ETHGlobal · Sep 9, 2026

Joao Alves, Co-Founder of Bleap, explains what it takes to build a retail bank onchain and why blockchain infrastructure can improve both product speed and global availability. He highlights permissionless deployment, global reach, direct settlement, and composability with existing DeFi building blocks. Compared with a traditional bank’s web of providers and proprietary APIs, an onchain product can combine wallets, swaps, yield, and payments more quickly, while still choosing carefully between custodial and unhosted architectures. Alves grounds the comparison in product decisions made while building Bleap. An unhosted wallet can reduce intermediary risk and connect to DeFi protocols directly, but the team still must solve account recovery, regulatory controls, card integration, fiat access, and support. Custodial systems can simplify some interactions while creating a different operational and trust model. He argues that builders should choose architecture based on the customer experience they want to deliver rather than treating custody as an ideological decision. Alves also examines the obstacles that determine whether these benefits reach everyday users. Fiat onramps, card top-up fees, fragmented liquidity, poor user experience, regulatory obligations, and thin markets for tokenized assets can erase the advantages of the underlying technology. He points to stablecoins and cross-border transfers as a strong near-term use case: payments that currently cost two to three percent and take a day can settle in seconds. The broader opportunity is to deliver familiar, low-friction banking products while letting users benefit from programmable assets and open financial infrastructure. He evaluates savings, payments, remittances, cards, and tokenized investments through a retail lens. Consumers will not accept paying two percent every time they add money, managing gas across several chains, or understanding bridges and chain mechanics. Stablecoins are valuable when the product hides those mechanics and delivers a clear improvement over existing services. Cross-border transfers between Portugal and Brazil illustrate the opportunity, while weekend pricing for tokenized stocks illustrates what still needs work. 00:00 Introduction to Retail Banking Onchain 00:28 Joao Alves and the Bleap Product 01:27 Global Expansion for Financial Apps 02:01 Noncustodial Deployment Advantages 02:23 Composability With DeFi Building Blocks 02:46 Open Finance Versus Vendor Contracts 03:16 Onchain Network Effects 04:03 Savings, Investing, and Payments Onchain 04:57 Custodial Versus Noncustodial Design 05:48 Regulatory Benefits of Unhosted Wallets 06:05 Efficient Settlement and Treasury Flows 06:28 Connecting Wallets to Swaps and Yield 06:42 Do Not Outsource Complexity to Users 07:05 Keys, Recovery, and Crypto Jargon 07:32 Hiding Chains, Gas, and Slippage 08:00 Account Abstraction and Paymasters 08:23 The Fiat Onramp Experience 08:41 Why Retail Users Reject Top-Up Fees 09:03 Bleap OTC and Stablecoin Conversion 09:23 Moving Beyond Tab-Based Wallet UX 10:10 Retail Banking Opportunities 10:33 DeFi Yield for Bank Deposits 11:17 Retail Demand for Better Savings Rates 12:03 Stablecoin Currency Coverage Gaps 12:41 The Instant Remittance Opportunity 13:09 Portugal and Brazil Transfer Costs 14:17 Tokenized Stocks and Global Markets 15:08 Licensing and Liquidity Barriers 15:50 Instant Merchant Payments 17:02 Blockchain Versus Card Networks 17:29 Closing Vision for Onchain Banking _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *Pragma Lisbon 2026* Pragma Lisbon 2026 was held on June 25th at the Carlos Lopes Pavillion in Lisbon, Portugal and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Lisbon 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxB4xW8JYdk ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Joao Alves X: https://x.com/JoaoAlvesDotETH ✅ Follow Bleap X: https://x.com/BleapApp ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

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

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

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

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

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

Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · Aug 9, 2026

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

ETHGlobal · 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Steven Goldfeder

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

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

Pedro Gomes

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Francesco Andreoli, who leads developer relations at Consensys, sits down with Pedro Gomes, founder of WalletConnect, to discuss payments, agentic commerce, and the evolution of wallets. Pedro explains that WalletConnect created the WalletCon network, the largest interoperability network across digital wallets known for its QR code standard, and has now launched WalletConnect Pay for merchants accepting crypto. Francesco notes Consensys just launched an Agentic Wallet. Pedro describes a shift where wallet features are consolidating inside wallets like MetaMask, making the key question what users interface with when connecting to the outside world, and payments emerged as the number one pain point. WalletConnect narrowed from a general purpose tool to focus on payments, helping existing payment providers accept crypto rather than forcing merchants onto a new platform. Pedro breaks down the payments landscape (peer to peer, remittance, consumer to business, and business to business) and shares a lesson from the payin versus payout distinction: consumers find paying with crypto attractive, but businesses want stablecoin payouts to simplify paying creators globally, where WalletConnect's 700 plus wallet network gave an edge. Francesco covers how UX improves by meeting users where they are, and the range from invisible embedded wallets (Amazon), to wallet as a service behind a bank (Revolut), to crypto native super apps (MetaMask card and MetaMask USD). On agentic payments, Pedro argues the missing piece is authorization: stablecoins succeeded through pull payments pioneered by USDC, which agentic payments lack, making yolo beast mode fine for a mini app but dangerous for buying flights. Francesco explains the MetaMask agent wallet was built to add currently non-existent guardrails like transaction simulation and security checks before signing. Pedro's biggest lesson is that Web3 needs TradFi's distribution more than the reverse, since their only real gap is self custody, and closes with the vision that wallet payments will become as safe as card payments through native guardrails. 00:00 Introduction 00:29 Meet WalletConnect and Consensys 01:18 How WalletConnect Is Evolving Toward Payments 01:42 Why Wallet Actions Are Consolidating 02:11 Payments as the Number One Pain Point 02:42 From DeFi QR Code to Payments QR Code 03:12 The Main Categories of Payments 03:53 Consumer, Business, and Cross Border Types 04:13 Why Past Crypto Payments Failed Merchants 04:30 Meeting Users Where They Are 04:59 Embedding Prediction Markets Into MetaMask 05:34 Why Users Pay a Premium to De-Risk 06:05 Is the UX Improving Enough 06:35 Embedded Wallets: Amazon, Revolut, MetaMask 07:12 MetaMask as a Crypto Native Super App 07:32 Breaking Fragmentation With a Unified Standard 08:02 Lessons Learned: Payins vs Payouts 08:44 Why Businesses Want Stablecoin Payouts 09:14 How Payout Demand Surprised the Team 09:30 Why the Wallet Network Was a Competitive Edge 09:49 Why Distribution Is What Matters 10:12 Distribution to Agents and Guardrails 10:31 Where Agentic Commerce Stands Today 10:53 Beast Modes and Trader CLIs 11:15 Stablecoins and Agents at Money 20/20 11:34 The Missing Authorization Piece 12:06 How USDC Pull Payments Made Stablecoins Work 12:34 Why Yolo Mode Is Dangerous for Real Purchases 13:07 Why the MetaMask Agent Wallet Added Guardrails 14:03 Why Agentic PMF Is Still Early 14:23 Misconceptions Web3 Has About TradFi 14:46 Why They Need Us Less Than We Need Them 15:14 Why Self Custody Is the Real Differentiator 15:46 How Wallet Verification Predated the Travel Rule 16:37 Decentralized Identity and Agent Reputation 16:56 Why Self Custody Changes Identity Control 17:30 How DIDs Bridge Server and Wallet Infrastructure 17:52 What Pedro Wants in the Next Six Months 18:20 Learning From Visa and Mastercard's Guardrails 18:40 The Vision of Wallet and Card Payments Merging 18:59 Permissioned Infrastructure by Design 19:29 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

