Watch + listen

A panel of fintech and financial leaders discusses how regulatory clarity, stablecoins, and tokenized securities are accelerating institutional adoption. While the Clarity Act and SEC rulemaking may take 12-18 months, institutions are shipping products now under existing law.

Panel at Istanbul Blockchain Week examines institutional adoption of blockchain for cross-border payments. Key barrier: integrating new infrastructure with legacy systems at scale. Market makers discuss capital fragmentation, payment companies reveal treasury challenges, and infrastructure providers show how stablecoins solve operational pain.

Panel at Istanbul Blockchain Week examines trust barriers blocking AI agents from accessing institutional capital. Experts discuss legal liability, security guardrails, on-chain infrastructure, and how low-cost blockchains enable autonomous financial systems.

MoneyGram launches MGUSD stablecoin on Stellar, enabling self-custody for its 60M global customers. CEO Anthony Sohu and MZero's Luca Prosperi discuss the infrastructure strategy behind the modernization: unified payment rails, modular architecture with Bridge and Fireblock partnerships, and how instant 24/7/365 settlement reduces costs.

Aid organizations in sanctioned regions use stablecoins to bypass broken financial infrastructure. OSUM pays Syrian hospital staff via Digibank's digital wallet and Stellar's bulk payment tool, cutting costs to 2% and delivery from months to minutes.

MoneyGram CEO Anthony Suhu discusses the company's pivot to stablecoin rails. The global payments giant announced a partnership with Kraken allowing users to move crypto to fiat via MoneyGram's 500,000 locations in ~100 countries, powered by USDC.

Denelle Dixon, Stellar's Chief Legal and Policy Officer, discusses MoneyGram's MGUSD stablecoin launch and the DTCC's Canton integration with Stellar. The interview covers institutional adoption through regulatory collaboration, on/off-ramp infrastructure, and tokenization. Distribution matters more to institutions than blockchain choice.

Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs saw $3.2 billion in combined outflows over recent weeks, prompting media alarm. But analysts see this as normal capital rotation within a $100+ billion institutional market, not panic. Regulatory clarity on stablecoins remains the larger unlock for institutional adoption.

Crypto's political power play: Fair Shake PAC spent $8M on recent primaries unseating crypto critics, while DTCC integrates with Stellar and the regulatory landscape shifts.

DTCC, the major financial market infrastructure handling $114 trillion in assets, partnered with Stellar Foundation to tokenize DTC-custodied assets including Russell 1000 stocks, ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries, launching H1 2027. Hosts discuss how traditional finance is adopting public blockchains, regulatory hurdles with SEC guidance delays, and the multi-chain future.

Three fintech founders—Tiago from Revool, João from Picnic, and Rob from Pods—discuss how neobanks are scaling by hiding rather than promoting blockchain infrastructure. The winning formula: crypto under the hood. Dollar App succeeds where other platforms fail because it never mentions blockchain to users, making stablecoins as simple as traditional payments.

Candace Kelly, Chief Legal and Policy Officer at the Stellar Development Foundation, discusses how Stellar is becoming financial infrastructure for the global economy. The interview covers the network's $2 billion in tokenized real-world assets, stablecoins' role in emerging markets, and the regulatory landscape. Kelly shares her journey from the Department of Justice to SDF, highlighting how Stellar enables financial inclusion through institutional partnerships.

María Ariza discusses blockchain's role in modernizing traditional financial markets, focusing on post-trade settlement and asset tokenization. By enabling atomic settlement, blockchain reduces friction in trading infrastructure and operational costs. Tokenization also democratizes access to previously expensive investment classes like private equity and real estate by letting smaller investors fractionally participate.

Bermuda's premier and central bank CEO discuss how government and regulator collaboration enables industry innovation. The 'Triangle approach' brought Digital Bermuda dollar, Kraken/Franklin Templeton partnerships, and tokenized reinsurance to market. The regulatory philosophy: be clear on the rules, then let companies play.

Financial exclusion is a security risk. Candace Kelly, Stellar's chief legal officer, explains how blockchain reduces that risk, with examples from Ukrainian refugee aid and Haiti's unbanked population.

SCF Demo Day showcased six mainnet-live projects on May 2026, marking a milestone: 50 SCF-funded projects have launched on Stellar mainnet in 2026. Across three rounds, SCF has awarded $7.7M to approximately 75 projects.

Stellar Philippines is establishing a builder-focused developer ecosystem in the island nation through university bootcamps, hackathons like the ongoing IPAC event, and developer bounties. Led by country lead Nelson Lumbres and tech lead Armelin Obingar, the initiative draws from their prior success building ICP Philippines into a community of thousands of developers. Rather than chasing speculative investment, they emphasize building technology infrastructure during market downturns—positioning Philippine developers for first-mover advantage.

Dave Taylor, CEO of Etherfuse, discusses how navigating Mexico's regulatory framework became a strategic advantage. Working with the CNBV through the FinTech law sandbox model, Etherfuse secured a no-action letter clarifying that sovereign debt tokens are not securities, enabling secondary markets and retail access. The regulatory friction, while slow, created a competitive moat that few startups are willing to navigate.

Two InstaAwards recipients presented week 2 progress updates. Sozu Capital, a fintech application using Stellar for self-custodial payments and decentralized lending via Blend, redesigned its landing page and plans testnet transactions with NGO partners. ArcusX shipped critical API consistency fixes, extended its platform, and crossed 300+ active members.

Daniel Vogel, founder of Bitso, discusses his vision for fintech in Mexico and LATAM. Built around solving real customer problems through technology, Bitso now handles 10%+ of US-Mexico remittances with an institutional-first adoption strategy.

Kaan from SDF hosts a Stellar Developers Meeting featuring April from Kolkata discussing Route 14, a ZK privacy toolkit for Soroban. The discussion covers Stellar's native BLS 12-381 support (CAP 0059) that makes production-grade zero-knowledge verification cheaper than any other blockchain, Route 14's architecture as a shared verification registry, and upcoming Turkey-based hackathons.

Shweta and Shomik discuss their two-and-a-half-year journey from their first Risein hackathon in Bangalore to founding Hypertron, a platform automating compliance and payments setup for blockchain businesses. The spotlight explores how community, real-time mentorship, and structured residency programs unlock success in Web3.

SDF CEO Denelle Dixon explains why LATAM fintechs like Felix Pago, Alfred, and Airtm build on Stellar: the warm, supportive ecosystem and shared focus on payments as the killer app, not blockchain hype. Conviction in cross-border payments is now validated by $65B+ annual remittance volume.

Circle's CCTP (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol) launched on Stellar, enabling native 1:1 USDC bridging across 17 blockchains. This technical walkthrough demonstrates the implementation with working code: burning USDC on one chain authorizes minting on another. Includes open source examples and testnet demo.