UPDATE: I’ve spent the last few months building @FinalityForum, and we’re finally at the point where I can share a bit more about what we’re putting together. My background is probably part of why I wanted to do this in the first place. I started in investment banking at Citi, working across equity capital markets, private capital and SPAC transactions in Asia. I then moved to Crypto.com Capital, investing from its $500M fund, and today I spend most of my time angel investing, advising and working with founders across crypto and AI. Over the years I’ve also been to several crypto conferences than I can count. Some were genuinely useful. A lot weren’t. Naturally, I HAD TO build this focused room around institutional digital assets. Serious people working on stablecoins, payments, tokenization, market structure, infrastructure, privacy and increasingly agentic commerce, with enough seniority in the room that the conversations can actually go somewhere. So earlier this year, we started putting that room together ourselves. @FinalityForum is happening on 9 October in Singapore. We’re expecting 1,000+ attendees across six tracks, and around 90% of the speaker lineup is already locked. So far that includes people from Coinbase, Base, BitGo, Bloomberg, CoinGecko, Flow Traders, Kraken and others we’ll be announcing over the next few weeks. I’ve been quite stubborn about the speaker list tbh. I wanted people who are actually close to the work. Still a fair bit to do before October, but I’m very happy with where the room is heading. More names soon.

Bitget was hit by a roughly $351.6M exploit on September 24. 🟪 What @GracyBitget @bitget has said so far: → the affected funds came from part of its hot and warm wallet infrastructure → cold wallets were not affected → user balances remain intact, with the reported loss covered by its $464M protection fund → deposits and trading are still operating → withdrawals remain paused while the security review continues The important technical detail to note here is that this was not a private key leak, according to Bitget’s current investigation. The attacker allegedly did not steal the keys. They got the system around the keys to approve transactions it should have rejected. A private key compromise usually implies a wider and harder to contain failure. A backend authorization failure is still serious, but it gives investigators a narrower system to audit, repair, and harden. Bitget has engaged @Mandiant and @SlowMist_Team, and said it will publish a full report of the root cause once the investigation is complete. A $351.6M hack and still there was no panic, no depeg, no contagion. worth noting

Our first community kickoff in Korea drew 150+ traders, MMs, and builders to hear what @hibachi_xyz is building. Now we're going bigger during @kbwofficial. FX moves $7.5T a day and still settles like it's 1999. Markets close on weekends, and settlement takes days. Plus, has “last look” games Stablecoin-native FX is one of the real on-chain market structure unlocks, and Hibachi is one of the most serious teams building it: off-chain matching, ZK settlement, no last look, 24/7 markets. Varun (@GandalfTheBr0wn) will share what traders actually did once FX perps went live. Oct 1 · @hashed_official, Seoul. See you there. luma.com/vukptkgg

Institutions want on-chain exposure. But they obviously won’t run meaningful size on rails that reveal every position + counterparty by default. Bitcoin is lucrative and battle-tested as base collateral. But, privacy (ZK, verifiable, anchored to BTC security) has been the missing infrastructure layer. 🟪 See you at Institutional Privacy Day - Seoul (KBW), Sept 30 Co-hosted w/ @citrea_xyz + @FourPillarsFP If you’re thinking about this problem, come find us. luma.com/xnzbz5c6

2025: haha the agents are talking to each other 2026: the agents escaped the sandbox, built a civilization, established unauthorized communication channels and broke into Hugging Face 2027: [citation needed]

Pons, Stonks, Pump, Fomo Some of the most interesting crypto apps have successfully managed to build around behaviours people care about. For years now, WE have been framing consumer crypto around removing friction, better UX, better wallets etc. AKA making crypto feel more like Web2. TBH, we needed all of that obviously. But, the harder question is the simplest one. Who cares? About opening another app? Again? And more importantly, can a product eventually acquire users without relying on ecosystem incentives? Why it makes sense to keep this conversation going. Especially now that users are coming back into the trenches. We are getting a room together w/ @fluentxyz during @kbwofficial to spend a day on a focussed discussion around this. Consumer Crypto Day If you're building something that people will actually use, come join us. luma.com/1j1oxie8

Who's coming to @kbwofficial?

I remember saying that I’d rather have a smaller room where people get the chance to meet peers who are valuable to them in a meaningful way. Looking at who’s coming together now, I’m glad we stuck with it. I have a feeling the guest list will fill up fast.

The Finality Forum programming is officially FULL. 30+ confirmed speakers and moderators. 6 panel tracks + keynotes and firesides. 300 attendees max. $0 to attend. And @BitGo is coming onboard as our official sponsor. For the past few months, I’ve basically been building the digital asset event I would personally want to attend. I spend most of my time somewhere between crypto-native markets and the institutional side of this industry, and there are so many conversations happening right now that I wanted in one room. Stablecoins with @tether , @Visa and @Paxos . Tokenized markets with @Ondo , @xStocksFi , @FlowTraders and @chainlink . Institutional trading with @wintermute_t , @GSR_io , @FalconXGlobal , @flowdesk_co and @Bloomberg . Then infrastructure, privacy, AI, keynotes, firesides... the spreadsheet honestly started getting a little ridiculous. We now have people coming from @BitGo , @krakenfx , @avax , @PythNetwork , @wormhole , @Nethermind , @nansen_ai , @base , @coingecko , @Ripple , @CantonNetwork , @FourPillarsFP and a bunch more. And the part I’ve been quite stubborn about throughout all of this is keeping Finality Forum free. We’re capping the room at 300 and making it invite only because I really want people there who care about this stuff. Not necessarily only institutions either. One of the things I’m most excited about with digital assets is how quickly the lines are getting blurry between what gets built for TradFi, what starts in crypto, and what eventually reaches retail. Stablecoins are probably the clearest example already. Tokenized stocks are getting there. 24/7 markets, new forms of collateral, privacy, custody, settlement... there is a LOT moving at the same time. Getting the people actually working on these problems into one room has been a pretty exhilarating thing to put together. Also, events are expensive lol. So having @BitGo back what we’re doing means a lot because it helps us keep the attendee side free without compromising on the room we want to build. Now I just need October to arrive. See you in Singapore 🇸🇬 PS: Finality Forum is invite only and capped at 300 attendees. If you genuinely work in / care about the digital asset space, request an invite and we’ll see you there. RSVP: finalityforum.xyz/?utm_sourc…

How's the sentiment?

What’s the biggest “users asked for X… but they actually needed Y” moment you’ve seen? I’ve stopped asking “what feature do you want?” and started asking “what are you trying to do when you get stuck?” Way better answers. Every time.

Most people quit right before the “breakthrough” phase. Essentially, because they fear: > Sounding wrong > Getting laughed at > Collecting “no”s > Annoying people who like the status quo But guess what? That’s the path fren!

Stripe buying @OpenRouter is a testament to how AI is now a utility. And utilities are won by: • Metering (tokens/inference) • Billing • Fraud controls • Rails (stablecoins included) Own the meter + own the money -> own the ecosystem. The most underbuilt part of this stack though, is still asia + regulated stablecoin rails.