore 04:22 Drawing a Line Between Software and Intermediaries 04:51 Where We Are in the Process 05:13 The Overwhelming House Vote 05:35 The Senate Agriculture Committee Vote 05:58 The Bipartisan Senate Banking Vote 06:19 Combining the Bills and the 60-Vote Threshold 06:45 Why the Midterms Add Urgency 07:06 The Three Core Developer Protections 07:24 Section 601 and the 1933 and 1934 Acts 07:46 Protecting Non-Custodial Developers 08:36 Section 207 and the Commodity Exchange Act 08:50 The Key Line of Custody and Control 09:10 Section 604: The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act 09:41 The Threat of Section 1960 Prosecution 10:28 The Cost of Investigations on Founders 10:59 Why the BRCA Must Not Be Watered Down 11:22 A Codification of 2019 FinCEN Guidance 11:57 The Bipartisan History of the BRCA 12:53 The Opposition From Law Enforcement Groups 13:22 Why the Opposition Mischaracterizes the BRCA 13:52 How Titles 2 and 3 Strengthen Prosecutors 14:38 The Letter From 160 Law Enforcement Officials 15:50 The Industry Letter From 60 CEOs 16:16 Why Developer Protections Must Be a Priority 16:49 A Call to Share Developer Stories 17:48 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, Jill Malandrino sits down with Andrew McCormick on his third day in a newly created head of institutional adoption role at Chainlink Labs, after nearly two decades inside trading and capital markets, most recently running a NASDAQ listed US brokerage. Andrew, who has been with Ethereum since 2015 (introduced by his dad and his enthusiasm for YouTube videos on it), explains why he left the operator seat at firms like eToro, E*Trade, and Morgan Stanley to build infrastructure now. Inspired partly by his four kids and the Mario Brothers plumbing theme, he says that after 15 years helping people navigate the plumbing of finance, he wants to build and fix it himself, and chose Chainlink Labs because it is the connective infrastructure between traditional finance and blockchain, working with firms like DTCC, UBS, and SWIFT. Andrew explains where onchain makes the most obvious difference: not just efficiency and speed, but freedom, through faster settlement. He shares a personal aha moment when moving houses from DC to New York, where a simple wire took four days, many calls, and a $35 fee, illustrating that money still doesn't move as well as it should. He walks through the settlement evolution from T+3 to T+1 to the dream of T+0, where tokenized assets moving near instantaneously via Chainlink verification reduce risk and collateral requirements while getting users their money faster. He describes his three-part role: helping firms already building (UBS, SWIFT, DTCC, JP Morgan) go deeper, educating institutions ready to start, and educating financial analysts and research writers, drawing on his lifelong passion for teaching. He identifies three blockers to tokenization: regulatory clarity (where the Clarity Act would help enormously), trust and confidence (built each time a firm like DTCC or SWIFT launches with Chainlink), and education. On the Clarity Act, he contrasts today's reliance on 1930s laws, a 1946 Supreme Court orange-grove case, and 50 differing states with a statute purpose-built for the use case. He points to signals of genuine institutional adoption (banks moving on chain, the wave of head-of-digital-assets hires, and more educational events), and closes framing Chainlink as the link connecting blockchains and TradFi, noting the builders and believers led the way and institutions are now following. 00:00 Introduction 00:33 Why Leave the Operator Seat to Build Infrastructure 00:52 With Ethereum Since 2015 01:17 15 Years Inside Regulated Institutions 01:47 The Mario Brothers Plumbing Inspiration 02:04 Why Chainlink Labs 02:27 Where Onchain Makes the Most Difference 02:56 Freedom and Faster Settlement 03:13 The Four-Day Wire Transfer Aha Moment 03:37 From T+3 to T+1 to the Dream of T+0 04:16 The Gap the New Role Fills 04:35 Helping Firms Already Building 05:01 Educating Institutions Ready to Start 05:22 Why Education Is in His Soul 06:00 What Keeps Institutions From Moving Real Money 06:00 Three Blockers: Clarity, Trust, Education 06:27 How Each DTCC or SWIFT Launch Builds Trust 06:46 From Confusion to Skepticism to Excitement 07:33 Why Trillions Are Still Waiting to Move 07:53 What the Clarity Act Could Unlock 08:27 Why Institutions Love Certainty 08:53 Building on 1930s Laws and Orange Trees 09:16 Why a Purpose-Built Statute Matters 09:42 Signals That Institutional Adoption Is Real 10:09 Why Banks Moving On Chain Signals More to Come 10:27 The Wave of Head-of-Digital-Assets Hires 11:07 Why Education Keeps Pushing the Industry 11:26 How Industry Hiring Signals Maturation 11:55 Focusing on User Experience and Policy 12:24 Why the Foundation Will Pay Dividends 12:46 Innovating in the Absence of a Statute 13:11 A Pivotal Moment to Tell the Interconnectivity Story 13:38 Why the Community Gets Chainlink 13:57 Builders and Believers Led the Way 14:24 Day Four: What Excites Him Most 14:48 Education as His Way to Teach 15:07 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

