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

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

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

Julien Bouteloup, Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · Sep 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Stake Capital CEO Julien Bouteloup and ETHGlobal Co-Founder and CEO Kartik Talwar examine how DeFi must change as institutions pursue onchain yield. Bouteloup argues that large financial firms are motivated by profit, market share, and access to new customers more than decentralization narratives. Adoption therefore depends on products that satisfy institutional requirements for confidentiality, risk controls, insurance, and predictable execution while still using open networks. The conversation also contrasts innovation incentives in the United States, Europe, and state-led markets. Bouteloup argues that the institutional narrative must begin with incentives. Banks and asset managers will use decentralized infrastructure when it lowers costs, increases margins, opens markets, or creates differentiated products. Public transparency may help, but it can also expose positions and trading intent. Privacy, KYC, AML, isolated liquidity, insurance, and compliance controls therefore become product requirements rather than compromises added after adoption. They distinguish sustainable “real yield” from temporary token incentives and discuss how higher risk-free rates reset investor expectations. A DeFi product offering seven percent may no longer compensate users for smart-contract, liquidity, or counterparty risk; differentiated strategies may need privacy, exotic yield, or stronger protection. Extremely high returns can exist during ecosystem subsidy cycles, but scalability and durability remain uncertain. For builders, the advice is to solve a specific problem, create something genuinely different, and prioritize distribution. Institutional capital will not arrive simply because infrastructure is onchain, it will follow products that deliver clear value with credible risk management. The yield discussion separates returns generated by real economic activity from emissions funded to attract temporary liquidity. Higher government rates create a baseline, so DeFi strategies must justify each additional layer of smart-contract, counterparty, liquidity, and product risk. Bouteloup sees opportunity in specialized or exotic yield, but warns that headline returns do not automatically scale to institutional ticket sizes. 00:00 Introduction to the DeFi Fireside Chat 00:25 Seven Years of DeFi Experience 01:11 How DeFi Has Evolved 02:01 TradFi Uses the Tools DeFi Built 02:39 What Institutions Actually Want 03:11 Profit, Market Share, and Customers 04:27 US Distribution Versus European Rules 05:35 State-Led Innovation in Asia 07:45 The Maturing DeFi Protocol Layer 08:22 Risk Moves Into Products and Strategies 08:54 Robinhood Yield Built on Morpho 09:31 Insurance, Privacy, and Confidentiality 10:36 Private Versions of Existing Protocols 11:02 Choosing Different Levels of Privacy 11:26 Private Yield Through Existing Liquidity 12:21 KYC, AML, and Isolated Liquidity 12:59 Is Seven Percent Yield Sustainable 13:19 Real Yield From Lending and Borrowing 14:26 Exotic Yield and Higher Risk 15:13 Pricing Risk Above the Baseline Rate 16:28 Better Yield and UX for End Users 17:02 Can Forty to Eighty Percent Scale 17:37 Ecosystem Incentives and Liquidity 18:32 Consolidation Across Major Chains 19:13 Advice for New DeFi Builders 20:19 Distribution and Proprietary Data 20:45 Build Products That Solve Real Problems 21:27 Closing Advice and Final Thanks _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *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/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · 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 · 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 · Jul 9, 2026

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

Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

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

Alex Gluchowski

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Alex Gluchowski, co-founder of Matter Labs and zkSync, presents Prividium, a framework for private atomic delivery versus payment (DvP) on Ethereum. He frames DvP, a term from institutional finance meaning token swap settlement, as one of the most important and unsolved problems for institutions adopting blockchain. Alex walks through why each existing solution falls short: public chains like Ethereum have great properties but expose all positions and transactions, ruling them out for banks bound by secrecy rules. Private permissioned chains offer perfect privacy but are not interconnected, limiting their value since the whole point of blockchains is being the internet of value. External bridges connecting private chains become the de facto settlement layer with their own trust assumptions, losing the security of both origin and target chains. Mediated networks using operator attestation or fully homomorphic encryption still rely on contractual or threshold trust in operators. Alex introduces Prividium as a framework where institutions run their own cryptographically secured private chains on their own infrastructure with absolute physical data privacy, while settling on Ethereum as the credibly neutral settlement layer. Zero knowledge proofs guarantee that even a dishonest or compromised operator cannot finalize invalid transactions. He highlights the ability to deploy a smart contract once that virtually mirrors into all zones and enforces rules automatically without the issuer ever seeing the underlying data. He then walks through the technical flow of private atomic DvP: parties agree on a transaction, generate a cryptographic commitment hash, post it to a data availability layer and Ethereum settlement layer, lock assets on both sides, and use the canonical L2 state roots on Ethereum to verify execution and either release funds or revert atomically. He closes by noting the network is growing with the Kerry network consortium of five US regional banks plus participation from Deutsche Bank and other FMIs. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 What Is DvP and Why It Matters 00:48 The Tradeoffs in Existing Blockchain Solutions 01:07 Public Chains Are Too Public for Institutions 01:54 Private Chains Are Isolated and Disconnected 02:33 External Bridges Become the Settlement Layer 03:14 Mediated Networks and Their Trust Assumptions 03:35 Operator Attested and FHE Limitations 04:40 Introducing Prividium 05:09 Cryptographically Secured Private Chains on Ethereum 05:42 Permissioning, Roles, and OIDC Integration 06:16 Zero Knowledge Proofs Guarantee Execution Correctness 06:50 Rules That Apply Beyond Your Zone 07:30 The Old Way: Bilateral Agreements and Rulebooks 07:52 Virtual Mirrored Smart Contracts Enforce Rules Automatically 08:16 Why Private DvP Is the Hardest Cross Zone Example 08:51 Traditional Sequential DvP and Counterparty Risk 09:40 Atomic Swaps Collapse Settlement Risk 10:10 How Private Atomic DvP Works Step by Step 10:36 Cryptographic Commitments and Mutual Intent 11:17 Posting Commitments to DA and Settlement Layer 11:50 Locking Assets in Escrow Contracts 12:26 Reading L2 State Roots from Ethereum 12:55 Verifying Cross Chain Execution 13:25 Happy Path Release vs Revert Path 14:04 Multi Zone Chained Transactions 14:36 The Kerry Network and Growing Adoption 14:48 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

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

Yoseph Ayele

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Yoseph Ayele from LAVA presents a ground level view of how stablecoins actually function in African markets, challenging the assumption that the continent is too small, too risky, or too distant to matter for global stablecoin adoption. He frames Africa as an early signal for what's coming everywhere, with stablecoins already embedded into how money moves, how finance operates, and how value gets created. The fundamental insight is that while Western stablecoin builders are trying to take market share from traditional finance, African builders are filling gaps banks left entirely, which creates fundamentally different building pace and defensible moats. Yoseph walks through real use cases that go beyond the dominant remittance and software developer payment narratives. Trade finance is the deepest volume, where businesses importing and exporting everything from t-shirts to oil and gas need to move money fast. He notes that African banks lend to governments and large corporations representing only 10% of the economy, leaving the other 90% (SMEs and mid market players) without bank credit while still asking them to use the same banks to move money across borders. This traps cash flow and exposes businesses to FX risk on volatile currencies, while stablecoins offer instant settlement at a fraction of the cost. He covers unified treasury management replacing the fragmented multi currency float requirement, and FX market coordination where stablecoins aggregate liquidity onchain so someone with $1 and someone with $1 billion can participate in the same market. He breaks down three prices for the Nigerian Naira: the central bank's "wish price," banks' "do you qualify price" with premiums for license preservation, and the open market stablecoin price, with margins ranging from 2 to 25% in Nigeria and up to 120% in his native Ethiopia. He closes by previewing how onchain FX options markets for local currency stablecoins enable transparent risk pricing, arguing that emerging markets are building both TradFi rails and fully onchain permissionless marketplaces in parallel, with everything ultimately moving toward open onchain economic structures. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Show of Hands: Stablecoin Cross Border Payments 00:40 Why Africa Matters Despite Being a Flyover Region 01:10 Africa as an Early Signal for Global Adoption 02:20 Western Builders Take Share, African Builders Fill Gaps 03:05 Use Case: Trade Finance Is the Deepest Volume 03:51 Banks Only Lend to 10% of the Economy 04:20 How Banks Trap Cash Flow With Float 04:37 Stablecoins as Instant Settlement at Lower Cost 05:30 Use Case: Unified Treasury Management 06:20 Use Case: FX Market Coordination 06:42 Aggregating Liquidity From $1 to $1 Billion 07:19 Why Shell and Chevron Already Use Stablecoin Rails 07:43 How Money Actually Flows: The Flow Diagram 08:58 Settlement Times: Minutes to 24 Hours 09:26 Crypto Thriving Despite Regulation, Not Because of It 09:46 The Three Naira Prices 10:10 The Wish Price From the Central Bank 10:35 The Do You Qualify Price From Regulated Banks 10:35 The Open Market Stablecoin Price 11:06 Margins From 2% to 120% in Ethiopia 11:28 Speed of Execution as the Real Variable 11:52 Good Governance Follows Good Markets 12:36 Price Discovery for Local Currency Oracles 13:02 Pricing FX Risk a Year Out 13:44 Onchain Options Markets for Local Currency 14:16 Why Transparent Pricing Unlocks Capital 14:38 Building TradFi Rails and Onchain Markets in Parallel 15:21 Closing: Toward Fully Onchain Permissionless Marketplaces _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

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

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _