What Crypto's Conference Season Revealed About the Industry's Priorities
Korea Blockchain Week and TOKEN2049 Singapore pointed to three priorities shaping crypto’s next phase: tokenization, AI agents and stablecoin infrastructure.
At Korea Blockchain Week and TOKEN2049 Singapore, speakers shared a broad expectation that blockchain technology will play an increasingly important role in the future of finance. Among the many subjects discussed, three recurring areas of interest were the tokenization of financial and real-world assets, artificial intelligence and autonomous agents, and the role of stablecoins in financial infrastructure. While the direction was broadly shared, questions remained about the pace and extent of adoption and how these technologies would fit into existing financial systems.
Korea Blockchain Week (KBW), held September 29–October 1, 2026, in Seoul, South Korea, was organized by FactBlock with cryptocurrency exchange Upbit as its presenting partner. The conference took place at Walkerhill Hotels & Resorts, bringing together industry executives, developers, financial institutions and policymakers, including representatives of the Bank of Korea.
The following week, TOKEN2049 Singapore took place October 7–8 at Marina Bay Sands. One of the cryptocurrency industry's largest annual conferences, the Singapore event drew an estimated 25,000 attendees from more than 160 countries, according to Coinlive. Organizers listed more than 300 speakers and over 500 exhibitors. The broader TOKEN2049 Week also included more than 1,000 side events.
Reflecting on the discussions in Singapore, crypto news outlet Coinlive observed:
“Across both days, the talk was less about whether traditional finance would enter crypto and more about the plumbing required to make it work: tokenised assets, round-the-clock markets, stablecoin payments and AI agents that move money.”
Speaking with CNBC's Joanna Ossinger at TOKEN2049 Singapore, Nasdaq Chair and CEO Adena Friedman discussed how tokenization could change the movement of collateral within financial markets.
“If you tokenize all those instruments along with the flow of money, then the collateral becomes very fluid.”
Tokenizing both assets and the movement of capital could allow financial institutions to transfer and reuse collateral more efficiently. However, Friedman cautioned that not every asset is sufficiently liquid to support trading around the clock.
Friedman also noted that Nasdaq uses AI agents in its risk management platform, connecting the discussion of tokenization to another topic explored at both conferences, artificial intelligence and autonomous agents.
At Korea Blockchain Week, 0G Labs co-founder and CEO Michael Heinrich presented “The Trillion-Dollar Agentic Economy: Building the Trust Layer for AI Agents,” outlining his company's case for decentralized infrastructure as a verification and settlement layer for AI agent activity.
Eric Trump, co-founder of World Liberty Financial, also addressed the potential impact of AI on digital asset adoption during TOKEN2049's “The Future of Finance, Built in America” panel. According to Benzinga, Trump predicted that AI would become a major driver of cryptocurrency adoption.
At TOKEN2049 Singapore, BitMEX co-founder and Maelstrom Chief Investment Officer Arthur Hayes addressed the relationship between AI and digital currencies in a keynote titled “FLOP: Bigger Than Bitcoin.” Hayes argued that AI agents lack a native currency and presented his project, FLOP, as a potential solution.
Stablecoins were another subject connecting the two conferences. At TOKEN2049, industry representatives discussed their potential role in payments, while Korea Blockchain Week examined digital currencies from both commercial and monetary-policy perspectives.
Sungguan Yun, Director General of the Bank of Korea's Office of Digital Currency, presented “Digital Currency and the Future Monetary System: Korea's Next Architecture.” His presentation introduced a central bank perspective to discussions of digital money, distinct from the privately issued stablecoins examined elsewhere at the conferences.
Institutional participation was also a focus at both conferences. TOKEN2049 hosted TOKEN2049 Institutional, an invitation-only gathering for senior financial industry leaders, while Korea Blockchain Week featured the Upbit Institutional Summit. These dedicated events reflected the attention organizers placed on connecting traditional financial institutions with the digital asset industry.
Taken together, the discussions illustrated how tokenization, AI agents and stablecoins could contribute to future financial infrastructure. While speakers broadly anticipated a greater role for blockchain technology in finance, questions remained about how extensively these systems would be adopted, how they would integrate with existing institutions and how quickly that transition might occur.
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