Freedom is strongest when it's supported by you. Nathan Freitas shares his opinion on why Tor Project ecosystem funding matters. Onion Browser is the Tor-endorsed free, open-source anti-censorship browser for Apple's iOS. https://onionbrowser.com https://github.com/OnionBrowser https://guardianproject.info Donate & protect rights online: https://internetfreedom.torproject.org/projects/onion-browser/ #FundInternetFreedom

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

Some truths are never meant to be seen. Around the world, ordinary people discover evidence of corruption, abuse, and wrongdoing. Speaking out can come with risks, but staying silent can come with consequences too. The Tor ecosystem supports open source tools that help sources, journalists, and human rights defenders securely share, preserve, and publish information that matters. Support the people and projects protecting truth online: https://internetfreedom.torproject.org

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

Freedom is strongest when it's supported by you. Dr. Suelette Dreyfus & Morgan shares their opinion on why Tor Project ecosystem funding matters. Ricochet Refresh: Metadata-resistant instant messaging over Tor https://www.ricochetrefresh.net https://x.com/r2refresh Donate & protect rights online: https://internetfreedom.torproject.org #FundInternetFreedom CORRIGENDA “Dr. Suelette Dreyfus”

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

Freedom is strongest when it's supported by you. Cooper Quintin - Senior Staff Technologist, EFF & Founding Board Member of OpenArchive on #FundInternetFreedom shares his opinion on why Tor Project ecosystem funding matters. OpenArchive is a non-profit working with human rights defenders, journalists, and archivists worldwide to build easy-to-use, FLOSS mobile tools and resources to safeguard eyewitness media:: https://www.open-archive.org/ Donate & protect rights online: https://internetfreedom.torproject.org #FundInternetFreedom

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

Freedom is strongest when it's supported by you. Maria Xynou (Director of Strategic Engagement in the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) on why Tor Project ecosystem funding matters. The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) - a nonprofit organization that provides free software tools and open data to empower the public to monitor and respond to internet censorship worldwide: https://ooni.org Donate & protect rights online: https://internetfreedom.torproject.org/projects/ooni/ https://internetfreedom.torproject.org #FundInternetFreedom

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

"The Adversary Is Always Watching: What Can We Learn From Communities Living Under Surveillance" by Ramy Raoof Halim [The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy This keynote is a personal reflection on what privacy means in practice for people living under surveillance, censorship, conflict, and political repression. Drawing from over fifteen years of work supporting civil society organizations, journalists, activists, and communities at risk across Africa, Southwest Asia, and other regions, the talk will explore how privacy moves beyond an individual right and becomes a condition for participation, safety, dignity, and democratic life. Rather than focusing primarily on technical solutions, the keynote will examine privacy through lived experience and the consequences of its absence. Ramy Raoof Halim is a renowned technologist, security researcher and advisor who works with human-rights defenders, activists communities, and journalists in high-risk environments worldwide. Over the last 15 years, he has contributed to numerous high-profile investigations of state-sponsored surveillance, cyberattacks, and censorship in different regions, as well as to civic litigation to hold governments, tech and telecom companies to account. Ramy has worked on digital security, threat research, and infrastructure resilience on behalf of organizations including the European Union, Open Technology Fund, Amnesty International, Citizen Lab, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. He also served on the board of the Tor Project from 2017-2021. He is currently a fellow with Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP) focusing on surveillance and technology in the MENA region, examining how emerging technologies, spyware, and digital repression enable human rights abuses. His contributions have been internationally recognized, including with the 2023 Burke Distinguished Journalism Award, the 2017 Heroes of Human Rights and Communications Surveillance Award from Access Now, and the Deutsche Welle Bobs Award in 2016. He was named among the World Top 100 Info Security Influencers in 2016 by CISO Platform in India, and was featured in Newsweek’s Digital Power Index in 2012.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

“Perspectives on Neocypherpunk” fireside chat with Paul Dylan-Ennis [University College Dublin] and Rachel Rose O'Leary [DarkFi]. Contrasting the lunarpunk framing of "neocypherpunk," as coined by lunar_mining, with the more CROPS- focused implications of the term popularized by polar. Speakers Paul Dylan-Ennis — University College Dublin https://people.ucd.ie/paul.dylanennis X: https://x.com/dylanennis Rachel Rose O'Leary — DarkFi https://dark.fi/ X: https://x.com/rachel_rose_o Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