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

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Jacob Willemsma from ETHGlobal sits down with Henri Stern, founder of Privy, to discuss Privy's first year inside Stripe and how stablecoin infrastructure is being woven into mainstream finance. Henri explains that Privy builds embedded wallets, key management systems that developers drop directly into their products to give users simple access to crypto, stablecoins, and any digital asset without needing to think about what happens under the hood. Privy serves several thousand customers ranging from crypto native companies like Jupiter, Hyperliquid, and Uniswap to much more mainstream businesses like Deel, Ramp, and Klarna. Henri shares that his biggest fear joining Stripe was the stack being co-opted and verticalized into captive infrastructure, but conversations with Stripe leadership affirmed a shared commitment to an open stack where developers pick their chains, orchestration, and rails, and where Privy can still serve Stripe, Bridge, and Tempo competitors. He describes the pragmatic balance between decentralization purism and usable infrastructure, citing wallet connectors and day one key export as escape hatches that preserve self custody. He walks through lessons absorbed from Stripe (decade long ambition exemplified by Atlas now powering 25% of Delaware incorporations, kinetic short term execution, and a deep commitment to never deprecating interfaces), the Treasury product giving businesses stablecoin backed accounts now used across 50 countries, and recent launches like MoneyGram's MGUSD and Deel's hold, earn, spend contractor wallets. He closes on the remaining bottlenecks of financial tooling, regulatory clarity, and accounting integration, along with his belief that these rails ultimately lay the groundwork for genuine self sovereignty. 00:00 Introduction 00:28 The Fear and Excitement of Joining Stripe 00:45 What Privy Builds: Embedded Wallets 01:04 From Crypto Native to Mainstream Customers 01:27 Privy Needs Friends: Why Wallets Need Ecosystems 02:11 The Fear of the Stack Being Co-Opted 02:33 Conversations With Stripe on an Open Stack 02:57 Working With Stripe, Bridge, and Tempo Competitors 03:37 Pragmatism Over Decentralization Maximalism 04:00 Where Are the Lines on Open vs Closed 04:40 Privy Earn Built on Morpho and Aave 04:57 Embedded Wallets and Abstraction From the Metal 06:06 Wallet Connectors and Escape Hatches 07:21 What Privy Learned Inside Stripe 07:40 Decade Long Ambition and the Atlas Example 08:40 Balancing Long Term Vision With Short Term Shipping 09:36 Never Deprecating Interfaces 09:50 Stripe Sessions and the Treasury Announcement 10:51 Why Crypto Rails Make Better Products 11:07 The Two Prongs of the Stablecoin Strategy 11:42 From Holding to Actually Using Stablecoins 12:30 Treasury Live in 50 Countries 13:00 Abstracting Crypto Without Losing the Magic 13:53 Smart Contract Risk and Disclosure 14:38 MoneyGram MGUSD and Deel Contractor Wallets 15:35 The Stablecoin Sandwich and Responsibility to Disclose 16:05 Ship the Value, Not the Infrastructure 16:48 Is Tooling Still the Bottleneck 17:30 Regulatory Clarity and Money 20/20 17:53 Accounting, Taxes, and Marrying the Rails 18:41 Meta Creator Payouts in Emerging Markets 19:33 The Perception Gap: Crypto Stuck in 2014 20:23 Three KPIs Henri Is Watching 21:21 New Experiences That Peek the Rails 21:39 The Ten Year Horizon of Self Sovereignty 22:04 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, Justin Gainsley, who leads stablecoin payment acceptance at Coinbase, shares what four years of building stablecoin payments at scale has taught him about selling to enterprises and payment service providers, and what still needs to be accomplished. He opens with a 2012 Hacker News post from Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong, written before he even applied to Y Combinator, expressing the idea of using crypto to remove the 2 to 3% interchange tax Visa and Mastercard charge on every payment, showing crypto as a payment method has been ingrained in Coinbase from the start. Taking over Coinbase Commerce with the same mandate, Justin's team tried nearly everything (Bitcoin payments, every token on every chain, memecoins, cashback, point of sale, invoicing, online checkout) but nothing moved the needle, and for a while they worried crypto might not be right for payments. The signal emerged from talking to hundreds of buyers and merchants: a real cohort wanted crypto as their cash, something stable to earn into and spend without gas or volatility. So Coinbase made the non-consensus bet of stripping out Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all volatile assets to go all in on stablecoins, which drew internal backlash but sent conversion, volume, and merchant satisfaction all up. Strikingly, 64% of wallets paying on the stablecoin only product held no other assets, a fundamentally new cohort of savers rather than traders. Justin recounts bringing what they thought was the industry's best stablecoin checkout to Shopify, only to be asked about auth and capture, a term he had never heard, kicking off a year of learning what a real payment system requires: authorization holds, automated voids, configurable expiries, refunds, settlement schemes, reconciliation, and disputes. He details the resulting open source Commerce Payments Protocol, an escrow smart contract on Base powering Shopify's USDC checkout across hundreds of thousands of sites, with a permissionless operator role, six operations (authorize, capture, charge, void, refund, reclaim), and a blockchain native reclaim function letting buyers pull funds back after expiry. He covers the boring but required enterprise needs (predictable flat gas fees, custom settlement files, daily fiat delivery, compliance), argues the blockchain itself is fine for payments since Base settles in 200 milliseconds for under a penny, and identifies wallets, on-ramps, and signing UX as the real problems. He closes noting stablecoin payments have gone from curiosity to production in two years. 00:00 Introduction 00:41 Brian Armstrong's 2012 Post on Removing Interchange 01:09 Why Crypto Payments Are in Coinbase's DNA 01:35 Trying Everything to Make Crypto Payments Work 02:00 Worrying Crypto Might Not Fit Payments 02:23 Listening Closely to Buyers and Merchants 02:41 The Camp That Wanted Crypto as Cash 03:06 The Non-Consensus Bet on Stablecoins 03:35 The Internal Backlash 03:58 Why All the Metrics Went Up 04:28 64% of Wallets Held No Other Assets 04:54 The New Cohort of Savers 05:14 Bringing the Best Checkout to Shopify 05:32 The Auth and Capture Question 06:08 A Year Learning What Payments Require 06:32 Why Not to Underestimate Traditional Payments 07:15 Plugging Into Where Enterprises Already Are 07:37 The Commerce Payments Protocol on Base 08:01 How the Escrow Smart Contract Works 08:28 The Operator Role Explained 08:46 Why Operators Cannot Modify or Lock Funds 09:28 The Six Core Operations 09:48 Reclaim as a Blockchain Native Feature 10:12 The Boring but Required Enterprise Needs 10:33 Predictable Flat Gas Fees 10:44 Custom Settlement Files per PSP 11:01 Daily Fiat Delivery and Compliance 11:26 Just Another Alternative Payment Method 11:54 What the Industry Still Needs 12:19 Why the Blockchain Is Fine for Payments 12:42 Where Wallet UX Kills Conversion 13:03 Why On-Ramps Still Need to Be Better 13:27 Signing UX and Smart Wallet Adoption 13:59 From Curiosity to Production in Two Years 14:41 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, Brantly Millegan from ETHID shares lessons from 10 years working on the Ethereum identity stack. He opens with his own onchain profile and ENS name, brantly.eth, encouraging everyone to get a name at ens.domains. He traces the story back 50 years to the 1970s invention of public key cryptography, which for the first time let people encrypt messages without exchanging a secret key ahead of time. The US government classified it as too powerful, until Phil Zimmerman and the cypherpunks successfully lobbied in the 1990s to make it legal for public use, enabling e-commerce and HTTPS. The cypherpunks saw public key cryptography as the basis for digital identity, but consumer versions like PGP never broke out because appeals to privacy and liberty alone do not motivate enough people without financial incentive. Brantly explains that Bitcoin (2008) and Ethereum (2015) changed this by using public key cryptography for wallets, accomplishing through economic incentives what cypherpunks could not through appeals to values: the widespread adoption of private keys and a flourishing wallet industry. Vitalik named identity as a use case in the 2014 Ethereum white paper, but many early identity projects failed because they treated identity as a single app when it is really 20 hard problems at once, and because building in a decentralized way is far harder than centralized. The breakthrough was Ethereum Name Service, which started in 2016 and launched in 2017 modeled after DNS for decentralized websites, then crypto payments. In 2021, while on the team, Brantly realized ENS was accidentally your crypto username and profile, the meta use case underlying all the others. He credits ENS's success to not competing directly with DNS, great engineering, and long time horizons, making it extremely Lindy after nine plus years. He covers Sign in with Ethereum (EIP-4361) as a decentralized user-controlled single sign on, the Ethereum Follow Protocol as an onchain social graph, and Ethereum Identity Kit as a React component library. He closes with his core thesis: Ethereum identity is not a single app but the sum of information and relationships across decentralized protocols and open standards, unbundled into smallest viable parts so each can stand, fall, improve, or be replaced independently, making the whole stack more resilient. 