Sheraz Ahmed @CryptoSherazo has spent years at the intersection of Web3, institutional adoption, and policy. As Managing Partner of STORM Partners @STORM_Partners and founder of Decentral House, Geneva's innovation centre for emerging technologies, he has built one of the most active professional services operations in the space. At the Louvre, he brought that perspective to the TaoStats Stage, moderating a panel on How Tokenised Markets Create New Opportunities for Investors. Where tokenised markets are creating real opportunities beyond the pilot phase. What demand looks like today. And what separates durable tokenised markets from experiments. The legal design, the liquidity, the infrastructure, the regulatory conditions. The full picture, from someone who has been building toward this moment for years. Thank you Sheraz for bringing that conversation to the Louvre.

When the biggest names in digital assets need to tell their story, they run it through one firm. MarketAcross @MarketAcross has been doing this since 2014. Not a traditional agency that added a crypto tab. The firm behind Binance, Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, Polkadot, and eToro. 300+ Web3 brands. Results-based, crypto-native, full stack. At the Louvre, they joined Proof of Talk 2026 as our Official PR Partner, supporting strategic press introductions and storytelling throughout the event. From institutional adoption and tokenization to AI and infrastructure, the focus was firmly on building real-world value and long-term impact. The conversations happening inside the Louvre deserved to reach the world outside it. MarketAcross made that happen. Thank you for being with us and for the awesome work.

Ten years ago, rooms like this didn't exist. The institutions weren't here. It was mostly talk. Xen Baynham-Herd @XenBH (Director of Growth, Base @base) took the Taostats Stage at the Louvre to show how much has changed and to announce Base MCP live at Proof of Talk 2026. Trading. Payments. Agents. All markets that didn't exist in 2020, now large enough to compete with their TradFi equivalents. $13 trillion in cumulative on-chain trading volume. $322 billion stablecoin market cap. 100 million transactions settled on X402. And under 1% of the world's money is on chain. The question isn't whether capital comes on chain. The question is where it goes. Watch the full keynote below.

Luis Cuello @TrenchWeb3 has spent nearly a decade in institutional finance. He brought that experience to the Canton Track at Proof of Talk. The Founder and CEO of Minted @tryMinted started at BNP Paribas and Johnson & Johnson, made the full jump to Web3 in 2020, and advised OKX on institutional trading infrastructure. Now he's building the Ownership Abstraction Layer at Minted, with mUSD and smUSD as Canton-native institutional stablecoins designed for the GENIUS Act era and the legal protections institutional allocators need. The Canton Track at Proof of Talk was the right room for the work. Minted joined Proof of Talk 2026 as a Gold Partner, alongside its commitment to the Proof of Excellence program, and Luis took the stage to share what it takes to build payment and yield infrastructure institutions actually use. Thank you, Luis, for being with us.

In closed AI, one vendor sets the capability and the price. There is no live market underneath the subscription. Marcus Graichen @mogmachine, Founder of Taostats @taostats and one of the earliest builders on Bittensor, took the Main Stage at the Louvre for his keynote The Thin Line. He walked through why agents amplify operators but do not replace them, how Bittensor prices capability rather than access, and why the most important AI infrastructure being built today sits on an open capability market rather than a closed stack. Watch the full keynote.

Xiao-Xiao J. Zhu @xxjzhu started with venture building at BCG, then TMT private equity at KKR. The thread across all of it: how capital, payments, and markets move. Today he is President of Jupiter @JupiterExchange, the leading onchain finance platform built on Solana, processing over $1 trillion in annual volume across trading, payments, and financial services. At the Louvre, he brought that perspective to the Proof of Talk stage. Until next time.

What are investors looking for from founders in 2026? Our State of Web3 Capital 2026 report with @proofoftalk brings together insights from 200+ startup applications and 13 investors and ecosystem leaders to answer that question.

Lower cost of capital is what brings institutional assets onchain. Stani Kulechov @StaniKulechov made the case from the Main Stage at Proof of Talk . The Founder of Aave @aave, the largest decentralised lending protocol in the world, sat down with Jacquelyn Melinek for Aave V4: Scaling Onchain Lending. His argument: tokenised equity moves when onchain credit prices the assets better than the alternative. That is when institutional flow follows. Watch the whole session here:

Three builders who lived through every chapter of institutional digital finance. One panel that asked which parts aged well, which did not, and what comes next. From the Taostats Stage at Proof of Talk 2026: From Enterprise Blockchain to Tokenised Markets: The Next Chapter of Institutional Finance, with David Rutter @daviderutter1 (Founder & CEO, @inside_r3), Ben Nadareski @ben_solstice (Co-Founder & CEO, @solsticefi), and Tim Grant (CEO, Deus X Capital) moderating. Watch the full session below.

Shardul Bansal @shardiban started in the Bittensor ecosystem at the University of Toronto, working on his capstone with Ala Shaabana on benchmarks for decentralised training. He then led product at Crucible Labs before launching ORO @oroagents, Subnet 15 on Bittensor, pioneering open agents and agentic commerce through open incentives. At the Louvre, he joined the Bittensor Track at Proof of Talk. One of the strongest Bittensor meetups he has ever seen. His words. The praise that matters from someone who has watched the ecosystem grow from inside it.

Johann Kerbrat @JohannKerbrat , SVP and GM of Crypto at @RobinhoodApp, helped build the infrastructure to tokenize any asset, from any exchange, for any customer. Starting with 2,000 US stocks in Europe. At the Louvre, he brought that work to the Main Stage panel Scaling the Distribution Layer for Tokenised Markets. Watch the full panel to hear where he thinks this goes next.

Financial transformation is no longer a promise - it's a reality. In that context, @notbanklatam took part in one of the most influential conversations in the blockchain and fintech ecosystem during Proof of Talk 2026 in Paris. The company's participation reflected the growth of an organization that continues to develop digital financial solutions for a new generation of users, combining innovation, technology, and trust into a platform with global reach. Throughout the event, Notbank strengthened relationships with global industry leaders, explored new strategic partnerships, and shared the vision driving its growth: building a financial ecosystem where using digital money becomes increasingly simple, secure, and accessible. More than simply attending an international event, Notbank's presence at Proof of Talk sparked high-impact conversations, created new collaboration opportunities, and reinforced its position as one of Latin America's most promising players in the global fintech and blockchain ecosystem.

Tom Lee: Why Ethereum Could Become a $5 Trillion Network On July 7, 2026, Tom Lee @fundstrat stated in an interview with the New Era Finance Podcast that at its current valuation of around $300 billion, Ethereum is grossly undervalued. As traditional assets like stocks and real estate gradually become composable, monetized, and digitized, running on Ethereum and other blockchains, he believes Ethereum could easily become a $1 trillion to $5 trillion network in the next few years. Regarding how Ethereum captures value, Tom Lee compared it to land; if everything happens on Ethereum, then Ethereum is equivalent to the land of the digital world, making it the core asset that should appreciate over time.

Tom Lee thinks 2027 could deliver "the biggest stock market gains in our lifetime." Not a vibe. He walked me through the actual mechanism: Right now the market punishes every company spending on AI — the capex shows up as cost, not return. His call is that this flips. "2027 is my best guess is the year. Corporate profit margins dramatically expand because of AI." He uses his own firm as the proof: "we use a lot of AI and bots, and we're growing without having to hire people." When your highest cost is people, and your revenue still climbs, that's margin expansion. Then the second leg: "AI, if it's productive, is disinflationary." Falling costs mean central banks can ease. Dovish policy plus real profit growth is how you get higher earnings and higher multiples at the same time. That's his call, not mine — but I like that it's mechanical, not hopeful. Right now the market is pricing AI as an expense. He's arguing 2027 is when it shows up as profit.

Did you know Taostats started as a spreadsheet that helped early Bittensor investors track the incentive layer? Listen to Mog (@mogmachine), founder of @taostats, tell the story of how he stumbled onto Bittensor, and how Taostats grew from a simple spreadsheet into the top block explorer in the network. 👇 Cc: @TheBlockCo @proofoftalk

Six months ago Ethereum was almost $5,000. Today it's under $2,000. When I put that to Tom Lee in Paris, his response was: "Has anything really changed?" Tom Lee (@fundstrat) is one of Wall Street's most-followed forecasters. While the market wrote Ethereum off, he made the case to me that it's one of the most mispriced assets in the world right now. His framing stuck with me. Gold is worth ~$22 trillion. The stock market over $100 trillion. Real estate ~$300 trillion. And to make those assets composable and move them on-chain, he argues, you run them on Ethereum, which sits at a fraction of that. "If Ethereum is at 300 billion, it's grossly undervalued." We cover: - Why he calls this "crypto spring", fundamentals stronger than ever while price lags - Why tokenization is "not even a question," and what happens when Wall Street actually moves on-chain - Why AI agents carrying wallets and making payments is, in his words, "pretty close to 100%" within three years - Why he can see Ethereum as a 1, 2, or even $5 trillion network "in the next few years" - What most investors are missing at exactly the wrong moment That's his call, not mine, but it's one of the clearest bull cases I've heard on why the biggest move may still be ahead. Full conversation is live. 👇 Is Ethereum the most undervalued asset in crypto right now?

every industry leader I've asked in the last 6 months has named the same meta to chase @Jennasis just made it unanimous full Between Us episode with the 5x founder now inside CoinFund is live, and she doesn't hold back "most VCs aren't qualified to give founders advice" (her words, said from years of industry experience) capital allocation, reading decks, business models that dont exist and technical jargon - conceptually, ai could take over all of these areas, but will it? has the industry made anyhting valueable enough for you want to want to pay to be a member of? Jenna brought an alternative view that crypto has worked the other way, with airdrops and free money leading to nil retention and an all too familar result Chapters: 00:09 The privilege of failure 01:11 Will AI agents replace capital allocators? 02:54 Is crypto drunk on airdrops? 05:28 Why most VCs aren't qualified to give advice 07:48 The bifurcation of venture capital 10:38 Privacy and freedom in 2036 link in replies 🎬 wdyt on the airdrop point, necessary bootstrapping or free money that bought us nothing

When markets start changing, the numbers are first to show it. Together with @proofoftalk, we analyzed 200+ startup applications and found a clear shift: founders and investors are converging on the same priorities, emphasizing commercial traction and long-term value creation.

“For me, the breakthrough moment is around global access.” At @proofoftalk 2026, @XenBH of @base told @2084Richardson that anyone with a phone can now access dollars through USDC. He says the same is coming for stocks, bonds, commodities, and more. Watch the full interview 👇