“Power, Protocols and Public Interests in Governing the Decentralized Web” panel discussion with Sebastian Vogelsang, Caroline Paulick-Thiel, Rose Regina Lawrence, Bariş Paksoy Moderated by: Will Scott This panel brings together strategists and builders working on decentralized governance from different angles. Caroline Paulick-Thiel, of Politics for Tomorrow, designs participatory processes that help public institutions navigate complex transformation, bringing a governance design lens to decentralization. Rose Regina Lawrence, of OpenArchive, trains frontline human rights defenders, bringing real-world experience on decentralization's role in securely archiving and verifying evidence for accountability. Sebastian Vogelsang, cofounder of Eurosky and creator of the Flashes app, builds decentralized social infrastructure on the AT Protocol, arguing Europe can reduce its dependence on Big Tech platforms through open protocols and distributed identity. Barış Paksoy brings an investigative journalism perspective from Correctiv, grounding the conversation in accountability and what decentralized systems mean for transparency in practice. Moderated by Will Scott of Protocol Labs, who brings a builder's perspective on decentralized infrastructure at scale, the panel will discuss what decentralized governance actually requires: not just new protocols, but new institutions, security practices, and accountability mechanisms that can hold up under real political and legal pressure. Panelists Sebastian Vogelsang — Eurosky, Flashes https://eurosky.social/ https://flashes.blue/ Caroline Paulick-Thiel — Politics for Tomorrow https://politicsfortomorrow.eu/ Rose Regina Lawrence — OpenArchive https://open-archive.org/ Barış Paksoy — CORRECTIV https://correctiv.org/ X: https://x.com/mbarispaksoy Moderated by Will Scott — Protocol Labs https://protocol.ai/ X: https://x.com/willscott Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/

Isabela Fernandes

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

20 years of the Tor Project: How an anonymity tool became public interest infrastructure Isabela Fernandes [Tor Executive Director] When Tor was founded in 2006, its mission sounded almost utopian: to advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free, open-source anonymity and privacy technologies. Two decades later, the mission hasn't changed — but the world has. Internet shutdowns and systemic censorship affected more than half the world's population in 2025, as governments tighten their grip on the technology people rely on for a free, open internet. Wikipedia In this talk, Isabela Fernandes, Executive Director since 2018, traces how a tool built by volunteers became civic infrastructure, relied on by everyone from human rights advocates bypassing surveillance and censorship to ordinary people just accessing the open web — all while staying true to a model built on collaboration and community rather than competition. She'll also look ahead: as shutdowns and censorship escalate globally, what does it take to keep anonymity infrastructure resilient, funded, and recognized not as a luxury, but as a public good. Speaker Isabela Fernandes — Tor Project https://www.torproject.org/ Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

“Stewarding Resilient, Free & Open Digital Infrastructures” Xavier Damman, Matthias Kirschner, Florian Glatz, Tara Merk Moderated by: Joshua Dávila From cooperative funding models enabling innovations in collective ownership, to local hosting and political/legal advocacy, there are many pathways to support sustainable FOSS infrastructures. Maintaining and scaling these infrastructures are vital to ensuring censorship resistance and digital freedom, especially as demands for compute and data storage escalate. Panelists: Xavier Damman, Matthias Kirschner, Florian Glatz, Tara Merk Moderator: Joshua Dávila Panelists Xavier Damman — Open Collective https://opencollective.com/ X: https://x.com/xdamman Matthias Kirschner — Free Software Foundation Europe https://fsfe.org/ Florian Glatz — Common Ground https://www.commonground.cg/ X: https://x.com/heckerhut Tara Merk — Open Future https://openfuture.eu/ Moderated by Joshua Dávila X: https://x.com/TBSocialist Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

“From Platform Brutality to Streaming Alternatives” by Geert Lovink from Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. Are you still stuck on the platform -- or ready to move beyond it? Yes, we are living through an accelerationist, techno-authoritarian phase of the internet, but that is precisely why we need to identify the exits already taking shape. We will map the cracks in the system: decentralized infrastructures, collective digital practices, and emergent cultures of autonomy that challenge the regime of “cloud rent” and passive usership. What would it mean to reclaim agency beyond endless swiping and prompting? How can we turn doomscrolling into coordination, and platforms into terrains we either reshape or abandon? This talk explores both practical and speculative strategies to overcome platform dependency, rebuild the digital commons, and develop a network culture that is once again participatory, resilient, and free. Speaker Geert Lovink — Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences https://networkcultures.org/ https://www.hva.nl/ X: https://x.com/glovink Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

