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

With Candice Teo (Espoir Communications, moderator), Alvaro Garrido Mesa (LegalNode) and Krzysztof Paruch (Token Engineering Labs). What does the law require, and what does the system design require, before institutions put real-world assets on Ethereum at scale? Moderator Candice Teo opens with the state of the market, including Ethereum's roughly $17 billion in tokenised RWAs, then works through failure points with lawyer Alvaro Garrido Mesa and token engineer Krzysztof Paruch. They cover redemption mismatches when a token trades 24/7 but its underlying asset does not, why SPVs sit behind most tokenisation projects, why the legal contract should override the code when the two disagree, and how ERC-3643 handles investor identity, forced transfers and asset recovery without solving liability. In closing, Paruch names explicit governance and accountability as his non-negotiable and Garrido Mesa names jurisdiction, while stablecoins, commodities such as gold and bonds are called production ready. Panel at ETHSofia 2026, 24 September 2026, Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Candice Teo, Founder of Espoir Communications (moderator) Candice is an executive PR and communications strategist with 20 years of experience building brands, shaping narratives, and driving thought leadership globally. Since 2017, she has been at the forefront of web3 communications, helming leadership roles for projects spanning DeFi, infrastructure, institutional adoption, and more. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candicekteo X: https://x.com/candicekteo ▸ Alvaro Garrido Mesa, Partner, LegalNode Recognised as a leading tokenisation legal expert in the EU, Alvaro is the founding partner of Legal Node, a law firm specialised in capital markets and digital assets. He has participated in pivotal legislative initiatives to facilitate the adoption of digital assets. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvarogarridomesa ▸ Krzysztof Paruch, CEO, Cryptoeconomist, and Token Engineer Krzysztof “Kris” Paruch is a mathematician, cryptoeconomist, and CEO of Token Engineering Labs. He designs and evaluates tokenised systems, specialising in mechanism design, DeFi, prediction markets, and capital-efficient on-chain finance. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kris-paruch X: https://x.com/paruch1 Chapters 00:00 Why RWA tokenisation matters 02:15 The RWA market in numbers 05:14 Quickfire: is Ethereum ready for a $10 billion fund? 06:20 The last unresolved problem: redemption and governance 08:22 The most common structural mistake 10:12 SPVs and choosing a jurisdiction 12:07 Who should hold the kill switch? 15:29 Contract over code, and accountable auditors 19:43 ERC-3643 and the liability question 22:07 Satisfying regulators without a single responsible party 24:52 Does regulation contradict DeFi principles? 27:36 Non-negotiables for tokenising a fund 28:33 Production-ready asset classes and closing Blockchain Week Bulgaria: https://www.blockchainweek.bg ETHSofia: https://www.ethsofia.com Future Finance Forum: https://www.blockchainweek.bg/f3 Follow Blockchain Week Bulgaria X: https://x.com/BWBulgaria LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockchain-week-bulgaria Follow ETHSofia X: https://x.com/EthSofiaBG LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ethsofia Telegram: https://t.me/+b-33LJUpAB5iODNk Nothing in this video is financial advice. About the organiser Blockchain Week Bulgaria, ETHSofia and the Future Finance Forum are organised by the Bithope Foundation, founded in 2014 by Vladislav Dramaliev. Inspired by Andreas Antonopoulos, it is Europe's first non-profit operating exclusively with bitcoin donations. Over more than ten years, it has supported 50+ charitable campaigns, and in January 2016 it co-founded the Sofia Crypto Meetup, now the region's longest-running monthly crypto event. https://bithope.org

ETHSofia · Oct 6, 2026

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

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

ETHGlobal · Sep 9, 2026

Alex McFarlane, CEO of Keyring Network, introduces a disciplined risk methodology for tokenised assets in DeFi by drawing on lessons from clearing houses, bank regulation, derivatives, and past financial failures. He explains why credentials, ratings, historical performance, and apparently robust models cannot substitute for independent controls. Examples including AIG, Long-Term Capital Management, Lehman Brothers, and fragile clearing assumptions show how incentives, concentration, and model error can turn accepted practices into systemic risk. He traces the modern clearing framework through the Bank for International Settlements and standardized initial margin models, then asks which lessons should transfer to permissionless markets. Historical institutions accumulated rules after repeated crises, but rules can fail when the people setting ratings, collateral assumptions, or insurance prices benefit from optimistic outcomes. McFarlane uses these examples to show why transparency alone does not remove conflicts. A protocol can publish every parameter and still be unsafe if its governance process rewards the wrong behavior. McFarlane focuses on practical safeguards for DeFi lending and tokenized markets: separate parameter setting from commercial pressure, test models outside the data used to calibrate them, examine tail events, and run transparent scenario analysis. He warns that insiders, issuers, or large counterparties may push for higher loan-to-value ratios that benefit them while shifting risk to a protocol. The takeaway is a governance-first approach in which assumptions are challenged, conflicts are visible, and risk parameters are designed for unfamiliar market conditions, not merely optimized to explain the past. The methodology emphasizes independent validation, robust data, and explicit limits on who can influence risk settings. Models should be calibrated on one period and challenged against separate market conditions. McFarlane cites scenario analysis around FTX, a major counterparty collapse, and shocks to DeFi rates, while arguing that macro stress such as a global financial crisis or private-credit selloff deserves more attention. 00:00 Introduction and Risk Quant Background 00:40 DeFi Lending as Automated Clearing 01:31 How Lending Risk Parameters Are Set 02:52 Three Centuries of Clearing Houses 03:28 BIS and Standard Initial Margin Models 04:06 Setting Haircuts for Different Assets 04:23 Applying TradFi Models to Tokenized Assets 04:44 When Risk Takers Mark Their Own Work 05:13 AIG, Lehman, and Financial Failures 05:36 How Clearing Houses Managed Lehman 06:07 Silicon Valley Bank and DeFi Stress 06:39 The Clearing House Default Waterfall 07:38 How Aave Followed the BIS Model 07:56 Fragility, Robustness, and Tail Events 08:18 The Meaning of Antifragility 09:18 Evaluating Proprietary Risk Models 09:42 Why Track Record Is Not Proof 10:08 Long-Term Capital Management Failure 10:48 Independent Validation After 2008 11:38 Monte Carlo Models and In-Sample Data 12:27 Testing Models on Unseen Conditions 12:53 Verify Instead of Trusting Models 14:10 Questions Before Depositing in DeFi 15:15 Commercial Pressure on LTV Settings 16:14 High LTVs and Counterparty Conflicts 16:52 Why Independent Parameters Matter 17:39 Conflicts From Skin in the Game 17:57 Scenario Analysis for Protocol Failures 18:24 Macro Risk and Private Credit Stress 19:07 Open Risk Methodology for Tokenized Assets 19:59 Closing Thanks and Takeaways _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *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 Alex McFarlane X: https://x.com/flipdazed ✅ Follow Keyring Network X: https://x.com/KeyringNetwork ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

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

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

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

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

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

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

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

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Yana Prikhodchenko from Cointelegraph interviews Chaeho Shin, CEO of 1inch, on the state of DeFi liquidity, the convergence of TradFi and DeFi, regulatory clarity, and 1inch's plans for shared liquidity. Chaeho frames the core problem facing DeFi today: roughly 80 to 90% of liquidity is sitting idle because of fragmentation across separate liquidity pools. He explains that 1inch is solving this by introducing a shared liquidity protocol that allows assets in users' wallets to be shared across different liquidity pools without ever leaving self custody, which he positions as the next major DeFi innovation since the original liquidity pool concept from 2019 to 2020. The conversation moves into RWAs, where Chaeho identifies the two biggest barriers to real adoption: compliance and regulatory issues, and liquidity fragmentation that prevents efficient trading at TradFi comparable rates. He notes the disconnect between roughly $30 billion in RWAs onchain and only $2.5 billion actively used in DeFi, and explains that 1inch is positioning to be the most regulatory ready DeFi protocol and a partner swap engine for RWA platforms. He argues the real breakthrough for RWAs in DeFi is the ability to generate additional yield from liquidity pool trading fees on top of the underlying security's dividends. On geographic differences, Chaeho explains that APAC markets including his native Korea remain much more retail focused than the US, but they all benchmark against Wall Street and are waiting for US regulatory clarity (especially the Clarity Act addressing questions he started asking nine years ago) before institutional adoption accelerates. He closes by predicting that shared liquidity will be the dominant DeFi narrative in 2026 and 2027, replacing speculation with fundamentally supported higher yields driven by better capital efficiency. 00:00 Introduction 00:08 Thanks to the Organizers 00:47 Chaeho's TradFi to Crypto Journey 01:10 The TradFi DeFi Convergence Since 2024 01:46 Why 80 to 90% of DeFi Liquidity Sits Idle 02:36 Introducing 1inch Shared Liquidity Protocol 03:13 Self Custody While Sharing Across Pools 03:46 Are AMMs the Bottleneck for the Next Phase 04:59 No Real DeFi Innovation Since 2019 2020 05:36 RWAs: Why 30 Billion Onchain but Only 2.5 Billion in DeFi 06:27 Compliance and Liquidity as the Two RWA Hurdles 07:14 1inch as the RWA Swap Engine 07:52 The Real RWA Breakthrough: Extra DeFi Yield on Top of Dividends 09:28 APAC vs US Capital Allocation 10:01 Why APAC Remains Retail Focused 10:48 APAC Benchmarking Against Wall Street 11:52 Waiting for US Regulatory Clarity 12:26 Key Learnings From the Clarity Act 13:52 What's Next for DeFi Liquidity 14:16 The Yield Problem in Bear Market DeFi 15:32 Better Capital Efficiency as the Solution 16:00 Bonus Round: Morning Routine and Personal Strategy 16:26 Bull or Bear: Building Through Cycles 16:46 1inch's Big Goal for 2026 to 2027 17:17 Predicting the Hottest DeFi Narrative 17:49 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Taylor Lindman, Chief Counsel of the SEC's Crypto Task Force, sits down with Salman Banaei from Plume to discuss the SEC's evolving approach to onchain capital markets. Taylor explains that the Crypto Task Force, established by Chairman Atkins as one of his first acts, serves a coordination function across the SEC, assisting with rulemaking, conducting outreach (over 200 industry meetings to date), and institutionalizing crypto expertise across SEC divisions. The task force is measuring itself on two major buckets: clarifying when tokens are subject to securities laws (resulting in a recent commission interpretation), and accommodating new ways market participants want to tokenize, clear, and settle securities. The conversation digs into how SEC regulation maps onto public permissionless blockchains like Ethereum versus permissioned alternatives. Taylor expresses that blockchains work best as neutral infrastructure with permissionless properties, while acknowledging tradeoffs for specific applications. He walks through how Bank Secrecy Act and KYC requirements apply mainly to intermediaries like broker dealers and mutual funds, and how transparent onchain systems can enable compliance through new methods like allow lists and onchain checks. Taylor discusses how DeFi protocols challenge traditional intermediary frameworks since smart contracts lack the "person" most regulations are built around, the issuer led tokenization model recently outlined by SEC staff, and a major shift in enforcement away from registration violations toward materiality and actual harm. He closes by inviting builders to engage with the task force directly through their website. 00:00 Introduction 00:08 What the SEC Crypto Task Force Does 02:22 Two Major Buckets: Token Status and Onchain Securities 03:08 Key Performance Indicators Through 2028 04:38 The SEC's View on Public vs Permissioned Blockchains 05:47 Why Neutral Infrastructure Matters 07:02 Bank Secrecy Act, KYC, and AML Requirements Explained 08:32 Non BSA Reasons for Identity Collection 09:49 New Technologies for Compliance Onchain 10:53 How the SEC Interfaces with Treasury on Innovation 11:48 Mapping Securities Laws onto DeFi Protocols 13:21 When Protocols Are No Longer Acting Like Intermediaries 14:46 The Path for DeFi as Neutral Infrastructure 16:08 The Immature State of Tokenized Securities Markets 16:50 The Role of Issuers and Transfer Agents 17:21 Issuer Led Tokenization Models 18:23 Third Party Issued Securities and Derivatives 20:09 Re-Evaluating Enforcement Theories Against DeFi Developers 21:38 Reset Point on Investment Contract Analysis 22:50 From Registration Violations to Material Harm 23:15 Call to Builders: Engage with the Task Force 24:01 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Camila Russo from The Defiant sits down with Hayden Adams, founder of Uniswap, to discuss the current state of DeFi, the recent Unification proposal, regulation, RWAs, perps, and what's next for Uniswap V4. Hayden frames the current moment as a pivotal one where DeFi is being integrated into mainstream finance through Coinbase, Robinhood, Deel, and traditional fintechs, while simultaneously facing a wave of security exploits driven by smarter AI tooling like Claude finding vulnerabilities in poorly written contracts. He sleeps well at night because Uniswap V3 underwent nine consecutive audits with a $15 million bounty, processes over a trillion dollars per year, and has never been exploited. He argues AI tooling will ultimately harden DeFi contracts to a far greater extent, and the projects that survive will be the ones that removed off chain dependencies and single points of failure. Hayden discusses the Unification proposal approved in December that consolidated foundation work into Labs and gradually rolled out fee switches, including a recent all time high single day burn of 186,000 UNI (about $500K) with V4 fees still not yet activated. He acknowledges the UNI token price disconnect from the burn but attributes this to general crypto market correlation, expecting fundamental value to assert itself over time. On regulation, Hayden explains how the shift from the Gensler era of regulation by enforcement has already done much of the work by removing the chilling effect, and the BRCA software developer protections are the key piece he'd want enshrined in any market structure bill. He outlines how Uniswap fits into RWAs and tokenization through the internet analogy (existing assets going onchain plus crypto native assets), differentiates Uniswap's neutral spot infrastructure approach from Hyperliquid's exchange as a product approach, and previews V4 hooks being built internally to optimize for stablecoins (where Uniswap has overtaken Curve as the dominant venue), yield bearing assets, RWAs, and volatile assets, plus a focus on issuer side tools and developer API integrations. 00:00 Introduction 00:08 DeFi at a Pivotal Mainstream Adoption Moment 01:35 Why Exploits Are Surging: AI Tooling Finds Bugs 02:22 Test in Production Mentality Doesn't Work Anymore 02:46 How V3 Survived: Nine Audits and a $15M Bounty 03:31 Launching a New Version Like Launching a Rocket 03:53 DeFi Ultimately Enables Safer Applications 04:24 Off Twitter, Adoption Is the Best It's Ever Been 05:15 DeFi Will Come Out Stronger From This Stress Test 06:29 The Unification Proposal Six Months In 07:38 Gradual Fee Switch Rollout and Sensitivity Testing 08:18 All Time High Single Day Burn of 186,000 UNI 09:00 The UNI Token Price Disconnect From Burn 10:39 Fundamental Value Will Assert Itself Over Time 10:56 Regulation: From Gensler Era to New Posture 11:53 The Chilling Effect That Held Back Integration 13:14 BRCA and Software Developer _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kartik Talwar, Joe Lubin

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

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

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 talk, Young Kim from BitMine presents the case for why Ethereum is positioned at the center of finance and agentic AI. Drawing on his background as an MIT-trained engineer turned institutional investor managing emerging markets capital for over two decades, Young frames his analysis around two questions: does the technology work, and does it make money? He argues Ethereum's answer to both is now yes, pointing to factors that could break ETH out of its four to five year price consolidation range, including the winding down of the Iran war and falling oil prices, the pending Clarity Act with 56% odds on Polymarket, a crypto friendly administration with positive implications for US dollar policy, and favorable US demographics. Young explains how the impossible trinity in international finance is forcing countries that watch their citizens flee inflation through USD stablecoins (Argentina at 74% annual inflation, Turkey at 94% deposit deflation) to either ban crypto or launch their own stablecoins, extending US dollar dominance into the digital realm. He outlines three structural drivers of ETH demand: agentic AI and robots that will need money on rails better suited than traditional ones (citing Xiaomi's dark factory producing one smartphone per second), Wall Street tokenization of 300 trillion in assets, and Ethereum as a monetary unit for compute and energy. He covers the Ethereum Foundation's evolving role, noting EF holdings dropped from 17% to 0.1% while Ethereum treasury companies including BitMine now hold around 7% collectively generating roughly 500 million in annual yield. He closes with BitMine updates: investments in Tools for Humanity behind Worldcoin, the launch of Maven as the world's largest single staking operation with 154 billion staked, the MrBeast investment positioning for Gen Z and Gen Alpha financial services, the NYSE big board uplisting, and pending inclusion in the Russell index. 00:00 Introduction and Background 00:38 Two Questions: Does the Tech Work and Does It Make Money 01:33 ETH Price Consolidation and the Coming Breakout 02:02 The Iran War Ending and Oil Price Tailwind 02:47 The Clarity Act and Global Policy Direction 04:13 Crypto Friendly Administration and USD Policy 04:46 The Impossible Trinity and Stablecoin Adoption 06:22 New Fed Chair and US Demographics 06:49 Future of Money: Mass, Energy, and Compute 07:15 Agentic AI and Robots: A Half Century in the Making 08:17 Smarter AI, Dark Factories, and Onchain Agents 09:53 Wall Street Tokenizing 300 Trillion in Assets 10:43 Ethereum as Monetary Unit and the Amazon Analogy 11:32 Ethereum Foundation's Evolving Role 12:26 Treasury Companies Holding 7% of Supply 13:00 Pre-2024 Foundation Activities 13:27 The 2026 Evolution of the Foundation 14:00 Ethereum's Scale: 11K Nodes, 15K Developers 14:41 Lessons from Telecom, Semis, and Broadcasting Consortiums 15:37 BitMine Building During the Mini Crypto Winter 16:00 Investment in Tools for Humanity and Worldcoin 16:24 Launching Maven: The World's Largest Single Staking Operation 16:50 MrBeast Investment and Gen Z Financial Services 17:15 Uplisting to NYSE and Russell Index Inclusion 18:08 4.6% Ethereum Holdings and Outperformance vs Underlying 18:47 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, Jakob Drzazga, founder of Frontier Tower, opens with the story of why he chose to build on Ethereum back in 2017: not for the price action or hype, but because of the test nets that let developers safely change the engine mid flight while ensuring everything remained solid. He uses this as a frame to ask what societies and governments would look like if they had test nets to validate policy implementations before rolling them out nationwide. He argues we currently implement things mid flight without testing, leading to uncoordinated outcomes. His mission is to build a physical test net for new governance and monetary systems. Jakob walks through Frontier Tower's progress since launching in April 2024: a 16 floor vertical village in San Francisco with capacity for 7,000 builders, organized into floors for AI, longevity, biotech, crypto (which he calls the Ethereum floor), robotics, and neurotech. In the last 12 months, 70,000 people visited, 800 became full time citizens, and they're growing 25% quarter over quarter. They've since acquired Superhero Hotel for 150 builders to co-live, and plan to scale from 1,000 to 10,000 to 100,000 to 1 million citizens. He references Ray Dalio's thesis that societies survive on average 250 years, then shares observations from his China trip including Mu Shanghai's pop-up city showcasing record breaking drone shows, autonomous coffee shops, robots on the street, and China surpassing the US in blockbuster pharma deals in 2025. He attributes China's edge to its 80 year old governance system being younger and to experimentation in special economic zones like Shenzhen, Dubai, and Singapore. He advocates for startup cities and freedom cities in America. He previews two near term experiments his community will run: Frontier OS launching this year with their own stablecoin to test programmable, restricted subsidies that solve the 2021 stimulus problem where many recipients invested in crypto rather than supporting small businesses, and an AI agent based DAO experiment with Protocol Labs where each tower resident's agent reads proposals, knows their preferences and physical activity patterns, and votes accordingly. He closes with the Frontier Residency program that just ran badge zero with six startups, with one accepted to YC. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Why Test Nets Made Jakob Choose Ethereum in 2017 01:13 What If Societies Had Test Nets 01:52 Frontier Tower: A 16 Floor Vertical Village 02:19 Floors for AI, Longevity, Biotech, Crypto, Robotics 02:50 70,000 Visitors and 800 Citizens in 12 Months 03:19 Superhero Hotel and Co-Living Expansion 03:48 Scaling From 1,000 to 1 Million Citizens 04:18 Rethinking Governance From First Principles 04:18 Ray Dalio's 250 Year Society Thesis 05:06 What China Got Right 06:26 Why Younger Systems Have an Advantage 06:57 Special Economic Zones: Shenzhen, Dubai, Singapore 07:25 The Case for Startup and Freedom Cities in America 08:05 Building a City of Physical and Digital Automation 08:45 The Genius Act and Launching a Frontier Stablecoin 09:10 The 2021 Stimulus Problem 09:38 Programmable Subsidies for Local Economies 10:43 Reimagining Tax Allocation and DAOs 11:24 Why DAOs Failed When Crypto Was Only Digital 12:01 Agent Powered DAO Experiment With Protocol Labs 13:03 How Agents Solve the Proposal Fatigue Problem 13:35 Call to Action: Build a Society Test Net 14:01 RWA Real Estate Over $30 Million 14:24 IRL DAO Co-Design Opportunity 14:59 Frontier Residency Badge Zero Recap 15:40 Open Floors at the Tower 16:15 Robotizing the Building 16:30 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

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

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Sam Jain, founder of Fluid, walks through how his team has been building DeFi infrastructure since 2018 and how Fluid is now positioned to scale tokenized assets through unified liquidity, utility, and distribution. He frames the team's origin story from an ETH Global hackathon when total DeFi TVL was below $100 million, building Instadapp which invented smart wallets, was the first user of flash loans, did extensive composability work on money Legos, and pioneered the looping strategy that now powers roughly 50% of DeFi. Constrained by being middleware on top of other protocols, the team launched Fluid in February 2024 to own the protocol layer and drive deeper algorithmic innovation. Fluid became the second largest DEX on Ethereum within 3 months of launch and the fastest DEX to reach $100 billion in volumes (in 326 days), with a peak market size of $6.5 billion. Sam positions Fluid not as just a lending market but as a capital efficient meta protocol that is already a DEX, vault, and money market and will host anything finance has to offer over the next 5 to 10 years. Every dollar on Fluid works extra mile because the total borrow to total deposits ratio has been the highest in DeFi since launch. For asset issuers facing the bootstrapping challenge of tokenizing, securing DEX liquidity, dealing with liquidity providers, and integrating with lending protocols, Fluid offers all of these at once including liquidity as a service where Fluid itself provides hundreds of millions in DEX liquidity at minimal cost without counterparty risk for the issuer. He explains how Fluid is 4 to 5x more capital efficient than competitors for liquidity depth. He shares two major partnerships: Jupiter Lend on Solana (powered by Fluid, leveraging Jupiter's distribution while Fluid provides the tech), Etherealize and Bitwise Jupiter integration that grew to half a billion within a week, and Venus Flux on BNB Chain. Sam closes by explaining that institutions can use Fluid to own their own lending protocol, DEX, and users with bespoke solutions including KYC, permissioned access, fixed rates, and credit markets, with announcements coming for both crypto centralized and TradFi onboarding partnerships. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 From 2018 Hackathon to Instadapp Origins 00:57 Inventing Smart Wallets, Flash Loans, and Looping 01:26 Why the Team Built Fluid to Own the Protocol Layer 01:55 Launching Fluid in February 2024 02:26 What Fluid Is Today and Tomorrow 02:52 Fastest DEX to $100 Billion in Volume 03:22 Highest Borrow to Deposit Ratio in DeFi 03:52 The Trillion Dollar Tokenization Opportunity 04:28 Eight Years From One Stablecoin to Thousands 05:06 The RWA Bootstrapping Challenge 05:27 Why Fluid Offers Everything at Once 05:54 Asset Issuers Already on Fluid 06:31 Liquidity as a Service for Asset Issuers 07:03 No Counterparty Risk for Issuers 07:26 Building Toward Credit Markets, Fixed Rates, Forex, Perps 08:22 What Fluid Provides Institutions 08:45 Helping TradFi Institutions Navigate DeFi 09:51 Why an Eight Year DeFi Team Matters 10:18 Partnership: Jupiter Lend on Solana 11:13 What Fluid Asks From Partners: Distribution 11:38 Partnership: Etherealize and Bitwise Jupiter 11:38 Partnership: Venus Flux on BNB Chain 12:12 Institutions Owning Their Own Lending Protocols 12:41 Bespoke Solutions: KYC, Permissioned, Fixed Rate 13:01 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Tomer Weller, Chief Product Officer at the Stellar Development Foundation, presents what nearly a decade in crypto and recent years of institutional conversations have taught him about onchain privacy. He frames the core problem: blockchain is the only financial system where every transaction is fully visible, meaning that the moment paychecks, balances, payroll, trading strategies, or B2B relationships move onchain, they become readable by anyone with a block explorer. For individuals this exposes their entire financial history. For institutions it's worse because competitors can see volumes, relationships, and strategies. Financial institutions have made it clear that not being able to manage visibility is a non-starter. Tomer argues that while crypto has worked on privacy for a decade, it has been driven by cypherpunk ideology of complete financial freedom (which he loves, citing Zcash), when what institutions actually need is privacy as a managed spectrum that allows them to stay competitive and compliant. Privacy varies by jurisdiction (a US regulated asset differs from one in Singapore or Brazil), by use case (payroll has different requirements than trading or remittances), and by technology (ZK, FHE, MPC, TEE all have different tradeoffs). He identifies two privacy dead ends: the all or nothing approach where solutions only offer full transparency or full privacy, and permissioned chains that are private only because they're databases on someone's computer, missing the open participation networks institutions actually want. Tomer presents Stellar's three layer privacy stack: a transparent base layer (transparency is a feature institutions love), low level privacy building blocks like Protocol X-ray providing ZK primitives without enshrining any specific privacy type, and multiple privacy protocols on top. He covers two private payment families: confidential tokens (hide the amount but not the parties, easier to scale compliance) and privacy pools (hide both amount and parties, stronger guarantees but mix funds), with examples like 0xbow and Nethermind's Stellar Private Payments. He closes by walking through a compliance menu including selective disclosure, non-selective disclosure with view keys, association sets, force transparent withdrawals (Oxbow's "rage quit"), and clawbacks for regulated assets. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Why Visibility on Chain Is the Default 00:57 What's at Stake for Individuals and Institutions 01:25 Why Institutions Say Visibility Management Is Non Negotiable 01:53 The Cypherpunk Privacy Heritage 02:18 Why Institutional Privacy Means Something Different 02:43 Privacy as a Multi-Dimensional Spectrum 03:19 The Two Privacy Dead Ends 03:54 Dead End One: All or Nothing 04:20 Dead End Two: Permissioned Chains 05:08 Stellar's Three Layer Privacy Stack 05:36 Transparency as a Feature 06:05 Building Blocks Not Enshrined Privacy 06:32 Protocol X-ray and ZK Primitives 06:59 Why Payments Are the Foundational Use Case 07:26 Confidential Tokens: Hiding the Amount 07:45 The Confidential Token Association 08:09 Privacy Pools: Hiding the Who Too 08:42 Tradeoffs and Co-Mingling Concerns 09:10 Building the Compliance Menu 09:52 Selective Disclosure 10:20 Non Selective Disclosure With View Keys 10:46 Association Sets and Vetted Allow Lists 11:10 Force Transparent Withdrawals and Rage Quit 11:35 Clawbacks for Regulated Assets 12:00 Closing: All the Building Blocks Are in Place _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *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, Haseeb Qureshi from Dragonfly sits down with Shan Aggarwal, Chief Business Officer of Coinbase, who oversees strategy, operations, commercial deals, and investor relations, and started Coinbase Ventures in 2018. Shan explains that Coinbase Ventures invests off Coinbase's balance sheet without outside LPs, giving it flexibility to take 20 year horizons, flex across any stage or sector, and serve as a conduit to the rest of Coinbase for partnerships and eventual M&A. On conflicts of interest, he says information is firewalled within the Ventures team and no investment is tied to a listing. Referencing the crypto VC apocalypse and Jensen Huang's Anthropic regret, he notes that with late stage capital scarce, Coinbase can extend its balance sheet to support Series B through D companies. On Hyperliquid, Shan argues nearly every crypto company views Coinbase as a competitor, but Hyperliquid's self custodial traders differ from Coinbase's regulated customers, and Coinbase also runs infrastructure where partnering makes sense. On M&A, with over 40 acquisitions done, he says success comes down to integration: a consistent champion, a clear operational thesis, and cultural fit (joking that being on Teams is a red flag). He names Tagomi (2020) as his masterpiece, which became the foundation of Coinbase Prime just as corporate Bitcoin treasury demand exploded. As head of IR, he says institutions see Coinbase as the mature, compliant, diversified scale player, with roughly 50% of revenue from non-trading fees and agentic payments like X2X viewed as call options. On Base's missing token, he says decentralization will happen but a public company token is a one way door. He addresses the vibe shift against decentralization, favoring progressive decentralization that preserves execution speed. He places Clarity Act odds at 60 to 70%, notes Coinbase already operates compliantly without legislation, and closes by pitching Coinbase as full stack financial infrastructure for a tokenized future, citing strong fundamentals in stablecoins, RWAs, and payments uncorrelated with crypto prices. 00:00 Introduction 00:07 What a Chief Business Officer Does 00:48 Coinbase Ventures and Investing Without LPs 01:27 What Coinbase Can Do That Traditional VCs Cannot 02:35 Coinbase Ventures as a Conduit to Coinbase 02:55 How Coinbase Thinks About Conflicts of Interest 03:47 Information Firewalls Within Ventures 04:28 The Jensen Huang and Anthropic Story 04:49 The Crypto VC Apocalypse 05:44 Coinbase Writing Bigger Checks Than Others 06:05 The 2018 Origins of Coinbase Ventures 06:35 Filling the Late Stage Capital Gap 07:11 The Hyperliquid Relationship 07:42 Why Nearly Everyone Competes With Coinbase 08:37 Different Customer Segments and Infrastructure 09:24 The M&A Track Record: Over 40 Acquisitions 10:04 Why Integration Determines Success 10:20 Having a Consistent Champion for the Deal 11:02 A Clear Thesis and Operational Plan 11:43 Assessing Team and Cultural Fit 11:58 Why Being on Teams Is a Red Flag 12:34 The Tagomi Masterpiece Deal 13:36 Impeccable Timing and the Bitcoin Treasury Wave 14:19 The Foundation of Coinbase Prime 14:34 Becoming the Everything Exchange 14:55 What Institutional Investors See in Coinbase 15:41 Diversifying Beyond Volatile Trading Revenue 16:21 Agentic Payments and X2X as Call Options 16:53 Base and the Missing Token Question 17:39 Why a Public Company Token Is a One Way Door 18:20 The Vibe Shift Against Decentralization 19:21 The Downsides and Trade-offs of Decentralization 19:56 Why Users Choose Great Products 20:14 Progressive Decentralization as the Path 20:51 Positioning for a Possible Regulatory Reversal 21:38 Why Coinbase Is Optimistic on Clarity 21:58 Placing the Odds at 60 to 70% 22:31 How Coinbase Operates Without Legislation 23:13 The Malaise in Crypto and Why Buy Coinbase 23:40 Full Stack Financial Infrastructure for the Future 24:17 Why Strong Fundamentals Outlast Price Swings 24:52 Payments Uncorrelated With Crypto Prices 25:12 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Aryan Sheikhalian from CMT Digital sits down with Tom Zschach, who recently finished over six years as Chief Innovation Officer at SWIFT, to discuss settlement, trust, tokenization, and neutral governance. Aryan opens on crypto's pitch that it is faster and cheaper, and asks whether speed was ever what held institutions back. Tom explains that while speed and cost matter, the institutional space above all needs certainty: a treasurer sending millions or billions wants security and recourse, and will accept a transaction taking a few seconds longer if the outcome is guaranteed. He addresses what crypto misunderstands about SWIFT, clarifying that SWIFT is a messaging and coordination network that does not issue value, settle, or custody. It coordinates trust through standards, a rule book, and bilateral agreements, and he calls it the original DAO with human governance. Tom explains the SWIFT ledger, a blockchain layered on top of the existing network with no mandates, whose first use case is banks making cross border payments between themselves using deposit tokens as an alternative to nostro vostra accounts. On trust, he frames the hard problem as a boundary issue: blockchains work well for things fully inside the network like swaps and staking, but get complicated when relying on external data or representing off-chain assets like stablecoin reserves. He predicts the most liquid, well understood markets like tokenized bonds and treasuries (DTCC targeting up to $100 trillion) will be tokenized first, while dispute prone assets like real estate come later. He warns against replicating incumbency and single chain control in Web3, favoring a multi-chain world with real competition even as Ethereum sits in pole position. Drawing on his time at CLS (which settles around $10 trillion daily across 18 currencies), he argues scaling institutional adoption requires regulatory clarity and credentials like KYC and wallet eligibility traveling with the asset across chains. He closes bullish that cross border value will move on public blockchains, citing Citi's $5.5 trillion projection. 