TOKEN2049 Singapore to be Held in 2026: Major Financial Firms Gather Including Nasdaq and BlackRock

The speakers for TOKEN2049 Singapore, scheduled to take place from October 7 to 8, 2026, have been confirmed. Heavyweights from traditional finance, such as Nasdaq, BlackRock, and Franklin Templeton, will stand alongside executives from Hyperliquid, Solana, Polygon, Base, and Ethereum-related projects. The agenda will focus on the role of institutional investors in DeFi (Decentralized Finance) and on-chain market infrastructure.

The official speaker list includes Adena Friedman, Chair and CEO of Nasdaq; Nikil Sharma, Digital Assets Director at BlackRock; Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton; and Amy Oldenburg, Digital Assets Strategy Lead at Morgan Stanley. These prominent figures from traditional financial institutions will engage in direct dialogue with crypto-native operators during the event program. Adena Friedman, Chair and CEO of Nasdaq, and Mary Callahan Erdoes.

From the developer and builder side, Jeff Yang from Hyperliquid Labs, Jesse Pollak from Base, Lily Liu from Solana Foundation, Sandeep Nailwal from Polygon Foundation, and Joseph Lubin related to Ethereum and MetaMask will participate. Additionally, executives from Aave, Ethena, Synthetix, StarkWare, and Offchain Labs will also be present, covering a wide range of fields from DeFi applications to blockchain networks and scaling infrastructure.

The overlap between these two camps will be highlighted in a session titled "DeFi's Institutional Breakthrough." This session will feature Stani Kulechov from Aave Labs, Guy Young from Ethena Labs, and Kain Warwick, founder of Infinex and Synthetix, with Lobby Peterson from a16z crypto serving as the moderator.

In a session focused on Hyperliquid, a platform specialized in derivatives, CEO Jeff Yang will take the main stage. These lineups will substantiate the main agenda of the discussions.

When financial institutions evaluate on-chain products, custody, execution, and operational control remain critical issues on the infrastructure. These considerations are separate from the protocols themselves and form the core of the discussion on how key custody and execution for institutional investors fit into on-chain finance.

Official Agenda for TOKEN2049 Singapore: Emphasizing DeFi and Market Design

The schedule for October 7 will kick off with "Welcome to TOKEN2049 Singapore" at the OKX main stage from 9:00 to 9:10 AM. This will be followed by a keynote speech titled "The Open Source Network State" by Balaji Srinivasan from 9:10 to 9:30 AM, after which the agenda will shift to investment, decentralized finance, and trading infrastructure.

"DeFi's Institutional Breakthrough" is scheduled from 10:20 to 11:00 AM at the OKX main stage. Following that, from 11:00 to 11:35 AM, the session "Hyperliquid: Rebuilding Finance from First Principles" will take place. Other sessions include "Wall St. 2049: Everything Trades, Nobody Sleeps," "The New Trilemma: Confidential, Compliant, Composable," and "Onchain Options, Derivatives and the US Market."

The range of topics is extensive, with privacy and compliance being discussed alongside derivatives and 24/7 trading, while the DeFi panel for institutional investors will question how existing financial participants can engage with on-chain markets. Additionally, on October 8, there will be a fully invitation-only private event called "TOKEN2049 Institutional" aimed at senior leaders in global finance and digital assets.

The emergence of Hyperliquid reflects the increasing overlap between cryptocurrency exchanges and professional market infrastructure. Dedicated discussions about the platform are planned, and separate reports have also examined the handling of Hyperliquid data on Bloomberg terminals. However, these facts do not directly substantiate the commercial relationships between the companies participating in the conference.

Tokenization is also a key theme in the dialogue around finance for institutional investors. Transitioning securities onto blockchain rails has the potential to fundamentally change the way assets are issued and traded.