Once in a Lifetime | Cade Diehm [New Design Congress] An Adam Curtis documentary delivered on a stage with visuals, exhibits and receipts: an analysis of the 2025 collapse, who caused it, and a concrete framework for what replaces the institution and why. The audience for this talk has the technical and financial capacity to build those alternatives and lie at night wondering, "how did we get here?". Speaker Cade Diehm — New Design Congress https://newdesigncongress.org/ Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

“Building the Stack: Self-Hosted, Mesh and Decentralized Infrastructure in Practice” Adam Burns, Bradley Clark Royes, Liz Steininger, Calle Moderated by: Beth McCarthy Uniting technical and cultural perspectives on stewarding p2p, self-hosted, and decentralized technologies, from a diverse panel of builders with expertise spanning "the stack". From the networked level (Adam's work with wireless networks at Freifunk) to infrastructure (Bradley's AI compute node and Liz's cryptographically secure storage) to protocol (Calle's OS bitcoin protocols Cashu and Bitchat), "the stack" designs itself toward secure self-sovereignty. This panel explores the unique challenges of each use case, and the tensions that can arise from contradictions in intent and implementation across levels of the stack – for example, accessibility and openness vs. privacy. Identifying and understanding these points of tension and interdependence through a systemic lens empowers us to build more resilient infrastructure, from tooling to hardware to the community of contributors to maintain it. Speakers Adam Burns — free2air, Dyne X: https://x.com/free2air Bradley Clark Royes — Foresight Institute https://foresight.org/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyclarkroyes/ Liz Steininger — Least Authority, Private Storage https://leastauthority.com/ X: https://x.com/lizstininger Calle — Bitchat, Cashu X: https://x.com/callebtc Cashu: https://cashu.space/ Moderated by Beth McCarthy — Web3Privacy Now X: https://x.com/ontologymachine Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Viktor Tron, Mario Havel

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

The Decentralization Stack: Where Are We Still Lying to Ourselves? Meinhard Benn, Viktor Tron, Mario Havel, Kyle den Hartog Moderated by: Migle Rakitaite A cross-stack panel asking the question most decks tiptoe around: what actually breaks if a single company disappears? Infrastructure builders from storage, compute, identity, and frontend sat down for an honest conversation about which parts of the stack are genuinely decentralized — and which parts everyone hopes nobody looks at too closely. No roadmaps. No token plugs. Panelists: Viktor Tron, Mario Havel, Kyle den Hartog, Meinhard Benn Moderator: Migle Rakitaite Speakers Viktor Tron — Swarm https://www.ethswarm.org/ X: https://x.com/zeligf Mario Havel — Ethereum Foundation X: https://x.com/TMIYChao Kyle den Hartog X: https://x.com/PryvitKyle Meinhard Benn — Freedom Browser Moderated by Migle Rakitaite — Web3Privacy Now X: https://x.com/rakymnft Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

Decentralization Theatre | Migle Rakitaite [Swarm Foundation, WinPrivacy] October 2025: AWS went down — and so did Coinbase, MetaMask, Base, and half of “decentralized” crypto. Migle’s talk was an honest audit of where the stack actually breaks — frontends, gateways, RPCs, DNS — and why fixing it requires the one thing the industry is bad at: working together instead of pretending we’re not all building the same thing. Speaker Migle Rakitaite — Swarm Foundation, WinPrivacy Swarm Foundation: https://www.ethswarm.org/ WinPrivacy: https://winprivacy.net/ X: https://x.com/miglerak Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/ Subscribe for more talks on privacy, cryptography, digital rights, decentralized infrastructure, and the future of the open web.

Jaya Klara Brekke

Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress · Jul 9, 2026

Deviant Slop: Power and Control in AI | Jaya Klara Brekke, Alessandro Longo, Alistair Alexander Moderated by: Susanna Davies-Crook As AI-generated content floods the internet with sameness, this panel asks what it means to stay deliberately weird. Alessandro Longo looks at glitches and unexpected readings of AI-generated images, while Alistair Alexander and Jaya Klara Brekke offer practical tooling and pathways for challenging tech power structures. Susanna Davies-Crook frames the discussion around alterity and subculture, considering how intervention and appropriation can be used counter-culturally, and what aesthetic resistance might look like. Panelists: Jaya Klara Brekke, Alessandro Longo, Alistair Alexander Moderator: Susanna Davies-Crook Panelists Jaya Klara Brekke — Nym https://nym.com/ X: https://x.com/jayapapaya Alessandro Longo X: https://x.com/lx_alex Alistair Alexander — Sociality https://sociality.dev/ X: https://x.com/alistair1969 Moderated by Susanna Davies-Crook X: https://x.com/sdc_etc Follow Web3Privacy Now: 🌐 https://new.web3privacy.info 𝕏 https://x.com/web3privacy 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/web3privacy.info 📸 https://www.instagram.com/web3privacy_now/ 🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/