Keynote: Connecting Japan and the GCC — A New Era of Institutional Capital in Web3 🌍🤝 The keynote explored emerging capital flows between Japan and the Middle East, highlighting the growing role of institutional investment in the Web3 era. A forward-looking session on global partnerships and the future of capital in Web3. ✨ 💎 Guest Speakers: Fawzi Hamze Founder & Chairman — Assets Advisors Capital Japan–Gulf Capital Infrastructure Strategist 🌐 #TEAMZSummit2026# #Web3# #Japan# #GCC# #InstitutionalCapital#

Institutional capital keeps flowing into curated vaults because they offer isolated exposure, onchain transparency and non-custodial design. Learn how to evaluate the curator behind your next allocation.

Institutional capital is moving onchain. The playbook for allocating it is evolving just as quickly. At Multichain Day by @wrappedxyz, CertiK BD Director Magnus Chung (@magnusweb3) joined Kaye Peng, Partner at @htdgtl, for a fireside chat on onchain capital allocation, market dynamics, and how institutions are approaching the digital asset economy.

Institutional capital is flowing back into digital assets. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have officially moved from a cumulative $5.8 billion net outflow at their July low to approximately $800 million in net inflows for 2026. Learn why Bitcoin ETFs matter 👇

Institutional DeFi is moving past the question of whether large capital wants onchain exposure and the appetite is increasingly obvious. The harder problem is everything institutions need around the trade. From custody, governance, reporting, compliance, risk controls to clear separation of responsibilities. That is why the next phase of institutional DeFi may be less about finding another 10% yield and more about building the financial infrastructure that allows serious capital to participate safely. With platforms like @Securitize now managing $4B+ in assets, that stack is starting to take shape. Here’s where the real bottleneck sits. — ● Institutional DeFi no longer has an access problem Early DeFi was built for individuals. A user connected a wallet, chose a protocol, managed custody, selected a strategy and absorbed most of the risk themselves. The flow looked something like: Wallet -> protocol -> strategy -> risk -> custody That works surprisingly well for crypto-native users. It does not map cleanly onto how institutions operate. Large allocators need: • Segregated custody • Policy-based approvals • Continuous risk monitoring • Transaction controls • Accounting and reporting • Compliance infrastructure So the problem is no longer simply can institutional capital access DeFi? It is now can DeFi fit inside an institutional operating model? — ● That requires the stack to break into specialised roles Traditional finance does not expect one entity to handle settlement, custody, asset management, risk and execution. Institutional DeFi is gradually moving in the same direction. The emerging stack looks more like: Settlement -> financial protocols -> asset managers / curators -> custodians -> institutional infrastructure At the settlement layer: • @ethereum, @solana, @base and @arbitrum provide the underlying rails. • Above that, protocols such as @aave, @Morpho, @maplefinance and @Uniswap provide lending, liquidity and market infrastructure. • Managers and curators such as @Re7Capital, @gauntlet_xyz and @SteakhouseFi determine how capital is allocated and risk is managed. • Tokenized-asset platforms such as @Ondo, @Securitize and @RWA_xyz bring traditional assets onchain. • And custodians such as @ZodiaCustody and @Anchorage handle institutional asset security. No single protocol needs to become the entire financial system. The stack becomes more useful as each layer gets more specialised. — ● RWAs are making that transition easier Tokenized assets give institutions something familiar to bring into an unfamiliar environment. @BlackRock’s $BUIDL, @Ondo and @Securitize are good examples. BUIDL crossed $1B in AUM in March 2025. By 2026, Securitize reported more than $4B in assets across its platform. But the important development is not only that traditional assets are being tokenized. It is that those assets are becoming increasingly usable inside DeFi. A tokenized Treasury can become: • Collateral • A vault asset • A liquidity source • A settlement instrument • Part of an onchain portfolio That creates a much more direct bridge: TradFi asset -> tokenized RWA -> DeFi application -> onchain liquidity For institutions, that is easier to understand than deploying directly into entirely crypto-native risk. — ● But more institutional capital also means a more complicated risk stack This is where infrastructure becomes critical. @Re7Capital breaks DeFi risk into four broad categories: 1. Financial risk Collateral volatility, liquidity, credit exposure, defaults and market risk. 2. Smart-contract risk Code vulnerabilities, upgrades and governance failures. 3. Structural risk Composability, leverage, dependency chains and liquidation cascades. 4. Stablecoin risk Reserve quality, redemption mechanisms and regulatory treatment. The important point is that these risks rarely exist independently. A lending position might depend on a protocol , an oracle , a bridge , a stablecoin , an underlying custodian A problem several layers away can still affect the original position. That is very different from simply asking whether one smart contract has been audited. — ● Institutional DeFi therefore needs risk to become a service As the stack gets more complex, institutions cannot realistically monitor every dependency themselves. Someone has to continuously answer questions like: • What collateral backs this position? • How liquid is it under stress? • Which oracle does the protocol depend on? • What happens if a stablecoin depegs? • Who can upgrade the contracts? • Where is the underlying RWA custodied? • What other protocols sit underneath the strategy? That turns risk management from a one-time due-diligence exercise into ongoing infrastructure. The same is true for compliance and reporting. Institutions do not just need access to onchain markets. They need onchain activity translated into systems their legal, risk, finance and operations teams can actually use. — And that may be the bigger shift happening in institutional DeFi. The first phase was about proving that blockchain could host financial markets. The second was about getting institutional-grade assets onchain. The next phase is about building the operating layer around those markets. • Custodians secure the assets. • Curators allocate capital. • Protocols provide the markets. • Risk systems monitor dependencies. • Reporting and compliance connect everything back to institutional workflows. That is how DeFi starts looking less like a collection of protocols and more like financial infrastructure. Institutional capital does not simply need better yields. It needs confidence that every layer between the asset and the strategy can be understood, monitored and controlled. And that is why the next institutional DeFi winners may not be the protocols offering the highest return. They may be the companies making onchain finance operationally boring enough for institutions to use at scale. Read the full report by @Re7Capital:

Institutional Capital Keeps Flowing Into hyperliquid:native Institutional interest in hyperliquid:native is getting harder to ignore. Multicoin Capital recently invested $100M+ into HYPE, with GP Spencer Applebaum highlighting Hyperliquid’s ability to generate real cash flow rather than relying purely on speculative demand. Now, wallets linked to Monetalis appear to be making a similar move: → Sold 3.72M $UNI (~$13M) through Cumberland → Acquired 171,543 hyperliquid:native (~$9.56M) Monetalis is a financial services and asset advisory firm focused on bridging TradFi, DeFi and RWAs, best known for helping MakerDAO gain exposure to U.S. Treasuries through its Clydesdale structure. Institutional investors appear to be increasingly viewing Hyperliquid as a productive financial platform with real revenue and cash flow, rather than just another crypto protocol. And with the Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF ($HYPG) now providing regulated market exposure, the institutional HYPE thesis could continue to develop. HYPE is increasingly becoming an institutional crypto trade.

Institutional interest in #Bitcoin# is showing signs of recovery. HashKey Senior Researcher Tim Sun told @DecryptMedia that softer U.S. employment data and easing rate-hike expectations are helping bring institutional capital back into Bitcoin. Read more:

Institutional capital demands institutional-grade execution. Today, we are taking the R25 vault ecosystem to the next level. We are going to integrate with @utila_io and @yield_xyz to give enterprise treasuries a secure, MPC-governed gateway to our curated strategies. Treasury teams can now deploy USDC into our inaugural vault without leaving their existing custody workflow: 🔹 Asset: 3-Month Axil Prime Credit (APC) 🔹 Curation: Ex-BlackRock & HSBC experts And this is just the first of many R25 vaults coming to this pipeline.

Institutional capital is moving on-chain. FalconX and @sygnumofficial are partnering to expand access to tokenized credit through a regulated banking platform. The convergence of TradFi and on-chain infrastructure is accelerating. Read more:

How are stablecoins reshaping institutional capital flows? At #WebX2026#, leaders from Ripple, Evernorth, and Doppler Finance explored the role of RLUSD and real-time liquidity in moving institutional money faster and more efficiently. As stablecoins move beyond payments, their role in global financial markets is becoming increasingly important. @ashgoblue @rox_r0x @NARkoyanagi