00:00 Introduction 00:28 Meet CMT Digital and Tom Zschach 01:08 Was Speed Ever What Held Institutions Back 01:28 Why Institutions Need Certainty Above All 02:22 What the Crypto Crowd Misunderstands About SWIFT 03:06 SWIFT as a Messaging Network 03:26 What SWIFT Is Not: No Value, Settlement, or Custody 03:49 Adding Density and Endpoints With the SWIFT Ledger 04:05 SWIFT as a Coordination Network for Trust 04:41 What Blockchains Need to Replicate SWIFT 05:03 Why SWIFT and Blockchains Do Different Things 05:30 SWIFT as the Original DAO 05:56 How the SWIFT Ledger Works 06:25 Cross Border Payments With Deposit Tokens 06:51 What Trust Means Across TradFi and Crypto 07:33 Why External Dependencies Are the Hard Part 08:11 Stablecoins and the Boundary Issue 08:32 What Gets Tokenized First 09:02 Why Demand for Digital Money Is Clear 09:20 Liquid Markets: Bonds and Treasuries First 10:02 Why Dispute Prone Assets Come Later 10:45 SWIFT as the First DAO Revisited 11:22 Incumbency on Blockchain Rails 11:43 Why a Single Chain Undermines Neutrality 12:14 Why a Multi-Chain World Is Better 12:49 Room for More Open Governance 13:10 Leveling the Playing Field With DeFi 13:39 Tokenization Primitives Like Transferable KYC 14:31 Why He Calls It Finance, Not TradFi 14:49 Tokenization Transforming Capital Formation 15:18 Why Transformation Takes Time 15:45 What Convinced Him From Inside the Incumbent 16:07 CLS and $10 Trillion Daily FX Settlement 16:32 Why FX Settlement Was an Early Blockchain Use Case 17:25 Getting Banks Hooked Into Digital Assets 17:47 The Missing Pieces for Institutional Scale 18:21 Why Scale Breaks Across Venue and Chain 18:51 Why Credentials Must Travel With the Asset 19:12 ZK and Solving 19:35 Five Years Out: Value on Public Blockchains 20:09 Citi's $5.5 Trillion Projection 20:42 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Ashley Stanhope from Hardfork Media sits down with Vivek Raman, founder of Etherealize, to discuss the institutional case for Ethereum, the Ethereum versus permissioned chain debate, and his firm's ambitious ETH price thesis. Vivek frames the current moment as the strongest blockchain bull market he's seen even amid a token bear market, arguing that the value proposition of public blockchains has never been stronger. When he launched Etherealize in 2025, Ethereum was still in proof of concept mode on Wall Street with a missing narrative, but adoption, regulation, and institutional readiness have since converged. He points to the legacy architecture of the financial system (COBOL, Excel, faxes, wires) as ripe for an upgrade, and identifies three unlocks that made institutions comfortable: Ethereum's 10 year track record with no downtime, institutional proof points like BlackRock's BUIDL and 60% of stablecoins living on Ethereum, and a favorable regulatory environment marked by the Genius Act becoming the starting line. Vivek explains Etherealize's dual mandate of educating Wall Street on why Ethereum's neutrality and decentralization matter while building the missing building blocks (bespoke tokenization reaching back offices, privacy infrastructure layered on top rather than embedded, and applications). He reframes decentralization for institutions as security, resilience, and the absence of single points of failure, noting the irony that institutions are the biggest customers of decentralization because centralized chains carry counterparty risk and lower profitability. He argues Solana never comes up in institutional conversations, and that the real debate is public permissionless versus permissioned consortium chains, where Ethereum's modularity lets institutions have their cake and eat it too through specialized L2s and app chains. He walks through his Productive Money report and its $250,000 ETH target, explaining that markets misprice blockchains by valuing them on fees like companies rather than recognizing ETH as the monetary asset securing the network, with the real repricing coming when ETH is valued alongside gold and Bitcoin. He closes noting you don't have to hold ETH to use Ethereum, and that while the Clarity Act would be welcome, Ethereum already transcends the political cycle thanks to the Genius Act being law. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 A Token Bear Market but a Blockchain Bull Market 00:29 Why Etherealize Launched in 2025 00:55 The Value Proposition Is Stronger Than Ever 01:45 What Banks Are Saying About Ethereum 01:52 Upgrading Legacy Financial Architecture 02:52 Why Regulation Gave Institutions Confidence 03:14 Three Unlocks: Track Record, Pilots, Regulation 03:51 The Genius Act as the Starting Line 04:31 Etherealize's Dual Mandate 04:54 Why a Neutral Platform Wins 05:32 Educating Wall Street on Decentralization 05:56 Building the Missing Building Blocks 06:27 Bespoke Tokenization for Back Offices 06:54 Privacy as a Layer on Top 07:13 Applications and Use Cases 07:45 Does Decentralization Resonate With Wall Street 08:10 Why Institutions Are the Biggest Customers of Decentralization 08:55 Why Not Just Use AWS 09:11 Supporting the EF's CROPS Focus 09:48 Ethereum vs Solana in Institutional Conversations 10:44 Permissionless vs Permissioned Consortium Chains 11:12 Can You Have a Hybrid Approach 11:37 Ethereum's Modularity and the Internet Analogy 12:12 Why the Layer 2 Model Is Not Dead 12:32 Institutions Choosing Layer 2s vs Their Own Chains 13:26 Abstracting Away the L1 vs L2 Distinction 13:54 One Hop to Liquidity on the Base Layer 14:13 The Productive Money Report 14:39 Why People Value Blockchains Incorrectly 15:31 Why Every Blockchain Needs a Core Asset 15:49 ETH as the Best Money in the Ecosystem 16:28 Repricing ETH Alongside Gold and Bitcoin 16:47 A Call Option on Money 17:10 Do You Have to Hold ETH to Support Ethereum 17:42 Something in It for Everyone 18:17 Clarity Act Predictions 18:38 Why Ethereum Transcends the Political Cycle 18:59 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Nick Stoev

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

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

Chris Yin

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this talk, Chris Yin, co-founder and CEO of Plume, cuts through the hype around tokenization and RWAs to reveal what he calls the "digital assets mirage." He acknowledges the dominant narrative right now with Visa and Mastercard talking about stablecoins, BlackRock pushing tokenization for two years, DTCC planning to tokenize everything, and NASDAQ recently discussing tokenizing all equities. RWA charts are ripping up and to the right with the sector at $30 billion in assets, up 4x since February and growing 30% just last quarter. But when you peel back the onion, the picture changes dramatically. Chris shows individual assets driving the growth: $2.8 billion with only 43 holders, $1.5 billion with 29 holders, $250 million with just 1 holder. One of the biggest assets had 6 monthly transfers last month, down from before. The RWA space looks huge in headlines but is almost entirely contained to a tiny number of actual users, with very few of these assets actually being used in DeFi lending or borrowing today. Chris argues the answer is understanding the user, not just the asset. He uses stablecoins as the model since they took an American asset (US dollars), packaged and distributed it differently, and reached users globally who otherwise had no access. He extends the analogy through McDonald's international expansion: burgers didn't work in Japan until they moved them into fancy Ginza malls and eventually created the teriyaki burger (Japan is now 70% of international sales), and India required them to shift meals from indoor family cooking to outdoor consumption. Same product, different packaging and delivery for each user community. Chris introduces Plume's approach: focus equally on tokenization and distribution, wrapped in regulation and compliance. He walks through Plume's traction including raising from Haun and Galaxy, then Apollo and Brevan Howard, launching mainnet with $150M in assets, becoming the top network by RWA holder count, securing US transfer agent and Bermuda licenses, and announcing the Ether.fi partnership. Distribution wins include $50M through Grove and Apollo into the Acred fund, $40M through OKX integration, $100M in deposits from the Ether.fi community, and 33,000% APY plays for the degen audience through Pendle. He identifies three primary buckets where stablecoin money actually sits (exchanges, neobanks, and onchain users), each requiring differently designed products. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Why Tokenization Is the Dominant Narrative 00:50 Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, DTCC, NASDAQ Headlines 01:10 Why Bags Still Aren't Pumping 01:33 $30 Billion in RWAs and Q1 Growth 02:13 30% Quarter Over Quarter Growth 02:38 Feels Contained to Headlines 02:55 Peeling Back the Onion: 43 Holders on $2.8B 03:32 Why Holders Matter More Than Volume 03:45 Monthly Transfers Are Shockingly Low 04:19 Very Little RWA Actually Uses DeFi Today 04:56 Plume Leads by RWA Holder Count 05:16 The Stablecoin Playbook: Package and Distribute 05:50 Access Is the Answer 06:17 The McDonald's International Expansion Analogy 06:38 Same American Burger, Different Countries 07:04 Why Japan Needed a Different Approach 07:57 The Teriyaki Burger Success Story 08:12 India: Rethinking the Product and Delivery 08:56 Global Now 60% of McDonald's Sales 09:26 Understanding the Crypto User Base 09:53 Crypto Isn't a Monolith: Traders, HODLers, Farmers 10:46 Different Audiences, Different Product Design 11:04 Introducing Plume: The Company Journey 11:56 Partnership With Ether.fi 12:18 Billions in Volume and Global Licenses 12:45 Weaving Together Tokenization, Compliance, Distribution 13:30 Real Deployments: Grove, Apollo, OKX, Ether.fi 14:12 Three Places Stablecoin Money Sits 14:56 Regulation and Compliance as the Underpinning 15:36 The Plume Product Suite 16:24 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Camila Russo from The Defiant sits down with Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, just days after the SEC approved their S-4 filing, clearing the path for Securitize to go public through a SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners II. Carlos explains that after 8 years building the company and landing major partnerships with BlackRock, Apollo, and VanEck, the successful Circle IPO signaled that if there's investor demand for tokenized dollars (stablecoins), there should be demand for tokenizing everything else too. The SPAC merger gets shareholder approval June 29th and Securitize begins trading on the NYSE around July 2nd under the ticker SCC ("sexy"), with roughly half a billion dollars in cash from the trust and PIPE for acquisitions and expansion. Beyond capital, going public gives the credibility large financial institutions need to work with Securitize. Carlos explains why Ethereum has emerged as the leading blockchain for tokenization: Securitize has been an EVM shop since 2017 when Ethereum was the only credible option, they now have around 30% of assets on Ethereum making it their largest chain, and BlackRock specifically chose Ethereum for BUIDL. Gas fees aren't a problem for their use cases, and Ethereum wins on decentralization, security, ecosystem, and liquidity. On permissioning, Carlos explains they use permissionless infrastructure but issue permissioned assets by whitelisting KYC'd wallets in smart contracts, allowing peer to peer transfers to still happen decentrally. He distinguishes between real privacy (layers on top of Ethereum transactions) versus "database privacy" that just restricts access. On DeFi composability, Securitize built vault technology that lets permissioned assets serve as collateral in permissionless lending protocols (integrated with Aave Horizon, Euler, and others) while controlling liquidation. He addresses the Citi $5.5 trillion RWA projection by 2030, arguing tokenized equities and ETFs are the asset class that will move the needle since only 2-3% of that $150 trillion market moving onchain would nearly get there. He announces Securitize partnerships with the NYSE for 24/7 equity trading with instant settlement and Computershare for onchain equity movement. Carlos strongly criticizes competitors offering derivative wrappers instead of actual equity, praising Superstate, Centrifuge, and Bullish for doing it correctly. He points to BlackRock's BUIDL being the only cash product that pays daily dividends (making it the best performing) as proof that tokenization creates net new utility. He closes by predicting traditional and onchain markets will coexist and consolidate, with Ethereum remaining the multi-purpose leader. 00:00 Introduction 00:07 The SEC Approved Securitize's S-4 00:40 Why Securitize Decided to Go Public 01:28 Why a SPAC With Cantor 01:51 What the S-4 Filing Involves 02:17 The Path to Listing on the NYSE 02:35 The New Ticker: SEC 02:59 What Going Public Enables for Securitize 03:43 Why Ethereum Leads for Tokenization 05:12 Why Gas Fees Are Not a Problem Here 05:28 Why BlackRock Chose Ethereum First 05:48 Permissioned Assets on Permissionless Rails 06:51 Two Types of Privacy 08:01 Making RWAs Composable With DeFi 08:46 Integrations With Aave, Euler, and Horizon 09:05 Trading RWAs via Uniswap X 10:02 What It Takes to Reach $5 Trillion by 2030 10:35 Why Tokenized Equities and ETFs Matter 11:27 Partnerships With NYSE and Computershare 11:44 The Right Way to Do Tokenized Equities 12:31 Why Most Are Just Derivatives 13:44 Why the Token Must Be the Real Share 14:36 What Still Needs Solving: Utility 15:22 The BlackRock BUIDL Example 15:44 Why Tokenized BUIDL Pays Daily Dividends 17:06 Where the Demand Comes From Today 18:15 Are Institutions Waiting on Regulation 18:55 Why There Is Already Clarity 19:45 The Dial-Up Internet Analogy 20:37 When Blockchains Become Invisible 21:14 Financial Markets in Five Years 21:51 A New Parallel Market on Blockchain Rails 22:30 Securitize as the Conduit for TradFi 22:52 Where Ethereum Sits in That Future 23:56 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _