Victoria Gago and Daniel Salmerón opened the event to a full room, setting the tone for two days focused not only on ideas, but on business, partnerships and the infrastructure behind the next phase of financial markets.
Tokenisation: getting from pilot to approval
One of the recurring questions throughout the day was what it takes for tokenisation to move beyond pilots and become something financial institutions can approve, integrate and scale.
The discussion moved quickly into the practical barriers: regulation, governance, custody, smart contract risk, internal siloes and the need to connect new infrastructure with systems institutions already use.
The message was consistent: institutions do not necessarily need to rebuild finance from scratch. They need tokenisation to work within the standards, controls and operating models they already trust.
Institutional blockchain moves beyond proof of concept
The conversation also shifted from whether blockchain can work to what institutions can actually build with it.
During “Programmable Financial Infrastructure: The Next Phase of Institutional Blockchain,” panellists explored how programmability could reshape settlement, liquidity, asset servicing and institutional workflows.
Lorenzo Valente of ARK Invest argued that the next wave of growth is likely to come from institutional capital, as infrastructure, privacy and compliance tools mature enough to support larger-scale participation.
Check out the LinkedIn post here.
Custody becomes part of the operating model
Custody was another major theme.
As tokenised assets spread across public and private networks, the role of the custodian is changing from simply safeguarding assets to managing a much broader set of operational, regulatory and technological responsibilities.
One market, multiple regulatory paths
Digital assets may move globally, but regulation still does not.
The panel “EU, UK, US and UAE: Multiple Regulatory Paths, One Global Digital Asset Market” looked at how firms can operate across major jurisdictions without waiting for full regulatory harmonisation.
The US setback around the CLARITY Act contrasted sharply with developments in the UK, where the FCA released new guidance helping crypto firms understand which activities will fall under its forthcoming regime and when authorisation may be required.
The broader takeaway was that global regulatory alignment may be unrealistic, but greater consistency around outcomes, compliance standards and market integrity is still possible.
Check out the LinkedIn post here.
Stablecoins and tokenised money move closer to financial infrastructure
Stablecoins were discussed less as a crypto-native product and more as part of the future payments and settlement stack.
The conversation increasingly centred on interoperability: how stablecoins, tokenised deposits, commercial bank money and central bank settlement can coexist without fragmenting the financial system.
That means solving not only technology questions, but also questions around claims, backing, recourse, settlement and how different forms of regulated money interact.
Check out the LinkedIn post here.
A more institutional market is taking shape
Day 1 showed how much the conversation has changed.
The question is no longer simply whether banks, asset managers and financial institutions will engage with digital assets.
It is increasingly about how they integrate them, which infrastructure they trust, how they manage risk, and where they allocate capital.
And while the policy paths across the US, UK, EU and other markets continue to diverge, institutional adoption is moving forward in parallel.
