Opening Speech of the first edition of The Agora by Kaiko, held at the JW Marriott in Cannes, March 2026.

Perpetual futures have quietly become one of the most traded derivatives instruments in the world, yet most of traditional finance still doesn't fully understand them. Sitting between CFDs and dated futures, perps offer continuous exposure, transparent price formation, and capital efficiency that is increasingly attracting institutional attention beyond their crypto-native roots. But growth brings hard questions. What does proper market governance look like when liquidation cascades can wipe out hundreds of millions in minutes? How do regulated venues build infrastructure that protects participants without sacrificing the speed and accessibility that made perps compelling in the first place? And as demand grows for perps on equities, indices, and macro products. How far can this market structure scale?. Moderated by John Motzel of Kaiko, this panel features JJ Kinahan of CBOE and Josh Barraclough of One Trading; two operators with distinct approaches to clearing, regulation, and product design. In a candid conversation about what perpetual futures are, what they're becoming, and what the rest of the market needs to understand about them.

As digital assets continue to reshape financial markets, tokenized funds are emerging as key bridges between traditional finance and blockchain-based infrastructure. These vehicles promise to combine the familiarity, liquidity, and regulatory structure of traditional investment products with the efficiency, transparency, and programmability of tokenization.For investors, this raises an important question: what real advantages do these structures offer? Do they meaningfully improve access, reduce costs, or enhance liquidity? How do they compare to traditional funds and ETFs in terms of risk, transparency, and performance? And what trade-offs or new risks should investors be aware of, particularly around custody, regulation, and market structure?. The panel brings together industry experts to unpack how tokenized funds and ETPs are being designed, distributed, and adopted. We’ll explore whether these products represent a genuine evolution in investment vehicles, or simply a new wrapper around existing strategies and what that means for investors navigating this rapidly evolving landscape.

More info coming soon

This panel brings together leaders from top Layer 1 ecosystems to confront the multi-chain reality. This unique conversation dissects the intense competition for institutional dominance and explores what truly drives adoption, with a focus on the importance of privacy as a differentiator. The discussion will examine how platforms are meeting the compliance and security needs for critical financial use cases and assess the necessity of collaboration rather than interoperability, as traditional finance and digital assets converge.

The global financial landscape faces a critical friction point: while trading has evolved into a 24/7 digital reality, the collateral powering those trades remains trapped in antiquated 9-to-5 settlement cycles. This panel brings together industry leaders from DTCC, Tradeweb, DRW, and Digital Asset to discuss the transition from "end-of-day" constraints to a real-time, interoperable financial operating system. We will explore how moving collateral 24/7 fundamentally reshapes risk management and slashes the massive "buffer" cash firms currently hold to navigate T+1 settlement gaps. Our experts move beyond the "back-office" label to demonstrate how automating clunky reconciliations and substitutions directly fuels front-office profitability and market access. By addressing the non-negotiable requirements of institutional privacy and formal governance, the discussion maps the practical infrastructure steps needed to bridge traditional bank ledgers with digital networks. From tokenized assets to the latest milestones in cross-border repo, this session cuts through the hype to address the "must-haves" for staying competitive in a high-speed market.

More info coming soon

Join Bloomberg and Kaiko for a fireside chat on how institutional finance is moving onto blockchain rails, and what it takes to support this shift with trusted data, analytics, and scalable infrastructure. The discussion will explore Bloomberg’s digital asset strategy, the convergence of TradFi and DeFi, and how partnerships like Kaiko and Canton are helping make tokenized markets more usable, integrated, and institutional-ready.

As tokenization moves into production, one core question is becoming unavoidable: what counts as true settlement finality in digital markets? For decades, the safest standard was delivery versus payment in central bank money. In 2026, that model is being challenged by the rise of regulated stablecoins, wholesale CBDCs, and tokenized market infrastructure. This panel examines the growing divergence between the US and Europe. The US is advancing tokenized securities under a regulated stablecoin framework, while Europe is pairing private stablecoin rules with the launch of wholesale CBDC infrastructure through Pontes. Against this backdrop, leading market institutions are building across both traditional and digital rails, and must make practical decisions about how cash will move in tokenized markets. The discussion will focus on the trade-offs shaping the next phase of market structure: atomic settlement versus netting efficiency, private innovation versus monetary sovereignty, interoperability versus fragmentation, and the broader EUR-USD dynamic in digital finance. Ultimately, this is not just a debate about stablecoins versus CBDCs, but about the future architecture of global capital markets.

In this conversation, Stani Kulechov joins moderator Casper Johansen to explore how new market infrastructure like Aave V4 is enabling scalable onchain credit markets by unifying liquidity while isolating risk. The discussion will focus on how this unlocks new financial products—from structured credit to RWA-backed lending—and what still needs to happen for institutions to participate at scale.

In this fireside chat, Elodie de Marchi from Kaiko, and Ophelia Snyder, will explore the structural forces currently shaping the digital asset landscape. The conversation addresses the evolving role of crypto in investment strategies and examines the critical capital markets infrastructure required to unlock the next phase of institutional adoption. Drawing from extensive industry experience, the speakers also share firsthand perspectives on the realities of building and scaling businesses within a highly dynamic environment.

The narrative of decentralized finance (DeFi) versus centralized finance (CeFi) has defined the digital asset industry for years. But in 2026, that binary is dissolving before our eyes. Major banks are issuing regulated stablecoins directly into DeFi protocols. Institutional investors access on-chain lending through Luxembourg AIFs. JPMorgan offers crypto custody. Tokenized T-bills, gold, and even bank collateral circulate on public blockchains. The question is no longer whether convergence will happen; it's already happening, but what it means for the future of financial infrastructure. This panel brings together three leaders operating at the convergence frontier. Societe Generale Forge has deployed MiCA-compliant euro and dollar stablecoins on public chains, partnering with Deutsche Börse to embed them into Europe's core settlement infrastructure. Morpho has grown into the leading DeFi lending protocol by users, serving not just crypto natives but also enterprises, including Coinbase, Gemini, and SG-Forge itself. BELEM Capital provides institutional access to these DeFi protocols through fully regulated, non-custodial structures using multi-party computation technology. Together, they represent convergence in practice: traditional bank issuance flowing through decentralized protocols, accessed via regulated institutional vehicles. We'll explore whether this convergence represents a fundamental reimagining of finance, where assets circulate faster, collateral becomes interoperable across silos, and outdated IT systems give way to programmable infrastructure, or simply traditional finance using blockchain as another technology rail. With MiCA now implemented and institutional adoption accelerating, the obstacles to convergence are no longer regulatory but operational and philosophical. Is the DeFi/CeFi distinction still meaningful, or has it become irrelevant?

Closing remarks on the first edition of The Agora by Kaiko, held at the JW Marriott in Cannes, March 2026.