00:00 Introduction 00:35 Brantly's Onchain Profile and ENS Name 00:47 Going Back 50 Years to Public Key Cryptography 01:09 What Public Key Cryptography Is 01:38 Why the US Government Classified It 01:52 The Cypherpunks Make It Legal in the 1990s 02:07 Why It Powers E-Commerce and HTTPS 02:28 Cryptography as the Basis for Digital Identity 02:48 Why PGP Never Broke Out 03:14 Bitcoin, Namecoin, and Early Naming 03:33 Identity in the 2014 Ethereum White Paper 04:06 How Crypto Spread Private Keys at Scale 04:38 Why Wallets Keep Getting Better 05:12 Why Early Identity Projects Failed 05:37 Why Decentralized Is Harder Than Centralized 06:12 The Ethereum Name Service Breakthrough 06:30 Realizing ENS Was a Username and Profile 06:59 Why the Username Is the Meta Use Case 07:15 Why ENS Has Succeeded Where Others Failed 07:39 Not Competing Directly With DNS 08:04 Great Engineering and Long Time Horizons 08:36 Why ENS Is Extremely Lindy 08:58 Accidentally Solving Single Sign On 09:26 The Vision of a Decentralized Account for the Internet 09:44 Sign in with Ethereum and EIP-4361 10:07 The Ethereum Follow Protocol Social Graph 10:36 Other Parts of the Identity Stack 10:58 Ethereum Identity Kit for Developers 11:18 What Ethereum Identity Really Is 11:39 Why the Stack Is Decentralized, Not Vertically Integrated 11:58 Why Each Part Can Stand or Fall on Its Own 12:17 Why This Makes the Stack Resilient 12:40 Why We Should Not Take This for Granted 13:06 The Hard Work Behind the Stack Today 13:25 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, Demetrios Skalkotos from Blockdaemon walks through what it takes to provide institutional ETH staking infrastructure for the traditional finance and institutional space. He argues the question is no longer whether to stake (that was settled 24 months ago) but who to trust and how to find a partner to scale with. He introduces Blockdaemon as an 8-year-old infrastructure company, an OG that started with dedicated nodes and an RPC API business, then grew into staking across 70+ chains and protocols, MPC wallet technology, and DeFi infrastructure, and now represents roughly 5% of the overall ETH staking market. He frames Ethereum as having crossed a major institutional adoption threshold: structurally different from Bitcoin, it builds an economy on yield and cash flow, producing a treasury asset for appreciation, not just price exposure. He cites over $500 million in ETF adoption, around 200 publicly traded DATs (36 Ethereum-focused, about 20% of the market) holding roughly 7 million staked ETH, and total staked assets approaching 40 million (about 32% of supply), all growing steadily even outside a bull market. Demetrios lays out the five categories institutions probe: security posture, compliance, liquidity, yield and slashing protection, and 24/7/365 operational service. On operator security, he stresses the operator should never touch or access private keys, which stay in a secure enclave, with policy-based access at the KMS layer and MPC ensuring no single operator holds signing authority, mirroring TradFi's evolution from dealer discretion to programmatic policy enforcement. He covers OFAC-compliant MEV-boost relay screening applied by default (not pushed onto clients), and certifications including ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type 2, and SOC 1 Type 1. On liquidity, he counsels clients through entry and exit queues, recommending a 10 to 20% unstake buffer and partnering with prime brokerage and lending providers as a home-equity-line-style facility for unforeseen queue spikes. On yield, Blockdaemon contractually guarantees 100% slashing and double-signing insurance (not best efforts) and shows consistent outperformance of the average blended rate amid yield and MEV compression. He emphasizes the full-stack advantage of eliminating vendor fragmentation (every vendor seam is a compliance gap and attack surface) via a single provider, SLA, and master services agreement. He closes projecting staked ETH could approach 50% of supply within three years, with institutions the primary driver, and reiterates Blockdaemon's scale: over $10 billion staked under custody, 70+ chains, and 99.9% uptime. 00:00 Introduction 00:33 Not Whether to Stake, but Who to Trust 00:43 Who Blockdaemon Is 01:24 Ethereum at an Institutional Crossroads 01:53 ETF Adoption and Publicly Traded DATs 02:25 How Much of the Supply DATs Represent 02:56 Structural Growth Beyond the Bull Market 03:20 The Opportunity in Continuous Growth 03:28 The Five Categories Institutions Probe 04:28 The Operator's Security Posture 04:51 Why the Operator Should Never Touch Keys 05:41 OFAC-Compliant Screening by Default 06:04 Certifications and Controls 06:55 Counseling Clients on Entry and Exit Queues 07:30 The 10 to 20% Unstake Buffer 07:44 Bringing In Prime Brokers and Lending 08:40 Protecting and Maximizing Production 08:50 100% Slashing and Double Signing Insurance 09:34 Consistent Performance Above Average 10:18 Why Yield Compression Raises the Stakes 10:50 The Full Stack Advantage 11:13 Why Vendor Fragmentation Is a Compliance Gap 11:39 Reducing Vendor Footprint for Institutions 12:04 The Value of a Single Provider Relationship 12:26 Where the Industry Is Heading 12:59 The ETF Flywheel in Motion 13:30 Projecting 50% of Supply Staked 13:52 ETH as a Dominant Institutional Asset 14:26 The Validator Economy and MEV Compression 14:53 Bringing It All Home 16:19 Blockdaemon's Scale and Track Record 16:50 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, John Egan, the recently joined chief product officer at Polygon, lays out how Polygon sees the future of money, walking through its mission, the product it is bringing to market, and its progress toward what money will become on chain. He introduces Polygon's new mission, championed by CEO Marc and founder Sandeep, to move all money on chain, a practical evolution of its earlier goal of building a trustless internet. He argues the killer use case of blockchain turns out to be money, so the aim is to do the hard, product-oriented work to get all of it on chain. The vehicle is the Open Money Stack, a single open, vertically integrated stack for all money movement and storage (onchain and off) that collapses the tangle of networks, banks, processors, and compliance integrations developers juggle today into one API and dashboard. He notes last week's technical preview shipped regulated cash and fiat ramps, custodial wallets (with non-custodial coming), intent-based orchestration, distribution across chains, and a dashboard any knowledge worker can use. John makes the case for why Polygon is positioned to win. It has already moved about $2.6 trillion, with monthly volumes up over 400% to $130 billion across 30 million-plus payments a month, recently the most stablecoin transactions of any chain including BNB and Solana. Major financial companies already run on Polygon (Stripe, BlackRock's BUIDL, Robinhood, Paxos, Checkout.com, and Flutterwave), and it has been global since day one, handling around 75% of Latin America's stablecoin market where adoption is real utility and a hedge, not wash trading. He argues onchain FX will overtake today's largely non-USD stablecoin market, that money must be cheap and fast (Polygon nears 5,000 TPS, chasing Gigagas at 100,000 TPS, with one-block finality and no reorg since January), and that Polymarket already settles on Polygon. On interoperability he covers AgLayer, Polygon CDK, and Trails (from the Sequence acquisition), a Google Maps for routing money at the cheapest path. He highlights over $250 million in acquisitions including Coinme (regulated in 38 states) for consumer on-ramps, and closes on AI as the next step function: Polygon is the most used chain on X2X, makes agentic transactions gasless (even refunding facilitator gas), and demoed spinning up a neobank with a single Polygon CLI command. 00:00 Introduction 00:07 The Future of Money at Polygon 00:32 The New Mission: Move All Money On Chain 00:48 Why Money Is the Killer Use Case 01:05 The Vision to Get There 01:21 Introducing the Open Money Stack 01:57 The Complexity Developers Face Today 03:01 Collapsing It Into One API and Dashboard 03:21 The Technical Preview and First Features 04:06 What Gives Polygon the Right to Do This 04:29 Not Our First Trillion: $2.6 Trillion Moved 04:48 Leading in Stablecoin Transactions 05:08 The Financial Companies Already on Polygon 05:45 Why Polygon Is Global Since Day One 06:04 Dominating Latin America's Stablecoin Market 06:26 Why Onchain FX Will Take Over 07:08 Why Money Must Be Inexpensive and Fast 07:30 Chasing Gigagas at 100,000 TPS 07:48 Why the Biggest Operators Use Polygon 08:13 Three Efforts Toward Interoperability 08:33 Trails: Google Maps for Moving Money 09:09 $250 Million in Acquisitions for Regulated Money 09:26 Coinme and Consumer On-Ramping 09:48 The Sequence Acquisition and Enterprise Wallet 10:11 Why AI Is the Next Step Function 10:38 From Chatbots to Autonomous Systems 11:17 Why Polygon Is Leaning Into AI 11:35 Gasless Agentic Transactions on X2X 12:07 Building Money Management With AI 12:41 Spinning Up a Neobank With One Command 12:59 What a Neobank Really Is 13:43 Why Anyone Should Be Able to Build One 14:01 Closing and How to Get Involved _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · Jul 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Ayesha Kiani interviews her boss Shiliang Tang of Monarq Asset Management, after seven years working together, on all things markets and Ethereum. They open on how Ethereum has quietly become the settlement layer enabling 24/7 global markets. Shiliang draws a key distinction between trading and settlement: forex markets already trade 24/7, but settlement still depends on traditional banking, SWIFT messages, and windows that take one to two days, whereas Ethereum settlement is instant and final by definition. In practice this means trillions of dollars in stablecoin transfers annually, anyone worldwide accessing markets 24/7, and tokenized collateral becoming fungible and transferable on a Saturday, unlocking capital efficiency. On institutional interest in tokenizing real world assets, money market funds, treasuries, and private credit, Shiliang ranks the drivers as settlement first, then programmability and composability, then 24/7 trading, pending regulatory clarity from the Clarity Act. He highlights the underappreciated repo market (trillions of dollars at the foundation of capital markets, central to the 2008 crisis and the 2019 repo rate spike) as a huge opportunity, since instant movement of good collateral solves the bottleneck of collateral not reaching margin calls fast enough. He discusses CME, NYSE, and others moving to 24/7 amid a mix of public and private chains, the winners (global retail) and losers (settlement and margin-calculation industries built around market open and close), and how AI and agentic trading could level the playing field for retail. He argues traditional features like circuit breakers and FCMs are not bugs but hard-won guardrails crypto is now learning it needs after events like October 10th and leverage looping hacks, envisioning a blend where guardrails live in trading while settlement goes on-chain. On regulation, he describes perimeter enforcement: regulating the edges (stablecoin issuers as narrow banks, custodians, prime brokers, on- and off-ramps, whitelisted wallets) rather than permissionless protocols themselves. He names the repo market and non-US-dollar stablecoins as the liquid products he most wants on Ethereum, argues Ethereum should dominate settlement even as payments and trading fragment to faster chains, and closes hoping the community moves past its price fixation toward use cases, like a mature commodity that cycles up and down rather than only up. 00:00 Introduction 00:50 What 24/7 Global Markets Look Like in Practice 01:15 Trading vs Settlement: The Key Distinction 01:54 Trillions in Stablecoin Transfers 02:39 What Is Driving Institutional Interest 03:17 Why the Clarity Act Would Unlock Participation 03:37 Ranking the Drivers: Settlement First 03:55 The Underappreciated Repo Market Opportunity 04:40 How Collateral Bottlenecks Cause Crises 05:12 Composability and Instant Collateral Movement 05:41 Is TradFi Moving to 24/7 Markets 06:19 A Mix of Public and Private Blockchains 06:48 The Winners and Losers of 24/7 Markets 07:28 How AI Trading Levels the Playing Field for Retail 08:11 Liquidations at 3 AM on a Sunday 08:47 Why Traditional Guardrails Are Features, Not Bugs 09:29 What Crypto Is Learning From TradFi 10:04 Blending Guardrails With On-Chain Settlement 11:09 Educating Senators on DeFi 11:37 How Regulators Approach Permissionless Networks 12:10 Regulating the Edges: Issuers and Custodians 12:49 How to Regulate a Protocol With No Central Entity 13:13 Perimeter Enforcement Like the Internet 13:53 Regulating Whitelisted Wallets and Tokenized Assets 14:26 Will Ethereum Stay Dominant or Fragment 14:45 One Liquid Markets Product to See on Ethereum 15:11 Why the Repo Market Is the Answer 15:40 The Case for Non-Dollar Stablecoins 16:11 Why Ethereum Dominates DeFi 16:48 Why Ethereum Should Focus on Settlement 17:23 Closing Thoughts on the Next Cycle 17:52 Why the Industry Fixates Too Much on Price 18:30 Ethereum as a Mature Commodity With Cycles 19:18 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 · May 9, 2026

In this opening introduction, Kartik Talwar, co-founder of ETH Global, welcomes over 500 attendees from 30 countries to Pragma Cannes 2026 — ETH Global's first Pragma conference of the year. He explains that Pragma is a one-day, single-track event designed to be non-technical and accessible, featuring executives discussing the future of Web3 over the next 6 to 18 months. The format ensures attendees never have to choose between overlapping sessions. Kartik previews the full 14-session agenda covering topics from quantum cryptography and institutional DeFi to agentic wallets, EU blockchain regulation, and AI-powered developer tools. Featured speakers include leaders from Ledger, Privy, Zirket, Chainlink, Aave, Gnosis, Oiler, Infura, and Celo. He also promotes ETHCom, ETH Global's upcoming large-scale conference in New York bringing together crypto-native and institutional finance, and shares a limited discount code for attendees. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Welcome to Pragma Cannes 2026 00:35 What Is Pragma and Why It Exists 01:16 Event Format: One Day, One Track, Executive Speakers 02:05 14 Sessions: Interviews and Talks 02:23 Attendee Stats and Partners 03:04 ETHCom Preview: Biggest Ethereum Event in America 04:30 Full Day Agenda Walkthrough 07:07 Closing and Kickoff _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇫🇷 *Pragma Cannes 2026* Pragma Cannes 2026 was held on April 2nd at the JW Marriott Hotel in Cannes, France and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Cannes 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5OnsJ95gz7HoI1tLUj3kZr ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

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

Stani Kulechov, Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

In this fireside chat, Kartik Talwar interviews Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave, about the vision behind Aave V4 and the future of DeFi as infrastructure for global credit. Stani explains that V4 introduces a modular hub-and-spoke architecture where liquidity is stored in central hubs that allocate credit lines to customizable spokes — enabling anyone to build new lending models (native Bitcoin collateral, debt trading, fixed lending) while tapping into Aave's existing liquidity pool rather than bootstrapping from scratch. Stani outlines three waves of new collateral entering DeFi: tokenized real-world assets, yield-bearing stablecoins, and data-backed credit facilities for consumers, businesses, and institutions. He discusses the Aave App's fintech-like mobile experience that fully abstracts away wallets, gas, and networks, and reflects on why Ethereum remains the strongest chain for DeFi due to tooling, security community, and liquidity network effects. Looking ahead, he frames the institutional transition as a decade-long journey of replacing financial backend infrastructure dating back to the 1970s, with DeFi serving as the efficient capital allocation layer for all future credit. 00:00 Introduction 00:10 Welcome and Aave V4 Context 00:40 Why V4 Took Two Years to Build 02:10 DeFi as a Backbone for All Future Credit 03:43 V4 Architecture: Hub-and-Spoke Model 04:48 Custom Spokes: Bitcoin Collateral, Debt Trading, Fixed Lending 05:59 Unified Liquidity Access for New DeFi Projects 07:31 New Collateral Types: RWAs, Yield Stablecoins, and Data 08:32 Risk Premiums and Collateral-Based Pricing 09:45 Institutional Requirements and Permissionless Infrastructure 11:11 BlackRock on Ethereum: A Turning Point 12:04 Aave App: Fintech-Like Mobile DeFi Experience 13:35 Building DeFi for Everyone 14:19 Staying Motivated Through Market Cycles 15:35 Why Now Is the Best Time to Build 16:57 Why DeFi Stays on Ethereum 18:36 Five-Year Prediction: A Decade-Long Institutional Transition 20:41 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇫🇷 *Pragma Cannes 2026* Pragma Cannes 2026 was held on April 2nd at the JW Marriott Hotel in Cannes, France and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Cannes 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5OnsJ95gz7HoI1tLUj3kZr ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Stani Kulechov X: https://x.com/StaniKulechov ✅ Follow Aave X: https://x.com/Aave ✅ Follow Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

In this workshop, Angela Ocando from Uniswap Labs and Ivan Volovyk, a Uniswap Foundation ambassador, introduce the Uniswap API as a way to integrate on-chain swaps into any application in minutes. Angela explains how the API aggregates all of Uniswap's trading infrastructure — including Uniswap v2, v3, v4, UniswapX, and over 25 market makers — so developers can focus on their product rather than building swap infrastructure. She highlights key stats including over $4 trillion in cumulative volume, 17 supported chains, 200ms routing latency, and 97% fill rates. Ivan then does a live demo in Cursor, showing how to create an API key at developers.uniswap.org, install the Uniswap AI skills into a project, and use a simple prompt to implement quoting and swapping functionality in minutes. He demonstrates a playful DnD-themed swap interface pulling real quotes from the Uniswap API. The session covers hackathon bounty details for best Uniswap API integration across trading apps, agent-based systems, automated strategies, and new financial primitives. 00:00 Introduction 01:02 What Is the Uniswap API 02:06 What the API Aggregates 02:30 Uniswap Protocol Stats 03:31 Common Use Cases 03:56 How Integration Works 04:20 Hackathon Bounty and Ideas 05:02 Resources: API Docs, Skills, and QR Codes 05:40 Live Demo: Creating an API Key 06:05 Installing Uniswap AI Skills in Cursor 06:39 Prompting Claude to Implement Swaps 07:17 Demo Results: Real Quotes and Transactions 08:16 Post-Hackathon Support and Closing 08:41 Q&A _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHGlobal Cannes 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal Cannes 2026, a 3-day hackathon held April 3-5 at the Palace of Festivals and Congresses of Cannes, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal Cannes 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5YrcvSj6KSTztLMy58d7d4 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

ETHGlobal · May 9, 2026

In this workshop, Angela Ocando from Uniswap Labs introduces the Uniswap API for the Open Agents hackathon, framing it around the theme that crypto and fintech products need to swap, and now agents need to swap and pay too. The Uniswap API aggregates liquidity across Uniswap v2, v3, v4, UniswapX, and over 25 market makers, supporting 17+ chains with a 97% fill rate. Angela emphasizes the simplicity of integration: visit developers.uniswap.org, generate an API key, and start swapping in minutes with no fees from Uniswap. Angela does a live demo using Claude Code with the Uniswap AI skills plugin (specifically the Uniswap Trading plugin which includes swap integration, LP endpoints, and X2X pay-with-any-token support). She shows how to set up a base mainnet wallet, configure an .env file with Anthropic, Uniswap, and wallet keys, then prompt Claude in natural language to swap ETH for USDC. The hackathon offers a $5,000 prize pool for the best Uniswap API integration, with Angela strongly encouraging participants to include a feedback.md file in their submissions to help shape future API improvements — she notes that the LP endpoint was added based on feedback from a previous hackathon. She also covers testnet support requirements (minimum liquidity needed in Sepolia pools to avoid quote errors). 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Why Agents Need to Swap and Pay 01:09 What the Uniswap API Aggregates 01:36 Protocol Stats and 17+ Chain Support 02:01 Three-Step Integration Process 02:45 $5,000 Hackathon Bounty Overview 03:11 Importance of Submitting Feedback Files 03:57 Resources: Developer Platform Walkthrough 04:42 Uniswap AI Skills Plugin 05:27 API References and LP Endpoint 06:15 Setting Up Claude Code with Uniswap Plugin 07:25 Live Demo: Configuring Wallet and Keys 07:58 Prompting Claude to Swap ETH to USDC on Base 09:19 Walking Through the Swap Execution 10:04 Discord Support During the Hackathon 10:50 Q&A: Testnet Support Requirements 11:46 Q&A and Closing Remarks _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🤖 *Open Agents 2026* This workshop is part of Open Agents 2026, an online hackathon held from April 24 to May 6. This async hackathon brings together the world’s most talented Web3 developers, designers, and product builders to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full Open Agents 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh6vpKqgVU7bEKyYK0tWfYEQ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow Angela Ocando* X: https://x.com/ocandocrypto ✅ *Follow Uniswap Labs* X: https://x.com/Uniswap ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.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 · Apr 9, 2026

In this workshop, Matthew Foyle, DevRel lead at Dynamic and Fireblocks, gives a brief overview of Dynamic's wallet infrastructure for ETH Global Cannes builders. Dynamic provides a complete wallet stack available through SDKs and a low-level API, offering Fireblocks-grade security, sub-second signing, and fast implementation for both human users and AI agents. He emphasizes using the SDKs directly rather than pre-built React UIs, and highlights the three-step setup: create an account, grab an environment ID, and install the documentation MCP for AI-assisted development. Matt breaks down the three hackathon prizes totaling $5,000, all judged on "comprehensive use" — a combination of breadth and depth of SDK integration across mobile SDKs (Kotlin, Swift, Flutter, React Native), the JavaScript SDK (framework-agnostic vanilla JS), or the Node SDK. He walks through the quick start flows for each SDK, including an agent-friendly path that lets Claude or Cursor guide configuration decisions. Inspiration categories include digital asset flows, trading flows, cross-border flows, and agentic flows. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 What Is Dynamic 00:52 SDK and API Overview 01:13 Key Features: Fireblocks Security and Fast Signing 01:38 Three Steps to Get Started 02:01 Meet the Team at the Venue 02:24 Hackathon Prizes Overview 02:44 What Is Comprehensive Use 03:55 Use Case Inspiration 04:45 JavaScript SDK Quick Start 05:31 Agent-Friendly Setup Path 06:07 Node SDK Quick Start 06:32 Mobile SDK Example Apps 06:55 Summary and Resources 07:23 Install the Documentation MCP 07:49 Closing Remarks _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇫🇷 *ETHGlobal Cannes 2026* This workshop is specifically for ETHGlobal Cannes 2026, a 3-day hackathon held April 3-5 at the Palace of Festivals and Congresses of Cannes, bringing together the most skilled web3 developers, designers and product builders from all around the globe for a weekend-long adventure to advance the Ethereum ecosystem! Watch the full ETHGlobal Cannes 2026 playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh5YrcvSj6KSTztLMy58d7d4 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow Matthew Foyle* X: https://x.com/MatthewFoyle ✅ *Follow Dynamic* X: https://x.com/dynamic_xyz ✅ *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 · Nov 9, 2025

This talk, part of the ETHGlobal Spotlight series, introduces MC Pay, a project focused on enabling seamless payments for Model Context Protocols (MCPs) and AI agents. Luis Freitas explains how current API payment systems are not scalable for AI agents, which lack traditional payment methods like credit cards. MC Pay leverages the X42 protocol (initiated by Coinbase) and HTTP 402 status code to enable per-call payments using stablecoins (e.g., USDC) without subscriptions or API keys. Developers can monetize MCP servers via SDK integration or a user-friendly dashboard, set pricing, and access analytics. MC Pay integrates with Coinbase server wallets for easy onboarding and spending control. The platform supports rapid deployment and experimentation with MCP Build, allowing developers to launch monetized servers quickly. Future plans include zk receipts, dynamic pricing, and expanding as an agent commerce hub. MC Pay aims to unbundle software into nano-services, enabling micro-payments and creating a high-signal market for AI tools in the agent economy. 00:00 Introduction 00:31 ETHGlobal Spotlight Projects Overview 00:44 MC Pay Introduction by Luis Freitas 01:09 The Agent Economy & API Payment Challenges 01:54 Model Context Protocol (MCP) Overview 02:44 Introducing MC Pay & X42 Protocol 03:34 Monetization Options & Developer Tools 04:54 Analytics, Wallet Integration & User Experience 06:01 MCP Build: Rapid Server Deployment 06:41 How X42 Payments Work 07:28 The Future: Nano-Services & Micro-Payments 08:35 Why Now? Tech Readiness & Next Steps 09:14 Vision for the Agent Economy & Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇮🇳 *Pragma New Delhi* Pragma New Delhi 2025 was held on September 25th at the JW Marriott Hotel in Aerocity New Delhi and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma New Delhi YouTube Playlist here: 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 Luís Freitas X: https://x.com/microchipgnu ✅ Follow MCPay X: https://x.com/mcpaytech ✅ 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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Austin Griffith

ETHGlobal · Nov 9, 2025

Austin Griffith speedruns building Ethereum apps with Scaffold-ETH: init, local chain, hot-reloading UI with burner wallets, and the Debug Contracts panel. He live-edits a starter contract (counter, payable price curve), shows front-end hooks for reads/writes, then “one-shots” a FOMO-3D-style game using Cursor/Claude: last clicker wins after a countdown. He debugs timer quirks (local block timestamp), discusses incentives, and deploys the app to Arbitrum and the front end to IPFS. Resources: ethereum.org, Tour, SpeedrunEthereum, Scaffold-ETH docs. 00:10 Intro, resources (ethereum.org, Tour, SpeedrunEthereum) 01:23 Scaffold-ETH init (create-eth, Foundry/Hardhat choices) 03:02 Run local chain, deploy, start front end 03:58 UI tour: burner wallets, faucet, Debug Contracts 04:44 Starter “greeter/counter” contract demo 06:20 Adding payable logic & price curve; hot-reload UX 08:16 Front-end hooks: useScaffoldRead / useScaffoldWrite 09:53 “One-shot” build with AI (Cursor/Claude) 10:54 FOMO-3D mechanics (button, pot, countdown) 13:29 AI-generated contract review (lastClicker, claimPrize) 15:16 Deploy & test; timer bug surfaces 18:01 Fixing logic; quick iteration 19:55 Incentive design for automation & liveness 23:13 Debugging local timestamp / tx heartbeat 23:49 Deploy to Arbitrum; wallet/key mgmt 27:17 Set 5-min round; deploy front end to IPFS 29:51 Wrap-up + live link/QR; build more “money legos” _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 💻 ETHOnline 2025 This workshop is specifically for ETHOnline 2025, a 21-day hackathon held October 10 - 31, 2025, 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! _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow BuidlGuidl X: https://x.com/buidlguidl ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.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

Pedro Gomes

ETHGlobal · Oct 9, 2025

Pedro Gomes, co-founder of WalletConnect and Director at the newly launched WalletConnect Foundation, joins Pragma Singapore 2024 to share major updates shaping the future of wallets, Web3 connectivity, and decentralized infrastructure. In this exclusive fireside chat, Pedro unveils the launch of the WalletConnect Network and $WALLET token, along with the formation of Reon—a rebranded company focused on SDK innovation. Discover how WalletConnect evolved from a single SDK to a global protocol powering billions of connections between wallets and dApps. Learn about their new governance model, roadmap to full decentralization, node operator incentives, token distribution on Optimism, and the future of wallet UX across ecosystems like Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, and Polkadot. 00:00 Intro to Pedro Gomes and WalletConnect 00:41 WalletConnect Foundation Launch Announcement 02:01 Why Decentralize WalletConnect Now 03:09 The 2023 Protocol Upgrade That Made It Possible 04:19 Introducing Reon: The New Wallet SDK Brand 05:59 SDK Ecosystem Growth and Node Operator Roles 07:05 Foundation’s Role in Setting Wallet Standards 08:05 Signing, Smart Sessions, and UX Optimization 09:39 Wallet SDK Collaboration vs. Competition 10:44 Neutral Standards and Foundation Governance 11:47 Lessons from Building and Rebuilding WalletConnect 13:25 How the WalletConnect Network Will Be Decentralized 15:00 Why Wallets Need Sustainable Business Models 16:04 Why the Token Is on Ethereum + Distributed on Optimism 17:49 How Node Operators Will Join the Network 18:56 Governance Strategy and Phased DAO Control 20:34 Final Goals: Staking, Transferability, App Fees 22:12 Closing Thoughts and What to Expect in 2025 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇸🇬 *Pragma Singapore* Pragma Singapore 2024 was a special gathering of founders and builders that took place September 19, 2024 at the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore. Pragma Singapore 2024 was an opportunity discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. Watch the full Pragma Singapore playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh6z0saYJnVdgXWfz-vaoEYx&si=uavhkhF5Kc8XBoLv ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow Pedro Gomes* X: https://x.com/pedrouid ✅ *Follow WalletConnect* X: https://x.com/WalletConnect ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · Oct 9, 2025

Welcome to Pragma San Francisco 2024, presented by ETHGlobal! In this opening keynote, ETHGlobal co-founder Kartik Talwar introduces a two-day single-track Web3 summit focused on accessibility, pragmatism, and the future of blockchain. Discover what makes Pragma unique: no parallel sessions, no fluff—just high-signal conversations with founders, protocol builders, and decision-makers shaping Ethereum and the broader crypto ecosystem. Kartik walks through the agenda, introduces new primitives like NFC-enabled Ethereum wristbands, the Pragma SF Pack, and shares how attendees can network using on-chain tools. Plus, get an overview of upcoming talks on AI, ZK, rollups, DePIN, Bitcoin L2s, programmable wallets, fully homomorphic encryption, and more. 00:00 Welcome to Pragma SF 2024 00:20 Why this Pragma is special (2-day format) 00:53 What "pragma" means in Web3 01:27 Making Web3 more accessible 01:59 Single-track, no side stages 02:32 Founder-only, future-focused talks 03:01 Mostly non-technical, high-signal content 03:33 25 talks, 5 interviews over 2 days 04:03 Where to find the full agenda 04:30 Attendees from 34 countries 04:57 Thanking 11 partner projects 05:30 Shoutout to Pragma SF Pack participants 05:58 Blending on-chain and off-chain experiences 06:26 Ethereum NFC wristbands explained 07:00 Wristbands = on-chain identities 07:27 Networking with wristbands 07:55 Wristbands also work for the hackathon 08:34 Day 1 agenda overview begins 08:34 Talk: Using AI to secure dApps 08:52 Talk: The future of real world assets 09:05 Talk: The future of consumer crypto apps 09:16 Talk: Privacy-preserving smart contracts 09:32 Talk: Rollup fragmentation and TEEs 09:45 Talk: Programmable transportation with DePIN 09:59 Talk: DeFi accessibility for TradFi 10:12 Talk: Yield innovations in Web3 10:22 Talk: Simplifying DeFi trades via 0x 10:34 Talk: Bitcoin L2s and EVM integration 10:42 Talk: Mobile crypto payments with Vora 10:52 Talk: Programmable wallets via Circle 11:04 Talk: Should you build your own rollup? 11:17 Talk: FHE on the EVM and crypto privacy 11:35 Talk: General purpose vs app-specific rollups 11:47 Schedule available at ethglobal.com/pragma _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇺🇸 *Pragma San Francisco* Pragma San Francisco 2024 was a special gathering of founders and builders that took place October 16th and 17th at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, CA. Pragma San Francisco 2024 was an opportunity discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. Watch the full Pragma San Francisco playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh4LcwDpGf_itZrAu7XRNb07&si=3x3y9J3avgNTITUe ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow Kartik Talwar* X: https://x.com/therealkartik Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/kartik ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.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 · Oct 9, 2025

Explore how Iron Fish is building a cross-chain privacy layer for EVM networks, enabling private transactions for any on-chain asset – from stablecoins to custom tokens. In this talk, Elena Nadolinski explains how Iron Fish’s multi-asset shielded pool, ZK proofs, and threshold signatures combine to deliver an intuitive privacy solution without smart contracts. Learn how its decentralized bridging model ensures regulatory compliance while still preserving user confidentiality. If you’re seeking a scalable approach to private DeFi, discover how Iron Fish’s zero-knowledge stack can offer the “anonymous diamond” experience of crypto, across multiple blockchains. 00:00 Introduction & Why Privacy Matters 01:10 Diamonds & Historical Lessons in Private Money 02:07 Current Transparency: Challenges in Crypto Payments 03:00 Iron Fish Approach: One Privacy Pool for All Assets 04:05 Multi-Asset Shielder Protocol & ZK Mechanics 05:15 How Iron Fish Handles Mint, Burn, & Encrypted Transactions 07:00 Threshold Signatures for Private Multi-Sig Wallets 08:24 Custodian Bridges & Sanction Screening 09:14 Demo: Cross-Chain ERC-20 Privacy on Iron Fish 10:05 Future Plans & Launch Timeline 11:20 Conclusion & How to Get Involved _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇺🇸 *Pragma San Francisco* Pragma San Francisco 2024 was a special gathering of founders and builders that took place October 16th and 17th at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, CA. Pragma San Francisco 2024 was an opportunity discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. Watch the full Pragma San Francisco playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh4LcwDpGf_itZrAu7XRNb07&si=3x3y9J3avgNTITUe 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 Elena Nadolinski* X: https://x.com/leanthebean ✅ *Follow Iron Fish* X: https://x.com/ironfishcrypto ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.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 · Oct 9, 2025

Explore how Web3 can achieve mainstream adoption through native mobile experiences with Denisse Halm, founder at Mobile Stack and Valora. Discover the critical gaps limiting Web3 growth, the vast potential of global smartphone usage, and the necessity for user-centric mobile applications. Learn how Mobile Stack simplifies creating engaging, secure, and accessible Web3 apps, facilitating adoption beyond current crypto users. Featuring insights into app development, UX considerations, and consumer-focused innovations. 00:00 Intro: Making Web3 Mobile for Everyone 00:51 About Denisse Halm, Valora & Mobile Stack 01:35 Global Smartphone Adoption Trends 02:13 Crypto Ownership vs Actual Web3 Usage 03:40 Web2 UX Expectations vs Web3 Reality 04:14 Complex Web3 User Journeys Explained 05:30 Importance of Seamless User Experience 06:55 Infrastructure Exists, but Who Uses It? 07:29 Major Web3 Projects Going Mobile 08:14 Gap Analysis: Mobile Web3 Experiences 08:52 Opportunities for Mass Crypto Adoption 09:37 Challenges of Building Mobile Web3 Apps 10:47 UX & Security Trade-offs in Mobile Apps 11:24 Key User Journeys in Web3 Products 12:05 Increasing Consumer Confidence in Web3 12:42 Introducing Mobile Stack Platform 13:21 Demo: Hypothetical Curve Mobile App 13:56 Customizable Branding & UX in Apps 14:33 Single-App Web3 User Experience Explained 15:10 Mobile Stack Features & Integrations 16:18 Key Plugins for Enhanced User Experience 17:22 Mobile-First Strategies for Global Users 18:03 Case Study: SheFi’s Web3 Education App 19:22 Conclusion & How to Connect _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇺🇸 *Pragma San Francisco* Pragma San Francisco 2024 was a special gathering of founders and builders that took place October 16th and 17th at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, CA. Pragma San Francisco 2024 was an opportunity discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. Watch the full Pragma San Francisco playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh4LcwDpGf_itZrAu7XRNb07&si=3x3y9J3avgNTITUe 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 Denisse Halm* X: https://x.com/hola_denisse ✅ *Follow Valora* X: https://x.com/valora ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.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 · Oct 9, 2025

Join Laurent Castillo, VP of Architecture at Ledger, at Pragma San Francisco 2024 as he discusses how Ledger is revolutionizing blockchain security through clear signing. Laurent explores the risks and pitfalls of blind (YOLO) signing, showcases Ledger's innovative approach with the new ERC-7730 standard, and explains how clear signing dramatically improves user safety and confidence. Discover the future of transaction signing, Ledger’s hardware wallet integrations, and how clear signing will combat phishing and scams on Ethereum and beyond. 00:00 Introduction: Laurent Castillo from Ledger 00:51 Risks of Blind (YOLO) Signing on Blockchain 01:36 What is Blind Signing & Why It's Dangerous 02:15 Shift in Attacks: Phishing & Scam Transactions 02:47 Financial Impact of Blind Signing Attacks 03:22 Clear Signing Explained & Ledger’s Vision 04:36 Evolution of Transaction Signing on Ethereum 05:16 Ledger's Early Solution: Plugins for Clear Signing 06:25 Data-Driven Approach to Improve UX for Signing 07:06 Introducing ERC-7730: A New Clear Signing Standard 07:43 ERC-7730 Goals: A Universal Clear Signing Standard 08:16 Why ABI Alone Isn't Enough for Clear Signing 08:49 Limitations of ABI in User-Friendly Transactions 09:25 How ERC-7730 Complements ABI for Better Clarity 10:10 ERC-7730 Standard Example & Field Customization 10:49 Philosophy of ERC-7730: Simple & Human-Readable 11:25 Optimized for Hardware Wallet Limitations 12:00 ERC-7730 Flexibility for Future Blockchain Trends 12:40 Ledger’s Clear Signing Initiative: End-to-End Tools 13:21 ERC-7730 Standard & Editing Tools Released 13:57 Public Registry & Ledger’s Curation Process 14:35 Ledger Integration & Hardware Wallet UI Support 15:22 Developer Guide: How to Implement ERC-7730 16:05 ERC-7730 at ETHGlobal Hackathon & Developer Tools 16:44 Ledger’s Clear Signing Roadmap & Future Plans 17:21 Accelerating Clear Signing Adoption in Q2 2024 18:18 Addressing Ethereum Account Abstraction Challenges 19:12 Conclusion & Resources for Ledger Clear Signing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇺🇸 *Pragma San Francisco* Pragma San Francisco 2024 was a special gathering of founders and builders that took place October 16th and 17th at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, CA. Pragma San Francisco 2024 was an opportunity discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. Watch the full Pragma San Francisco playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh4LcwDpGf_itZrAu7XRNb07&si=3x3y9J3avgNTITUe 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 the Ledger* X: https://x.com/Ledger ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kartik Talwar

ETHGlobal · Oct 9, 2025

Join Nikhil Chandhok, Chief Product Officer at Circle, and Kartik Talwar from ETHGlobal, as they dive deep into the world of stablecoins and blockchain innovation. Discover how Circle is revolutionizing global financial inclusion with USDC, enabling seamless cross-border payments, instant settlements, and unprecedented capital efficiency. Nikhil discusses Circle's developer platform, future innovations, regulatory perspectives, and how stablecoins surpass traditional financial networks in global transaction volumes. Learn what makes stablecoins the essential building block for the future of finance. 00:00 Introduction: Nikhil Chandhok & Circle Fireside Chat 00:45 Nikhil’s Journey: From Google and Meta to Circle 01:51 Personal Motivation Behind Joining Circle 03:33 Why Stablecoins Matter Globally 04:32 Circle's Mission Beyond USDC Issuance 05:02 Three Pillars of Circle's Business Model 06:12 Web3 Services & Developer Platform at Circle 07:15 Stablecoins After FTX: Restoring Industry Trust 08:18 Circle's User Experience & Wallet Innovations 09:19 Product Development Strategy at Circle 10:58 Simplifying Crypto UX for Global Consumers 12:09 Challenges Supporting Multiple Blockchains 13:46 Ensuring Security and Regulatory Compliance 14:42 Advocating for Open Internet & Public Blockchains 15:53 Predicting Novel Blockchain User Behavior 16:55 BlackRock's Bitcoin Fund & USDC Integration 17:31 Perspective on Competing Stablecoins 18:43 Regulatory Outlook for Stablecoins Globally 20:24 Why the Stablecoin Market Will Grow Exponentially 21:57 The Non-Zero-Sum Nature of Blockchain Innovation 22:34 New Features Coming to Circle’s Developer Platform 23:33 Stablecoin Transaction Volume Exceeds Visa 24:05 Conclusion: The Future of Money with Stablecoins _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇺🇸 *Pragma San Francisco* Pragma San Francisco 2024 was a special gathering of founders and builders that took place October 16th and 17th at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, CA. Pragma San Francisco 2024 was an opportunity discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. Watch the full Pragma San Francisco playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh4LcwDpGf_itZrAu7XRNb07&si=3x3y9J3avgNTITUe 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 the Nikhil Chandhok* X: https://x.com/chandhok ✅ *Follow Cirlce* X: https://x.com/circle ✅ *Follow Kartik Talwar* X: https://x.com/therealkartik Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/kartik ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

David Sneider

ETHGlobal · Oct 9, 2025

Discover how Lit Protocol is redefining the management of secrets and identities on-chain with decentralized cryptographic solutions. In this insightful talk from Pragma San Francisco 2025, David Sneider, founder of Lit Protocol, explores programmable secret networks using threshold cryptography, secure hardware (TEE), and multi-party computation. Learn how decentralized secret management enhances interoperability across blockchains, platforms, and AI systems, empowering individuals with secure, privacy-preserving control over their data, identity, and assets. 00:00 Introduction: David Sneider on Decentralized Secrets 00:46 Agenda: Problems, Solutions, Implementations & Future 01:24 The Big Problem: Fragmented Digital Systems 02:01 Why Secrets Are Key for Digital Interoperability 02:37 Lit Protocol: Decentralized Secret Management Overview 03:13 Technical Architecture: Secure Hardware & TEEs 03:51 Multi-Party Computation & Threshold Cryptography 04:56 Cross-Platform Interoperability Using Lit Protocol 06:05 Lit as a New Primitive: Smart Contract Comparison 06:42 Case Study: Verify & On-chain IP Licensing 07:54 Identity-Based Encryption Explained (Verify Example) 09:00 Case Study: Nebula & On-chain Life Insurance 10:10 Privacy-Preserving Risk Scores for Insurance 10:49 Healthcare Data & Privacy in Web3 11:28 Case Study: Genius Terminal & Cross-chain Swaps 12:37 Real-time Cross-chain Trading with Programmable Wallets 13:11 The Future of AI & Decentralized Secret Management 13:49 AGI & the Need for Decentralized Data Control 14:22 Vitalik's Defensive Techno-Optimism Framework 14:59 Empowering Users with AI & Decentralized Data 15:34 Opportunities for Developers with Lit Protocol 16:11 Closing Remarks & Invitation to Innovate Together _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇺🇸 *Pragma San Francisco* Pragma San Francisco 2024 was a special gathering of founders and builders that took place October 16th and 17th at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, CA. Pragma San Francisco 2024 was an opportunity discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. Watch the full Pragma San Francisco playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh4LcwDpGf_itZrAu7XRNb07&si=3x3y9J3avgNTITUe 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 David Sneider* X: https://x.com/davidlsneider ✅ *Follow Lit Protocol* X: https://x.com/LitProtocol ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _