It was an early start on an overcast day here in the City of London. The venue is exceptional, the same one as we attended at London Fintech Week many, many years ago. Today, revitalised, with lots of energy, the third Digital Assets Forum kicked off.
Refreshments and the exhibition area were very welcoming as you enter the building. The place is busy, the event sold out a few days ago. Even with crypto crashing around us, the enthusiasm of attendees hasn’t been dented. Cardano, the main sponsor, is highly visible, both on the stages and with their stand just in the entrance area.
Victoria Gago and Daniel Salmeron took to the Main Stage to welcome attendees just after 9am. They shared some of the most important themes since the last Digital Assets Forum with attendees.
What Happened since DAF2
- U.S. GENIUS Act becomes law
- Prediction Markets become the next big thing
- Tokenization of equities takes off
- Luxembourg sovereign fund invests in Bitcoin
- Institutional exposure to Bitcoin ETFs grew 3x
- U.S. established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve
- MiCA fully came into effect across EU
- 9 European banks form a consortium to issue a euro-stablecoin
- Stablecoins Market Cap reached all-time highs
- Back to fundamentals and infrastructure
Victoria was quick to point out that there were now actually 12 European banks that make up the euro stablecoin consortium. Yesterday BBVA from Spain joined the consortium too, with DZ Bank and BNP Paribas joining too.
The scene was set, the first panel was up next.
What are the Opportunities for Crypto Allocation in 2026?
The first panel is always key to any event, moderated by Carl Szantyr, Managing Partner at Blockstone Capital, the panelists didn’t disappoint. Carl was joined by Barry Thomas, Partner & Managing Director at Forteus, Christopher Siedentopf, Head of Business Development at Qapture Investment, and Ray Dillet, Head of Financial Institutions, Europe, Bitwise.
The gentlemen covered a wide range of topics but talk refocused on stablecoins for a lot of the discussion. Ray, who has a deep background working in the hedge fund industry, was particularly bullish on how stablecoins have taken off.
“Stablecoins are up 74% year on year,” Ray shared with delegates. “We’ve had trillions of dollars in turnover from stablecoins so far in 2026. When I look at the market and see what’s happening, I see the plumbing is being upgraded. Everything in financial markets is being improved. Stablecoins are just tokenized payments. They’re faster, cheaper, and more efficient. Tokenization is upgrading everything you are doing to make it faster, cheaper, and more efficient.”
The panelists went on to discuss how DeFi is one of the sectors that they are seeing the most promise in going into 2026, But even when talking about DeFi, talk returned to the topic of stablecoins again.
Ray shared more stats with the audience, this time about Tether which he said was the seventh largest net buyer of treasuries in 2025. Tether was also the largest non-central bank buyer of gold last year, as well as holding around 96,000 bitcoins.
“This is just one stablecoin provider,” Ray highlighted. “They’re fundamentally changing what’s happening and below these the blockchains that they are running on.”
He pointed to how ethereum now serves as Visa’s primary settlement layer for high-value and security-sensitive transactions, as an example of how stablecoins were being scaled at the leading payment company.
Talk continued, Real-world assets, tokenized treasuries, the audience was given a deepdive into the hottest topics going on in crypto today.
We will keep you posted. Excellent event, great speakers, hoping for more of the same.
Author: Andy Samu
#DAF3 #DigitalAssetsForum
See Also:
What is the GENIUS Act? Banks and Fintechs Rush Towards Stablecoins | Disruption Banking
