From Institutional Finance To Agentic AI: Inside The Lineup For HSC Conference Seoul 2026
The upcoming HSC Conference in Seoul is ready to carry collectively an distinctive roster of individuals, uniting world leaders from monetary establishments, crypto funding funds, and know-how corporations to discover the tendencies and alternatives defining the subsequent section of digital asset adoption in Asia-Pacific and past.
Taking place on October 1, 2026, at Novotel Ambassador Seoul Gangnam, the convention will convene founders, executives, and buyers on the intersection of blockchain infrastructure, tokenization, and on-chain monetary markets, inspecting the forces shaping the subsequent section of digital finance, from funding and market construction to the rising convergence of blockchain and AI.
Among the notable taking part corporations within the Seoul version are S&P Global, Galaxy Digital, Ethereum Institutional, Maelstrom, Canary Capital, C² Ventures, Animoca Brands, Offchain Labs, ZKsync, Monad Foundation, Steakhouse Financial, Cactus Custody, Ledger Enterprise, Bybit, Tether, Base, BNB Chain, and Ether.fi, amongst many others.
Here is a take a look at a few of the convention’s high individuals.
Animoca Brands
Few corporations have executed extra to construct the infrastructure of digital possession than Animoca Brands. The Hong Kong-based blockchain developer and crypto investor reported $314 million in income for 2024, a 12% year-over-year improve, with $165 million generated via its digital asset advisory enterprise and holdings throughout greater than 600 Web3 corporations, together with stakes in Consensys and Kraken. In November 2025, the corporate filed for a Nasdaq itemizing by way of a reverse merger with Currenc Group, a transaction anticipated to create what Animoca’s co-founder and government chairman Yat Siu described because the world’s first publicly listed, diversified digital belongings conglomerate, spanning DeFi, AI, NFTs, gaming, and DeSci. By May 2026, the deal carried a nominal valuation of $8.7 billion based mostly on Currenc’s market capitalisation, with the transaction focusing on a Q3 2026 shut. For these centered on the place Web3 funding, digital possession, and mainstream adoption converge, Animoca Brands is as near a definitive reply because the business has produced.
S&P Global
No conventional monetary establishment has moved extra intentionally into the digital asset house in 2026 than S&P Global. Recent milestones embrace tokenizing the iBoxx U.S. Treasuries Index on the blockchain in March 2026, the primary time a serious index supplier made a monetary benchmark accessible as a local digital asset, in addition to launching a co-branded S&P Kaiko Digital Asset Indices suite for world, 24/7 digital asset markets in September 2026. The firm has additionally revealed Stablecoin Stability Assessments and issued its first credit standing for a DeFi protocol. Most lately, S&P Global agreed to amass good contract safety agency OpenZeppelin, increasing its digital belongings technique into onchain threat evaluation, a transfer that brings the safety requirements behind the world’s main stablecoins, tokenized funds, and DeFi protocols beneath the S&P umbrella. For anybody in search of to grasp how institutional-grade requirements are being utilized to on-chain finance, S&P Global is the clearest window into that course of at present working at scale.
Galaxy Digital
Galaxy Digital listed on the Nasdaq in May 2026, ending a years-long dual-listing association on the Toronto Stock Exchange that had been necessitated by U.S. regulatory warning round its crypto-centric enterprise. Founded by Mike Novogratz, the agency has advanced from a crypto monetary providers firm right into a multi-engine platform spanning asset administration, buying and selling, and information middle infrastructure. Its flagship Helios information middle in West Texas is being constructed out for AI and high-performance computing workloads, with CoreWeave occupying vital capability within the facility, putting Galaxy on the intersection of crypto and the AI infrastructure growth. The Nasdaq-listed agency stands to learn from continued digital asset market restoration, an increasing ETF market, and information middle revenues, a mixture analysts have referred to as a multi-engine development mannequin. With one of many deepest analysis operations within the business and a rising institutional footprint throughout Asia, Galaxy Digital brings each market authority and strategic breadth to the Seoul agenda.
Maelstrom
Maelstrom is the household workplace of Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, investing throughout the crypto and Web3 ecosystem. Co-founded with Managing Partner Akshat Vaidya in 2023, the fund takes a affected person capital strategy emphasizing high quality initiatives over quick deployment, a philosophy that has outlined its portfolio technique since inception. In 2025, Maelstrom moved to boost $250 million for its debut personal fairness fund, Maelstrom Equity Fund I, focusing on 4 to 6 acquisitions of medium-sized corporations within the crypto house, with a deal with buying and selling infrastructure, information analytics, and blockchain service suppliers. Entering 2026, Arthur Hayes positioned the fund at near-maximum threat publicity, betting on a liquidity wave pushed by U.S. deficit spending and leaning into privateness cash and rising DeFi tokens as his highest-conviction performs. With Arthur Hayes additionally delivering a solo handle at HSC Conference Seoul, Maelstrom represents one of the vital carefully watched views in energetic crypto investing in the present day.
Offchain Labs
Offchain Labs is the unique developer of Arbitrum, the market-leading Ethereum Layer 2 community, and in 2025 and 2026, it has been shifting decisively past infrastructure. Arbitrum has processed over 2.1 billion lifetime transactions on Arbitrum One and reached $20 billion in whole worth secured in 2025, persistently rating as the most important Ethereum Layer 2 by market share. In August 2025, Offchain Labs acquired ZeroDev, a number one good account infrastructure supplier, marking its evolution from a chain-level infrastructure firm to a full-stack developer platform with good account abstraction now central to how establishments and shopper purposes onboard customers. Most lately, Robinhood chosen Arbitrum as its blockchain of alternative for bringing tokenized U.S. shares to European buyers, a landmark vote of confidence in Arbitrum’s institutional capabilities. Co-founder Ed Felten, a former Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer, brings each technical depth and coverage credibility to the Seoul stage.
Ethereum Institutional
Ethereum Institutional launched on July 1, 2026 as an unbiased nonprofit devoted to accelerating institutional adoption of Ethereum, its Layer 2 networks, and the broader ecosystem. Founded by David Walsh, Matthew Dawson, and Marius Smith, three former members of the Ethereum Foundation’s enterprise workforce, the group positions itself as a impartial, devoted level of contact for banks, asset managers, custodians, and sovereign establishments evaluating Ethereum for tokenization, stablecoins, and on-chain finance. Anchor funding comes from BitMine, SharpLink, and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin. According to Token Terminal, Ethereum holds practically 58% of the tokenized RWA market, and the community accounts for about half of the $311 billion stablecoin market. Ethereum Institutional exists to translate that market dominance into institutional relationships — and its presence at HSC Conference Seoul displays how critically the Ethereum ecosystem is now pursuing TradFi engagement.
Who’s Coming to Seoul: A Conference Built Across Every Layer of Digital Finance
The HSC Conference Seoul 2026 will carry collectively a wide-ranging forged of buyers, builders, protocol builders, and institutional operators, every representing a definite layer of the digital asset financial system because it converges with world capital markets.
Capital allocation and funding views will anchor the opening of the day. Maelstrom and C² Ventures carry energetic crypto fund views to the Investments Today panel alongside Canary Capital and Portal Ventures, collectively providing a direct window into how skilled capital is being deployed throughout digital belongings and rising blockchain alternatives within the present cycle. A solo keynote handle by Maelstrom’s CIO will set the mental tone for the day’s funding dialog.
Institutional finance and controlled infrastructure take centre stage via S&P Global, Galaxy Digital, and Ethereum Institutional, whose representatives lead DeFi and digital belongings technique, Asia institutional operations, and institutional ecosystem growth respectively. Their joint presence on the Institutional Adoption of Digital Assets panel, alongside IBM Digital Asset, Ether.fi, and Soter Insure, makes it one of the vital substantive conversations on the agenda, mapping how conventional monetary establishments are shifting from pilot programmes to operational deployment of blockchain-based monetary infrastructure.
Blockchain infrastructure and protocol growth are represented by a notably numerous set of individuals. ZKsync, Monad Foundation, Base, Sonic Labs, and BNB Chain every carry distinct views on scalability, developer tooling, and the circumstances required for Web3 infrastructure to succeed in mainstream throughput. Hashgraph provides an enterprise blockchain perspective to the Mainstream Web3 Adoption panel, grounding the infrastructure dialogue in actual institutional deployment.
The tokenisation and RWA section attracts on a few of the house’s most operationally energetic individuals. RedStone, Atom Finance, Hypernative, Dfns, and Shinhan Bank collectively strategy on-chain asset infrastructure from complementary angles, from oracle-layer information integrity and tokenisation technique to institutional safety and the angle of a serious Korean financial institution already energetic in world blockchain enterprise. Custody and key administration infrastructure shall be addressed by Cactus Custody and Ledger Enterprise, masking each institutional-grade custody structure and the {hardware} safety layer underpinning asset administration at scale.
Stablecoin and funds dynamics shall be explored via Tether, StraitsX, Steakhouse Financial, Stable, and makebanc, collectively mapping what comes after stablecoins’ rise to funds dominance, from regional cost rails and APAC market penetration to DeFi-native monetary design. The DeFi infrastructure perspective is bolstered by STON.fi’s keynote on cross-chain liquidity, whereas Chainlink brings the oracle and cross-chain connectivity layer into the Mainstream Web3 Adoption dialogue.
Rounding out the programme, the Agentic AI panel brings collectively MetaMask, AI PET, Velvet, AEON, Rewardy Wallet, and TiDB of PingCAP, grounding the trillion-dollar agentic financial system thesis in actual infrastructure, cost rails, and shopper software growth. The roundtable on the agentic financial system, that includes Animoca Brands, Offchain Labs, Zero Gravity Labs, and Serotonin, ensures that the strategic and philosophical stakes of autonomous on-chain brokers are debated by these actively constructing the underlying circumstances for them to exist.
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