Summer’s here, and June gave Ethereum plenty to unpack. The Ethereum Foundation reorganized around a leaner, “multi-node” future, prediction markets went mainstream on World Cup fever, and onchain credit landed one of DeFi’s largest raises ever. Let’s dig in.

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⚡ Highlights

1. The EF Reorg, and Ethereum Development’s Multi-Node Future

On June 23, the Ethereum Foundation confirmed the end of a months-long reorganization: 54 people cut, roughly 20% of staff, with Vitalik noting an ~40% budget reduction. It closes an arc that ran from Tomasz Stańczak’s exit as co-ED in February through Hsiao-Wei Wang stepping down on June 18, with Bastian Aue now the key interim executive lead.

The EF is now organized around five clusters: protocol, access, user, community, and institutional, with operations and management alongside, mapped to the layers of the stack. It’s March’s Mandate made concrete: the EF describing itself as “one of many nodes” and a “technological protocol steward,” narrowing its scope under a stated principle of subtraction.

The growth work moved outward rather than away. Five former senior EF researchers: Ansgar Dietrichs (ED), Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf, and Julian Ma, launched EthLabs, an independent non-profit R&D lab whose anchor funders are BitMine, SharpLink, and Joe Lubin, with SNZ, Octant, Anchorage Digital, and Konstantin Lomashuk as contributors and a broad community of individual backers from across the ecosystem. Its stated mission: make Ethereum “the settlement layer of the global economy.” Alongside EthLabs, a wider set of ETH-aligned orgs has stepped up to carry work the EF pulled back from: the Argot Collective, Etherealize, the Economic Zone, and the Applications Guild.

Why it matters: the EF has limited resources, so a leaner, more focused foundation is a healthy thing. It can concentrate on the protocol’s hardest-to-replicate properties while a growing set of ETH-aligned organizations drives adoption and growth. That points to a more mature, more decentralized ecosystem. The multi-node model asks more of coordination than a single steward did, and for now the tone across these orgs is collaborative.

Further reading:

• Ethereum Development’s Multi-Node Future - GSR Weekly Update, June 29th, 2026

• The EF’s new structure - ethereum foundation blog

• Vitalik’s post on budget cut

2. Polymarket and the World Cup

Prediction markets had a landmark June. Weekly volume peaked near $15B in late June, roughly thirty times the same week a year ago.

Polymarket’s World Cup winner market has traded roughly $3.8B, its biggest market ever, and one of the largest single contracts any prediction market has run. The scale has turned single bets into spectacle: on-chain, anyone can watch the biggest wallets move in real time. Polymarket started as a crypto product; this looks more like consumer infrastructure.

Reports say Meta is building a standalone prediction-market app, Arena, modeled on Polymarket and Kalshi but launching with points instead of real money to sidestep the regulatory thicket. It can funnel users straight from Facebook and Instagram, a distribution advantage no rival can match. The bigger prize is owning prediction markets as a consumer format, a real-time social feed for hundreds of millions to weigh in on sports, politics, and news.

Why it matters: the World Cup is the clearest proof yet that prediction markets have gone mainstream. The tournament pulled hundreds of millions in real-money interest onto a single event. And because Polymarket settles on-chain, that consumer moment flows through ETH-aligned infrastructure. Transparent settlement, public wallets, and real-time position tracking create an experience that traditional sportsbooks can’t replicate.

Further reading:

• Prediction Markets Hit Escape Velocity - GSR Weekly Update, June 29th, 2026

• Charts: Prediction markets just posted their third straight record-setting week - a16zcrypto

🪐 Global Ecosystem Update

🔧 Scaling, UX & Hardness

• Ethereum’s next major upgrade, Glamsterdam, is progressing toward public testnet. Its flagship feature, enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS), moves proposer-builder separation into the protocol, reducing reliance on external relays and off-protocol trust assumptions while enabling trustless builder payments. The design also paves the way for larger execution payloads and higher L1 throughput over time.

• Censorship-resistance: FOCIL (fork-choice enforced inclusion lists) is nearing a final spec, targeted for the Hegotá upgrade (2027). Once live, it strengthens Ethereum’s censorship resistance by forcing blocks to include eligible transactions, so builders and proposers can’t quietly exclude them. We broke down how it works in FOCIL 101.

💸 DeFi, Stablecoins & Payments

• Morpho raises $175M for onchain credit, one of DeFi's largest raises ever. Its vault architecture turns Morpho from a lending app into an asset-management layer, where exchanges, wallets, and asset managers offer credit products without building the stack themselves.

• Coinbase × Ethena: Coinbase is bringing Ethena’s savings products (USDe/sUSDe) to its 100M+ users and made a strategic ENA investment, becoming Ethena’s custodian, wallet, and perps venue. For Ethena it solves distribution; for Coinbase, it brings more liquidity to Base and, if sUSDe can clear USDC rates, a higher-yielding dollar product than USDC.

• Zama, Morpho and Steakhouse launch first ‘confidential DeFi yield’ vault on Ethereum, bringing encrypted, private positions to onchain lending.

• Open Standard, backed by Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, and 140+ companies, launched Open USD, a new dollar-pegged stablecoin that directly challenges Circle. Circle shares fell ~17% the same day.

• Mastercard launches Agent Pay for Machines, enabling always-on, autonomous machine-to-machine payments - infrastructure for the agentic economy.

🌍 Regional

• Berlin Blockchain Week, a decentralized, community-run initiative with no single owner, spanning DappCon, Ethereum Day, the Neocypherpunk Summit, and dozens of other independent events, is becoming builders’ other European Schelling point alongside EthCC.

• Edge City announced its next flagship popup village in Mandrem, Goa (Oct 11–Nov 1), a popup village for frontier tech, science, and culture on the coast of Goa, leading up to Devcon Mumbai.

• Elliptic breaks down how Hong Kong’s crypto framework is drawing institutional capital under its maturing licensing regime.

• a16z unpacks South Korea’s institutional blockchain race, where major banks (KB, Hana, NH) are already piloting stablecoin payments and remittances.

📎 Others

• Anthropic took Fable 5 and Mythos 5 offline worldwide on June 12 under a U.S. export-control order, then restored them after the controls were lifted on June 30, a live demo that centralized AI has an “off switch,” and crypto’s clearest decentralized-AI case yet.

• The EF’s Global Policy Strategy team published a non-technical primer for governments and institutions, arguing the case for credibly neutral infrastructure, no centralized operator, no off switch, with Ethereum positioned as public digital infrastructure rather than just a financial tool.

• Vitalik dives deep into indistinguishability obfuscation (iO): cryptography’s “final boss,” a way to run encrypted programs while hiding their internals. Paired with a blockchain, it could enable near-trustless voting, private protocols, and much more; the catch is that today’s provably-secure constructions are “galactically” slow.

📊 Ecosystem Data

1. Stablecoin supply on Ethereum: $163.8B (-4.2% MoM) (as of Jun 30, 2026)

Ethereum holds ~52% of the onchain stablecoin market ($313.8B total), more than Tron ($89.4B), BNB Chain ($17.2B), and Solana ($15.9B) combined. Supply cooled with the broader market this month, but Ethereum is still the default settlement layer for onchain dollars.

2. Tokenized stocks on Ethereum: $748.8M (+2.5% MoM) (as of Jun 30, 2026)

Ethereum leads tokenized stocks with ~46% of the $1.63B market, ahead of Solana ($435.9M) and BNB Chain ($362.6M). ETFs lead by category on Ethereum at $324.3M, indicating early demand skews toward diversified index exposure over single-name tokens.

💡 Opportunities

• Alliance ALL18 Investment Program: $1M in funding ($500K on admission + $500K follow-on at seed) for technical founders building in crypto, AI, and beyond, with mentorship and a 700+ founder community. Apply by Jul 22, 2026.

• Road to Devcon 8 India University Program: Grants for Indian universities and student groups hosting Ethereum events (May 15-Oct 15). Apply now.

• Tether Developer Grants: Rolling program from Tether for open-source and decentralized technology development. Apply now.

• Alchemy × Arbitrum Grant: Up to $500K in infrastructure credits per team for builders launching or migrating to Arbitrum Orbit chains, from a $10M fund. Apply now.

• ENS DAO Funding Requests: Ongoing funding from the ENS DAO for projects and public goods, via working groups or an executable proposal to the DAO. Apply now.

✨ Highlighted Events in July

• Systems Distributed ‘26, Boston, USA, Jul 10, 2026. Systems programming conference.

• WebX 2026, Tokyo, Japan, Jul 13–14, 2026. One of Asia’s largest Web3 conferences.

• Canada Crypto Week, Toronto, Canada, Jul 20–26, 2026. Crypto + AI week.

• ETHToronto 2026, Toronto, Canada, Jul 22, 2026. Ethereum conference during Canada Crypto Week.

• Pragma Lisbon 2026, Lisbon, Portugal, Jul 23, 2026. One-day conference ahead of ETHGlobal Lisbon.

• ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026, Lisbon, Portugal, Jul 24–26, 2026. 36-hour Ethereum hackathon.

• SBC 2026, Stanford, USA, Jul 27–29, 2026. The Science of Blockchain Conference, a technical research gathering at Stanford.

For more Ethereum-related events, feel free to visit the Ethereum Event List!

Summer is the best! Thanks for reading. ☀️

Riely and the Geode Labs

Have thoughts on this issue? Reply or DM me - I read everything.

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Special thanks to Jihoon Song and Sina Mahmoodi for the review and feedback. ❤️

Ethereum has ~888.3k validators globally, one of the most distributed consensus layers in crypto. But a decentralized validator set doesn’t guarantee decentralized block production. FOCIL is Ethereum’s attempt to close that gap.

The Structural Tension

Under PBS (Proposer-Builder Separation), most blocks are constructed by specialized block builders rather than validators. Builders compete to maximize MEV and block value, which can lead to concentration pressures in the block construction market.

This creates a structural separation:

• Validators secure consensus and select blocks

• Builders construct and order transactions within blocks

While efficient, this separation has introduced significant centralization in block production - builder market share is far more concentrated than the validator set itself.

A Real-World Stress Test

In August 2022, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash. Shortly afterward, major builders began filtering associated transactions.

At peak, a large share of Ethereum blocks were produced through OFAC-compliant block-building pipelines.

The validator set was decentralized. The inclusion decision was not. The internal policy of a handful of companies effectively became the network’s inclusion policy. That became a wake-up call for Ethereum researchers.

The Core Idea Behind FOCIL

FOCIL is based on a simple principle: inclusion should be supported by protocol-level guarantees, rather than relying solely on builder discretion.

Today a few firms build most blocks, so a valid transaction can be dropped based on what they’re willing, or legally allowed to include.

FOCIL introduces a rotating committee of validators each slot. These validators independently observe the mempool and create inclusion lists of valid transactions they believe should be included.

Block builders are then required to respect these inclusion constraints when constructing blocks, or risk their blocks being rejected via fork-choice rules.

How It Changes the System

Today

Users submit transactions, but builders ultimately decide which transactions make it into a block.

Validators can only accept or reject the completed block, and while they can self-build, they typically choose builder blocks for higher rewards, effectively delegating inclusion decisions to builders.

With FOCIL

FOCIL introduces validator-generated inclusion lists.

Each slot, a randomly selected committee of validators observes the mempool and produces these lists. Builders must make a best effort to include these transactions. They may only omit if the block is full or a transaction cannot be validly included.

Builders still optimize ordering and capture MEV, but can no longer silently exclude valid flagged transactions.

What FOCIL Improves

FOCIL makes censorship significantly harder. Exclusion now requires coordination across both:

• block builders

• a rotating validator committee

This improvement works on multiple levels:

• Technical: Builders can no longer unilaterally censor transactions

• Geographic: Validators are globally distributed, reducing vulnerability to localized regulatory pressure

• Philosophical: Inclusion becomes rule-based (protocol-enforced), not discretionary (builder-subjective)

Tradeoffs

FOCIL is not free:

• More protocol complexity

• Additional validator communication overhead

• Ongoing research into incentives and edge cases

• Interaction complexity with future PBS designs

The core question is not feasibility, but tradeoff: How much complexity is worth stronger censorship resistance guarantees?

Roadmap and Timeline

FOCIL was initially scoped for Glamsterdam (Ethereum’s next major fork, targeting 2026, centered on ePBS and Block-Level Access Lists). After debate over cross-layer complexity and schedule risk, it was pulled out.

FOCIL (EIP-7805) is now the consensus-layer headline of Hegotá, the fork following Glamsterdam, currently targeted for 2027, alongside account abstraction as a secondary feature.

Conclusion

PBS was a necessary step: separating block construction from consensus, reducing validator burden and supporting a decentralized validator set. But construction itself concentrated in a few builders.

FOCIL brings the validator set back in, strengthening their voice in what gets included.

Neutrality comes from diversity. When validators independently express their view of the mempool, it becomes significantly harder for any single actor to consistently exclude transactions.

Ethereum has long decentralized consensus. FOCIL extends that logic to inclusion.

Sources and further reading

• Fork-Choice enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL): A simple committee-based inclusion list proposal - the original ethresear.ch design post by Thiery, Monnot, D’Amato, and Ma

• EIP-7805: Fork-choice enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL) - the formal specification

• meetfocil.eth.limo - a live implementation-progress tracker and plain-language property breakdown by Jihoon Song

• Fork-Choice enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL) - Julian Ma, Devcon SEA

• Checkpoint #9 (April 2026) - confirms FOCIL as the Hegotá headliner

• Right of Audience: A Case for FOCIL - Sina Mahmoodi, Pop-X Berlin

Thanks for reading!

Best regards,

Riely & the Geode Labs team

Have thoughts on this issue? Reply or DM me - I read everything.

Want to support Local Ethereum? Reach out about sponsorships.

Ethereum is having a moment of reckoning, and quietly, a moment of clarity. The foundation is leaner and more opinionated. The roadmap is more concrete. Censorship resistance is being hardened at the protocol level. Privacy tooling is shipping. And across the Atlantic, regulators are finally writing the rules.

Bear markets have a way of filtering out the noise. And with AI making builders more productive than ever, there’s never been a better time to build.

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⚡ Highlights

1. The CLARITY Act Advances in Historic Bipartisan Vote

On May 14, the US Senate Banking Committee passed the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in a 15-9 vote, the biggest procedural hurdle the bill has faced, and the first time a comprehensive crypto market structure bill has received meaningful Democratic support at the committee level.

CLARITY would give crypto its first proper legal framework in the US, clarifying which tokens are commodities vs securities, who regulates them, and giving DeFi activities explicit legal protection. More fundamentally, it would be the first time US law formally recognizes that decentralized networks are a different thing from companies, and should be regulated differently.

If passed, the implications are significant:

• ETH and most major tokens would be classified as digital commodities, lifting years of SEC enforcement risk

• DeFi builders and validators would get legal clarity to operate in the US

• Institutions on the sidelines would have a clear on-ramp to enter the market

• Developers and capital that moved offshore may return

• Years of “regulate by lawsuit” replaced by an actual statutory framework

The road ahead: The bill still needs 60 Senate floor votes to clear a filibuster, meaning roughly 7 Democrats must cross over. The main obstacle is an ethics provision targeting government officials’ crypto conflicts of interest, a direct response to Trump and his family’s crypto ventures. No ethics deal, no 60 votes. If it doesn’t pass before August recess, the next realistic window may be 2030.

Further reading

• The CLARITY Act Advances to the Senate Floor - GSR Weekly, May 18, 2026

• What builders need to know about the CLARITY Act, what it is and why it matters - a16zcrypto

2. CROPS: Feature or Bug?

The past few months have genuinely tested Ethereum’s community. At least nine senior EF departures in five months, including protocol leads Tim Beiko and Barnabé Monnot, and former co-ED Tomasz Stańczak. The exits followed the CROPS mandate: censorship resistance, open source, privacy, security, which many read as the EF stepping back from growth. ETH down ~30% YTD. Sentiment at a low.

Zoom out, and the picture looks different. This is the EF doing exactly what it said it would: ensure Ethereum becomes and stays a decentralized and resilient tool for self-sovereignty. Vitalik’s thesis is simple: a leaner, more opinionated foundation narrowly focused on CROPS: “one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes.” Ethereum wins on credible neutrality. That trust compounds into network effects, and network effects are the moat that actually lasts.

The technical roadmap backs it up: provably bug-free code via AI-assisted formal verification, a consensus model resilient to 49% attackers that no other PoS chain can match, and censorship resistance baked into the protocol itself via FOCIL. The short-term pain of a leaner EF may be the price of long-term credibility, and credibility is the one thing competitors cannot copy.

Further reading:

• Ethereum’s Identity Crisis - GSR Weekly, May 25, 2026

• Ethereum’s Spring of Discontent - Galaxy Weekly, May 22, 2026

• Vitalik on where the EF is going

🪐 Global Ecosystem Update

🔧 Scaling, UX & Hardness

• Mapping the Strawmap: Ethereum’s Big Course Correction by Lucas Tcheyan (Galaxy): a comprehensive analysis of Ethereum’s L1 roadmap since the Merge: 10,000 TPS, post-quantum cryptography, sub-second finality, and default privacy across seven planned forks. The central open question: will demand materialize to match the capacity being built?

• The Ethereum Foundation announced a new Protocol cluster, with Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik as coordinators.

• An Ethereum Working Group, including wallet developers, security firms, and the EF’s Trillion Dollar Security Initiative, launched an open standard to end blind signing, the structural flaw behind billions in user losses including the Bybit hack.

• The Latency Cost of Censorship Resistance: a16z researchers prove that protocol-enforced inclusion carries an unavoidable minimum cost of 2 extra communication rounds. The tradeoff is worth it: censored transactions get a guaranteed inclusion bound instead of waiting indefinitely.

💸 DeFi, Stablecoins & Payments

• The Emerging Tokenization Stack: tokenization is graduating from theory to real market infrastructure. DTCC is piloting onchain securities issuance with 50+ firms, Bullish acquired transfer agent Equiniti, and Coinbase and Securitize are plugging tokenized assets into DeFi composability and propAMM liquidity.

• JPMorgan Launches Tokenized Money Market Fund on Ethereum: JPMorgan launched JLTXX, its second tokenized Treasury fund on public Ethereum, seeded with $100M and designed to serve as eligible reserve collateral for stablecoin issuers under the GENIUS Act, the largest global bank to go live on a public blockchain.

• Variational’s $50M Raise Reignites the RFQ vs CLOB Debate: RFQ models work best for long-tail and illiquid assets; CLOBs win on composability and price discovery. The market is heading toward a hybrid of both.

• Are Stablecoins a Risky Form of Private Money? A rebuttal to the WSJ’s argument that stablecoins are inherently fragile; what actually matters is reserve quality, redemption rights, and transparency, not whether the issuer is a bank or a blockchain.

• Why ‘Stablecoins’ Won’t Age Well: stability is now table stakes; the label has outlived its usefulness as the technology becomes foundational infrastructure for programmable, internet-native money.

• Why Prediction Markets Matter: prediction markets aggregate dispersed information into real-time probability signals, and crypto makes them more transparent, scalable, and harder to game.

🔐 Privacy

• Kohaku Wallet Update: Kassandra (EF) shares a candid thread on what Kohaku is actually building: an SDK that embeds Railgun, Tornado Cash, and Privacy Pools into wallets with a fully intermediary-free relay path via the ERC-4337 mempool (using EIP-7702). The v0.0.1-alpha.21 milestone for 4337 relaying is now live; Ambire is preparing an integration.

• Announcing the Private Transfers Dashboard: PSE launches a public dashboard to benchmark private transfer protocols across the Ethereum ecosystem, bringing visibility to a space that has historically lacked shared metrics.

• 10 Privacy Features Ethereum Devs Want - All of Them Live on Aztec: Aztec responds to PSE’s user research on the top pain points in private transfers (slow proving, leaky deposit/withdraw flows, fragmented privacy sets, missing tooling) and walks through how each is already solved on Aztec today.

• Social Recovery SDK: Design, Implementation and Learnings: PSE releases an open SDK letting developers add guardian-based wallet recovery to smart wallets, replacing seed phrase backups with programmable onchain policy.

🌍 Regional

• UK Sets Out Vision on Tokenization and Stablecoins: the FCA and Bank of England laid out a wholesale markets tokenization roadmap, committed to final stablecoin rules by end of 2026, and softened their stance on stablecoin issuance.

• European Commission Launches MiCA Review: less than 18 months after MiCA came into full effect, the EU is already consulting on whether the framework remains fit for purpose , with key questions around stablecoin interest prohibition, DeFi and staking coverage, equivalence for global issuers, and whether tokenized financial instruments should fall under MiCA or existing securities law. Feedback open until August 31.

• muShanghai: The Mu’s first mainland China pop-up city (May 10 – Jun 6) brought together 2000+ domestic and international builders across Web3, AI, and hardware, spotlighting China’s surging tech ecosystems from ClawCon’s China debut and homegrown LLMs during AI Week, to “Physical AI” and humanoid robots during Robotics Week.

📊 Ecosystem Data

1. Stablecoin Market Cap on Ethereum: $162.4B (as at 4th Jun, 2026)

Ethereum mainnet holds $162.4B in stablecoin market cap, leading the largest of any network, ahead of TRON ($87.7B), Solana ($15.5B), and BNB Chain ($12.9B).

2. Real-World Assets on Ethereum: $16.7B (as at 4th Jun, 2026)

Ethereum leads RWA distribution across all networks at $16.7B (excluding stablecoins), far ahead of BNB Chain ($3.7B), Solana ($2.5B), and Stellar ($2.2B).

3. Prediction Markets on Polymarket (as at 4th Jun, 2026)

Polymarket, one of the largest prediction markets by volume, saw sports dominate at 50.5% of volume over the past month, followed by uncategorized (23.7%) and politics (15.9%).

💡 Opportunities

• Neutral DeFi Risk Intelligence Aggregator: Ethereum Foundation grant to build an open-source tool aggregating DeFi risk ratings from all major providers into a single neutral view, covering the top 20 Ethereum DeFi protocols by TVL at launch. Apply by Jun 15.

• 2026 Paradigm Fellowship: Four-day fellowship in Northern California (Aug 12–15) for early-career technical builders across crypto, AI, and robotics. Apply by Jun 8.

• Road to Devcon 8 India University Program: Grants for Indian universities and student groups hosting Ethereum events (May 15-Oct 15). Apply now.

• Ethereum Security Subsidy Program: $1M audit subsidy pool for Ethereum mainnet builders, backed by EF, Nethermind, and Chainlink Labs. Apply - closes the 14th of each month.

• Glamsterdam Grants Round: Foundation grants for developers and researchers building tooling and infrastructure for the Glamsterdam upgrade. Apply now.

• Tether Developer Grants: Rolling grant program from Tether for open-source and decentralized technology development. Apply now.

✨ Highlighted Events in June

• Pop-X Berlin, Berlin, Germany, Jun 4, 2026. Evening meetup on Ethereum infrastructure, AI safety, and privacy, by Geode Labs and UETH.

• ETH Beijing, Beijing, China, Jun 5–7, 2026. 48-hour AI × Web3 hackathon.

• ETHConf, New York City, USA, Jun 8–10, 2026. Three-day Ethereum conference for founders, builders, and institutional leaders.

• ETHGlobal New York, New York City, USA, Jun 12–14, 2026. Hackathon by ETHGlobal, following ETHConf.

• Berlin Blockchain Week, Berlin, Germany, Jun 13–21, 2026. Nine-day community-organised umbrella week of Ethereum events across the city.

• ctrl/shift, Naples, Italy, Jun 13–15, 2026. Conference on AI, quantum computing, and Web3.

• Futura Camp × ZuBerlin, Berlin, Germany, Jun 13–22, 2026. 10-day co-living residency at Funkhaus covering interop, cryptography, MEV/PBS, and future society.

• Neocypherpunk Summit, Berlin, Germany, Jun 14, 2026. One-day conference on human rights, open-source, and decentralized tech, hosted by Web3Privacy Now.

• Dappcon, Berlin, Germany, Jun 16–17, 2026. Annual conference for decentralized application builders, hosted by Gnosis.

• AI Agents Summit 2026, Berlin, Germany, Jun 18–21, 2026. Conference and hackathon on autonomous AI agents and the agentic economy.

• BREW, Berlin, Germany, Jun 20, 2026. One-day privacy-focused conference during Berlin Blockchain Week.

For more Ethereum-related events, feel free to visit the Ethereum Event List!

Summer is here. See you at DappCon and the Neo-Cypherpunk Summit in Berlin this June. ☀️

Riely and the Geode Labs

Have thoughts on this issue? Reply or DM me - I read everything.

Want to support Local Ethereum? Reach out about sponsorships.

Special thanks to Kaan, Mechul.eth, Errold, and Doruk for the review and feedback. ❤️

TL;DR

• Türkiye is among countries with the highest crypto adoption in the world.

• The severe inflation crisis has driven significant crypto adoption as citizens seek alternatives to the rapidly depreciating Turkish lira. This shift is also facilitated by Turkey’s extensive centralized exchange (CEX) infrastructure, which makes buying and selling crypto highly accessible.

• Despite government restrictions on crypto usage, Türkiye’s young, tech-savvy population continues to embrace crypto, not only for hedging against inflation (stablecoin) but also for investment and earning opportunities.

• Its Ethereum grassroots community is a rapidly growing and vibrant ecosystem with web3 startups, university clubs, developers, academia, driven by economic pressure and a strong passion for education, inclusion and global connectivity.

The Economic Foundation: Crisis as Catalyst

• Chronic inflation and Turkish lira devaluation have severely impacted personal savings, purchasing power, and international trade. Starting in 2018, inflation accelerated dramatically, reaching 20.30% and continuing to rise. The period from 2021-2023 saw unprecedented inflation levels. In 2024, inflation began to moderate to 44.38%, though it remains extremely high by historical standards.

  

• Political volatility: Türkiye has experienced acute political instability in 2025, marked by the arrest of key opposition figures, including Istanbul’s mayor, widespread protests, and heightened government crackdowns on dissent. These events have fueled mass demonstrations, eroded trust in institutions, and triggered sharp economic turmoil, underscoring deepening divisions and growing authoritarianism within the country's political landscape.

Regulatory Paradox: Restriction Driving Innovation

• Türkiye does not formally ban cryptocurrencies, but regulations remain ambiguous. While crypto trading and holding are permitted, using crypto as a means of payment is restricted since April 2021 to curb illicit activities and protect the Turkish lira. The 2021 collapse of Thodex, the first major Turkish crypto exchange resulted in a landmark fraud case and intensified regulatory scrutiny, accelerating the government’s efforts to tighten oversight.

• Recent withdrawal controls have further tightened regulations by requiring platforms to verify transaction sources and purposes, enforce holding periods, and impose transfer limits.

• Tax: While taxation policy remains under debate, profits from crypto trading is not yet consistently taxed at the individual or enterprise level, increasing adoption but limiting regulatory clarity.

• Türkiye’s Central Bank (CBRT) is developing the Digital Turkish Lira (DTL), a sovereign digital currency designed to enhance financial resilience, accessibility, and privacy. Phase 1 has successfully completed pilot tests and integrated a self-sovereign digital identity system for secure transactions. Phase 2 will expand the DTL to broader retail and wholesale payment scenarios, aligning with Türkiye’s digital transformation goals.

Grassroots Innovation: IRL Communities in a Digital Economy

• ModaPalas: A non-profit, community-driven initiative for developers, researchers, cryptographers, and startups collaborating on blockchain, academia, AI, cryptography, and decentralized systems. It hosts regular physical gatherings in Istanbul’s Moda district, notably at Errol Drummond’s house overlooking the Bosphorus. Startups that have emerged from ModaPalas: node101, Citrea (by Chainway Labs), Eduasis, and Pioneer Labs.

• ArkHaus: A community-driven physical and digital hub for founders, builders, and creatives working at the intersection of Web3, AI, and gaming.

• Web3 Meta Hub: A community hub for developers, designers, social scientists, and entrepreneurs to collaborate on Web3, blockchain, and AI.

• node101: A blockchain-focused builder team developing real‑world solutions with decentralized technologies. It serves B2B validator and RPC provider.

• DeSci Türkiye: A community-driven initiative that decentralizes science in the fields of AI, biotechnology, and blockchain.

• Altcoin Turk: A physical Web3 hub in Kadıköy.

• Many grassroots efforts are led by university blockchain clubs (see below). The İTÜ Blockchain Club is more than just a blockchain club; it’s a vibrant community that has already launched two startups: Fibrous and Clave.

Startup Ecosystem: Building on Ethereum

• DeFi & Stablecoin Infrastructure

  • Fibrous: DEX aggregator on Starknet, Scroll & Base.

  • Inverter Network: A modular protocol for Primary Issuance Markets

  • Bilira: Stablecoin project that is backed by the Turkish Lira.

  • Parabol: A globally accessible stablecoin protocol.

• Wallet

  • Clave: A self-custodial smart wallet for investing, earning yield, and payment.

• Development shop

  • Chainway: A blockchain infrastructure company focused on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Zero Knowledge technology. Builders of Citrea, Bitcoin’s first ZK Rollup.

  • Pioneer Labs: A research, development, and security studio that works on decentralized applications, blockchain infrastructure, applied cryptography, and data and AI systems.

  • TriO Blockchain Labs: A blockchain dev company that provides innovative blockchain solutions for industries ranging from fintech to real estate.

• Supporting Ecosystem

  • Floyka Design Studio: A Web3 creative agency delivering design, branding, UI/UX, 3D modeling, VFX, event visuals, and no-code web solutions.

  • Tayf Lab: A Web3 native creative design lab.

  • Karakod LEC: A legal tech firm that offers smart contract legal audits, legal opinions & token classifications, intellectual property & digital assets.

  • RiseIn: The web3-focused educational arm of Patika.dev, Turkey’s largest developer community platform, that offers free courses, bootcamps, and events to help developers learn Web3 technologies and build blockchain projects.

• Capital and Exchange Infrastructure

  • Local: Paribu (the largest crypto exchange), BtcTurk (the second biggest Türkiye crypto exchange), Bitci, Bitlo…

  • International: Binance TR remain one of the most popular exchanges in Türkiye

  • Paribu Ventures: Based in Istanbul, Paribu Ventures is the investment arm of Paribu, Türkiye’s leading crypto exchange.

Beyond Trading: Real-World Crypto Usage in Turkey

• Türkiye ranks as the largest crypto market in MENA and seventh globally, receiving $136.8 billion in value between July 2023 and June 2024. As of 2024–2025, around 28% of Türkiye’s population owns cryptocurrency, which translates to an estimated 24.8 million crypto users in the country by 2026.

• Stablecoins: USDT and USDC are the most widely used assets for Turkish citizens, serving as: a) Protection against inflation and currency collapse; b) Remittance channels for Turkish nationals abroad or freelancers working for global clients; c) Payment rails for international purchases, bypassing currency controls and “de-dollarization” policies. Managing USDT on the Tron network remains one of the most popular options. L2s and security concepts are not familiar to most users.

• More efficient market: During volatile exchange rate periods banks had enormous spreads, probably directed by the government, to stop people fleeing from lira. At those times crypto markets acted as efficient markets for foreign exchange access.

• Freelance, Remote Work & Export Sectors: Türkiye’s tech workforce, especially developers and digital professionals, frequently receive compensation in crypto, often directly on Ethereum or as stablecoins.

• The most popular centralized exchanges (CEXs) in Türkiye are Paribu, BtcTurk, and Binance TR. For wallets, MetaMask continues to dominate the market.

• Post-earthquake crypto donations flood into Türkiye.

  

The Developer Advantage: From Local Talent to Global Protocols

Türkiye has one of the fastest growing developer communities among Europe and the Middle East. It has more than 1.7m developers, with 19% YoY growth in 2024.

Within this vibrant ecosystem, Ethereum remains the dominant blockchain platform for smart contract developers in Turkey despite rising competition from newer platforms like Solana and BNB Chain.

Turkish developers are contributing to some of the leading projects in the Ethereum space, including ENS, Gnosis, Nethermind, Argot, Hyperlane, and more.

Academic Fuel: Universities Powering the Ecosystem

• Research Lab & Center

  • Blockchain Research Laboratory (BZLab): Established in 2017 under TÜBİTAK BİLGEM UEKAE, BZLab focused on R&D in blockchain protocols, crypto‑asset security, privacy, and related business models.

  • BlockchainIST Center at Bahçeşehir University: Launched in 2018 and based in Istanbul, BlockchainIST is Türkiye’s first university‑affiliated blockchain research and consulting organization. It provides R&D, training, and advisory services in blockchain, DeFi, and fintech to public and private clients worldwide.

  • Blockchain Application and Research Center at Istanbul Aydın University: Launched in February 2021 with the mission to carry out R&D activities on the infrastructure and implementation of blockchain technologies, security and privacy analysis, business models, and crowdfunding approaches.

• Blockchain Clubs

  • İTÜ Blockchain Club: Founded in 2018 by students at Istanbul Technical University, İTÜ Blockchain was Türkiye’s first official university blockchain society. It set the standard for peer‑driven workshops, hackathons, and study groups on Ethereum, smart contracts, and DeFi.

  • Sabancı University Blockchain Club: Also established in 2018, Sabancı’s student‑run club focused on decentralization principles, hosting regular talks on blockchain applications and organizing hands‑on Solidity and Web3 coding sessions.

  • ODTÜ Blockchain Club: Established in 2021, another good Blockchain community in Türkiye with an expert team, hosting major Blockchain Days, winning global hackathon awards like ETHCannes and ETH Brussels 2024, and running 50+ workshops and meet-ups.

  • YTU Blockchain Club: Since its 2020 founding at Yıldız Technical University, this volunteer-driven community has organized more than 80 events and has a network of 60+ developers.

  • Learn more about Türkiye’s professors and blockchain clubs, please visit the Turkish Professor List and Turkish Blockchain Club List created by Modapalas.

• Cryptography and Math

  • Türkiye has a strong academic foundation in mathematics, computer science, and electrical engineering, fields integral to cryptography, ZKP, FHE, MPC, and protocol research. Several top universities have cryptography and security research groups, including Boğaziçi University (İstanbul), Koç University (İstanbul), İstanbul Technical University (İTÜ), Middle East Technical University (METU, Ankara), Bilkent University (Ankara), and Sabancı University (İstanbul).

  • Nesin Mathematics Village: A unique “illegal” non-profit village dedicated to math, philosophy, and the arts. It was launched in 2007 by Ali Nesin, a veteran mathematics professor, who received the 2018 Leelavati Award for his outstanding contributions towards increasing public awareness of mathematics in Turkey.

Further Reading

• Turkey’s Central Bank Digital Currency: a progressive step in Digital Turkish Lira, Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law

• Crypto Regulations In Turkey 2025, by CoinPedia

• Turkey - Crypto Usage Continues to Rise in Face of Ban, Crypto Council for Innovation

• ‘Basically a Savior’: Why Crypto Is So Popular in Turkey, by Coindesk

• ModaPalas Builder Hub

• List of banks and institutions operating in Türkiye, as registered by the Capital Markets Board

• 2024 Cryptocurrency Awareness and Perception Survey, by Paribu

• Cash → Chain Istanbul, by Nalin from Daimo

Thanks for reading!

Best regards,

Riely & the Geode Labs team

Have thoughts on this issue? Reply or DM me - I read everything.

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April was a month of extremes, and a reminder of what makes Ethereum different. One of the ecosystem’s largest DeFi hack in years laid bare the fragility of cross-chain infrastructure, but the community’s response was swift, coordinated, and unprecedented in scale.

We’ve cut through the noise and focused on what has lasting relevance for builders, communities, and anyone paying attention to where Ethereum is heading.

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🗺️ Regional Adoption

• U.S.: The SEC issued guidance exempting DeFi front‑ends (swap UIs, wallet interfaces) from broker‑dealer registration, as long as they provide no investment advice, take no custody of user funds, disclose transparent fixed fees, and clearly state their unregulated status. The framework is framed as interim clarity valid for five years.

• Japan: Two major crypto card launches hit in a single week, Bitbank’s EPOS Crypto Card (bills settled in BTC from exchange balance) and SBI’s Visa Crypto Card (spending points auto-converted into BTC, ETH, or XRP). Both lower the barrier for crypto holders to use their assets in daily life, while merchants still receive yen and the crypto conversion is handled automatically in the background.

• Taiwan: Taipei’s Ethereum and OSS+privacy communities are joining forces to co-curate a blockchain and privacy track at COSCUP 2026, a good example of local Ethereum and open source communities building together.

• Singapore: OCBC, Lion Global Investors, and DigiFT launched GOLDX, Southeast Asia’s first tokenised physical gold fund on Ethereum and Solana, subscribable via stablecoin or fiat, as the broader tokenised RWA market has grown 10x to $18.2B since January 2024.

• Romania: The country builds quietly, read our Romania Ethereum Ecosystem Overview.

🪐 Global Ecosystem Update

Scaling, UX, and hardness

• Soldøgn Interop recap, Glamsterdam takes shape above the Arctic Circle: 100+ Ethereum core contributors spent a week in Svalbard hardening the Glamsterdam upgrade, emerging with three key deliverables:

  • A 200M post-Glamsterdam gas limit floor: made possible by ePBS (more execution time per slot), Block-Level Access Lists (throughput headroom), and EIP-8037 (prevents runaway state growth at higher gas limits)

  • Stable multi-client ePBS running with external builders end-to-end

  • Final EIP-8037 gas repricing numbers locked in

  • Meaningful progress also made on Hegotá features: FOCIL and native account abstraction

• ETH Rangers Program Recap: The EF’s six-month public goods security stipend wrapped up. 17 recipients delivered $5.8M recovered or frozen, 785+ vulnerabilities reported, and ~100 North Korean IT workers identified across Web3 teams. A strong proof that securing a decentralized network requires a decentralized defense.

• Gnosis, ZisK, and the Ethereum Foundation unveiled the Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ) at EthCC Cannes, a rollup framework that lets smart contracts on connected L2s interact with each other and Ethereum mainnet synchronously in a single transaction, no bridges needed, with ETH as the default gas token.

DeFi, Stablecoins & Payments

• The KelpDAO Bridge Exploit: On April 18, North Korea’s Lazarus Group drained 116,500 rsETH (~$292M) from KelpDAO’s LayerZero bridge by compromising off-chain RPC nodes, then looped the stolen collateral across Aave, Compound, and Euler to borrow ~$236M in WETH, collapsing Aave’s WETH liquidity from $689M to $1.5M in two hours. The fallout left Aave facing ~$200M in bad debt, prompting the DeFi United coalition to raise $328M+ from 126k+ wallets, with the Arbitrum Security Council separately freezing ~30,766 ETH of exploiter funds. Read Chainalysis’s and Glassnode’s full breakdown.

  

• Kalshi & Polymarket are both launching perps: In late April, the two dominant prediction market platforms announced plans to launch perpetual futures in the U.S., ahead of an expected CFTC framework, in what would be the first domestic perps offering. The launches land at a pivotal moment in the CEX vs. DEX war, with Polymarket, Kalshi, and Hyperliquid's HIP-4 all entering the arena, the next era's defining race is shaping up to be whether CEX or DEX build the first true financial "Super-App."

  

• Tempo launches Zones: Tempo's new privacy framework creates private execution environments that run parallel to its public mainnet, where transaction details are visible to the Zone operator but hidden from outside observers. Funds are locked in a mainnet contract and can only be withdrawn by their owner, operators can order transactions but cannot move user assets. The design sits between fully public chains and cryptographic privacy solutions like Aztec or ZKsync's Prividium: operators see all activity inside a Zone, users see only their own, and the public sees only deposit and withdrawal events.

  

  

• The DAT model is under pressure, and needs to evolve: The “raise-buy-appreciate” flywheel that drove digital asset treasury (DAT) companies through 2025 has stalled, asset prices are down, market-to-NAV has compressed to near 1, and some DATs are already selling assets to buy back shares. Galaxy argues that PoS DATs in particular must shift from passive token holders to active capital deployers, generating recurring revenue through strategies like staking, basis trading, MEV capture, DeFi liquidity provision, and acquiring ecosystem businesses, otherwise consolidation or collapse is the likely outcome. Read Galaxy’s full breakdown.

• a16z The new stack for global finance: Stablecoins edition: Stablecoins have evolved from trading instruments into foundational financial infrastructure, enabling a new generation of banking-as-a-service where payments, FX, credit, and investing can be bundled without legacy bank partnerships. The bigger prize isn’t payments but what comes after: credit and wealth management for billions currently underserved by traditional finance. Stripe (Bridge, Privy) and Mastercard (BVNK) are already making consolidation plays to own key pieces of the stack. Read more.

  

• Two Recommended Long Reads from James Smith, Head of Ecodev at the EF, on how the two biggest stablecoin players actually make money: Tether Is Not a Stablecoin Company and Stripe Is Trying to Make Crypto Disappear.

Privacy

• A practical privacy stack for everyday users: @Techjunkie_Aman shares simple default swaps—Gmail → Tuta, Chrome → Brave, WhatsApp → Signal, Google Drive → Filen—and a deeper tier for the more serious: GrapheneOS, Mullvad DNS, Kagi. For more inspiration, Web3Privacy has a nice series exploring what FOSS stack experts actually use, including Keith from Brave’s selections.

• ZK Privacy skill ships for ETHSkills: A new “Privacy Apps with Noir” skill just landed on ETHSkills.com, drop ethskills.com/noir/SKILL.md into your AI agent and start building ZK privacy apps with Noir.

📊 Ecosystem Data

1. Security Watch

   Security is more critical than ever: April 2026’s total value hacked reached $348M, and zooming out, North Korea’s Lazarus Group stole 76% of all crypto hack value in 2026 YTD across just two attacks, with cumulative theft now exceeding $6B since 2017. Track the full landscape on DefiLlama’s Crypto Hack Dashboard.

   

   

2. Stablecoin Market Cap on Ethereum: $165.4B (as at 5th May, 2026)

   Ethereum mainnet holds $165.4B in stablecoin market cap, leading the largest of any network, ahead of TRON ($86.7B), Solana ($15.0B), and BNB Chain ($13.0B).

   

Opportunities

• Ethereum Security Subsidy Program: A $1M audit subsidy pool for Ethereum mainnet builders, backed by the EF, Nethermind, and Chainlink Labs. Applications close on the 14th of each month. Apply now.

• Road to Devcon 8 India University Program: Grants of up to $300 for Indian universities and student groups hosting Ethereum events (May 15–Oct 15). Apply by May 20, 2026.

• Glamsterdam Grants Round: Open to developers and researchers building tooling and infrastructure for Ethereum’s upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade. Apply now.

• Volunteer × Web3Privacy Now: Volunteer at privacy and digital rights events across Europe and Asia (May–Nov 2026), available in-person or remotely. Apply now.

• Ethereum Protocol Fellowship: Cohort 7: A six-month fellowship (Jun–Nov 2026) for contributors working on Ethereum’s core protocol, clients, and research. Apply by May 13, 2026.

• Advanced Cryptography Program 2026: A free 7-week in-person program at the University of Tokyo (Aug 1 – Sep 12) covering ZKPs, MPC, and FHE. Apply by May 31, 2026.

• Post-Quantum Research Retreat (Cambridge, UK): A week-long collaborative retreat (Oct 9–12) focused on post-quantum cryptography and decentralized systems. Apply now.

• Staking Landscape Survey: Share your perspective on the current staking ecosystem. Participate now.

✨ Highlighted Events in May

• Ethereum Mexico 2026, Ciudad de México, Mexico, May 5–Jun 16, 2026. Conference, hackathon, and workshops focused on AI and payments.

• Consensus Miami, Miami, USA, May 5–7, 2026. A major annual institutional crypto conference.

• zkSummit14, Rome, Italy, May 7, 2026. Conference on privacy and cryptography.

• Web3Privacy Now Meetups, Prague, Rome & Cluj-Napoca, May 7–12, 2026. Privacy-focused community meetups across three cities.

• Post-Quantum Ethereum Meetup in Rome, Rome, Italy, May 8, 2026. Meetup on post-quantum cryptography and Ethereum security.

• ETHPrague, Prague, Czechia, May 8–10, 2026. Regional conference and hackathon.

• muShanghai, Shanghai, China, May 10–Jun 6, 2026. Month-long popup builder city.

• ETHCluj, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, May 13–14, 2026. Regional Ethereum conference.

• ETHMilan, Milan, Italy, May 21–22, 2026. Conference exploring the real-world adoption of Web3.

• ETHBratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia, May 22, 2026. Regional conference.

• Open Value 2026, Trento, Italy, May 23, 2026. Side event at Festival dell’Economia.

• Toronto Tech Week, Toronto, Canada, May 25–29, 2026. Multi-day blockchain and technology week.

• Edge Esmeralda, Healdsburg, USA, May 30–Jun 27, 2026. Month-long popup village.

For more Ethereum-related events, feel free to visit the Ethereum Event List!

Until next month, stay building, stay curious. ☀️

Riely and the Geode Labs

Have thoughts on this issue? Reply or DM me - I read everything.

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Special thanks to Simona Șerban, Alexandru Maleş and Cătălin Baluţ from ETHCluj for feedback and review.

Overview

Romania is a strong engineering country.

Across cities like Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Iași, Sibiu, and Brașov, there are thousands of students emerging from strong technical universities as well as highly skilled developers working in global tech companies. Most of them are still in Web2, building products for international clients, but the foundation is there for a shift.

Ethereum is not yet mainstream locally, but it is slowly becoming visible to technical people who are curious, independent, and looking for more ownership in what they build.

At the same time, there is growing interest in AI. Many developers are already experimenting with AI tools, agents, and systems. For some, blockchain and AI are starting to overlap.

Romania in Context

1. Romania has produced world-class thinkers, artists, and engineers, from Constantin Brâncuși, George Enescu and Emil Cioran to strong modern technical talent. But the country is easy to underestimate. Contributions tend to travel outward quietly, without much local fanfare.

2. The communist period left a mark on how Romanians relate to institutions. Under Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania developed one of the most intrusive surveillance system in the Eastern Bloc. The Securitate kept detailed records on citizens, which could be used to monitor, pressure, or control individuals.

3. The 1990s added an economic dimension to that distrust. The transition period was marked by instability: inflation peaked at over 250% in 1993, savings lost value, and privatization was often uneven and contested. Property rights were not always clearly defined or consistently enforced, with paper-based land registries and disputed ownership transfers persisting in some cases. For many Romanians now in their forties or fifties, this period is within living memory. In this context, ideas such as tamper-resistant records or decentralized finance can carry different resonance than in countries without similar experiences.

4. After joining the European Union in 2007, Romania experienced significant emigration, including a substantial share of its working-age population, one of the larger outflows in modern European history. Many skilled workers, including engineers and medical professionals, moved to Western Europe. Those who remained in the tech sector often worked with international clients and markets. When projects like Ethereum emerged as globally distributed engineering efforts, Romanian developers were already accustomed to operating in cross-border environments.

5. It has some of the fastest internet in the world. It skipped the legacy copper infrastructure that slowed down most of Western Europe, going straight to fiber in the early 2000s. Dense urban housing made rollout cheap, and competition kept prices low. Gigabit connections are now standard and affordable in most cities.

What the Ecosystem Looks Like

Adoption Metrics

• Global Rankings: Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index: 59th globally

• While neighboring countries like Ukraine (9th) and Turkey (6th) see high adoption as a response to war-time instability or currency devaluation, Romania’s 59th-place ranking reflects a more stable economy where users engage with crypto as a tech-forward investment rather than a financial lifeline.

What Is Actually There

Romania doesn’t have a single anchor company that everyone orbits. No Romanian equivalent of Golem in Poland, no founding team that became a cultural center of gravity.

What it has instead is a dense, distributed layer of technically serious builders.

Péter Szilágyi has been one of the most significant contributors to go-ethereum, the client that runs a large portion of the Ethereum network. In Ethereum circles internationally, his name is well known. In Romania, the Ethereum community knows him well too, even if broader public awareness hasn’t caught up yet. Romania’s connection to Ethereum goes back further still, Mihai Alisie, from Sibiu, co-founded Bitcoin Magazine with Vitalik Buterin in 2011 and was one of Ethereum’s eight original co-founders.

Most of what Romania has built since then is infrastructure.

Bware Labs, now part of Alchemy, showed how Romanian teams can operate at global scale, building core Web3 APIs and node services. 01NODE works in a similar space, focused on validator infrastructure and staking. QED, a Web3 development team from Timișoara, built such a close relationship with The Sandbox over several years that they were acquired in 2025 and became The Sandbox Romania. Ocean Protocol, founded by Romanians, sits at the intersection of Ethereum, decentralized data, and AI, a prescient position given where developer interest is heading.

Security is a natural fit too. Romanian engineers have deep roots in cryptography and backend systems, and teams like Cybasecurity and Adevăr Labs have built on that foundation with smart contract audits and blockchain security work. Crypto Sentinel works further upstream, on cybercrime and blockchain forensics.

At the edges, something more research-oriented is taking shape. dSentra, founded by a contributor connected to the Ethereum Fellowship, works on decentralized infrastructure and coordination systems, closer to the core philosophy of what Ethereum is trying to build.

And beneath all of it: a large, mostly invisible layer of development companies and independent builders across Cluj, Bucharest, Timișoara and Iași, writing smart contracts, building DeFi components, and developing backend systems for international clients. No local press. No announcements. Just work, shipped quietly into the global ecosystem.

Community Infrastructure

ETHBucharest

ETHBucharest is one of the main Ethereum-focused gatherings in Romania, centered in the capital. Bucharest naturally has scale as being the capital city of Romania. It brings together corporates, startups and a large number of engineers who are already working in the crypto industry.

ETHCluj

ETHCluj is a focused community hub in Cluj-Napoca, closely connected to the city’s strong student and technical base. They run year-round initiatives and a flagship Ethereum for Everyone conference in May, with workshops, technical talks, and builder-first side events. It has become a natural entry point for young developers exploring Ethereum for the first time.

Others

Timișoara and Iași are important technical centers, with strong universities and growing developer communities.

Sibiu and Brașov are smaller, but they contribute through remote-first developers.

University Talent Pipeline

Romania has a strong tradition of technical education, with universities across the country emphasizing computer science fundamentals, cryptography, distributed systems, and security, areas that map directly onto what Ethereum’s infrastructure layer requires. Increasingly, AI and data science are part of the mix too.

Top technical talent is concentrated across a few key cities and institutions. In Bucharest, Politehnica University and the University of Bucharest are the main sources of engineering graduates, particularly in computer science and mathematics. In Cluj-Napoca, Babeș-Bolyai University and the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca produce a large share of highly skilled developers, with strong foundations in algorithms, distributed systems, and backend engineering. In Timișoara and Iași, Politehnica University, West University, and Alexandru Ioan Cuza University consistently turn out strong technical graduates. Even smaller centers like Brașov and Sibiu contribute, mostly feeding into remote-first or international teams.

Formal blockchain education is still early. Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iași offers dedicated blockchain coursework with hands-on labs. West University of Timișoara launched a postgraduate program in Entrepreneurship in Blockchain. These are exceptions rather than the norm.

Most students find their way through other channels, online resources, hackathons, communities like ETHCluj and ETHBucharest. The pattern is consistent: solid engineering foundations from university, then Ethereum discovered independently through community and experimentation.

Policy Environment

Romania follows the EU regulatory framework. While MiCA has been directly applicable across the EU since December 30, 2024, Romania is still operationalizing its national authorization framework, creating a temporary gap between legal applicability and practical implementation.

Current Regime

• Crypto service providers are currently operating under MiCA’s transitional regime, which allows entities previously registered under the AML framework to continue operating until July 1, 2026, or until they receive (or are denied) MiCA authorization, whichever comes first. AML registration and MiCA authorization are not equivalent, the former does not confer passporting rights or cross-border service eligibility within the EU.

• After July 1, 2026, any entity without a MiCA license will be in breach of EU law. The Romanian Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF) has acknowledged capacity constraints that may delay application processing, creating timing risks for market participants.

On taxation (which operates independently from MiCA authorization)

• Crypto is treated as an asset under the Fiscal Code, not legal tender.

• Gains from crypto transactions are classified as “income from other sources” and taxed at 16% (raised from 10% in 2026).

• The de minimis exemption applies when gains are under RON 200 per transaction and total annual gains do not exceed RON 600.

• The same 16% corporate tax rate applies to companies.

What Is Missing

There is a large pool of Web2 developers who could move into Web3. They have the technical foundations. What they lack is entry points, hands-on experience, local connections, and a job market that offers paid opportunities in the space rather than purely international client work.

AI may be the bridge. Many developers are already exploring it, and the tooling and systems thinking involved overlap more with Web3 than is commonly acknowledged. Projects at the intersection, agent-based systems, verifiable computation, decentralized AI infrastructure, may be where the next generation of Romanian builders first encounters the space seriously.

There is also a need for more physical and digital spaces where developers can learn together, build together, and meet others working on similar things. ETHCluj is doing this well at the student level. The gap is at the mid-career level, where engineers with strong Web2 backgrounds might cross over if the community infrastructure existed to receive them.

What Comes Next

Romania is well-positioned to grow its Ethereum ecosystem. It combines deep engineering talent, excellent digital infrastructure, and a historical skepticism toward centralized institutions born from its communist past and turbulent transition period.

The next key moment to watch (and participate in): the ETHCluj Ethereum for Everyone conference again on May 13-14, 2026 in Cluj-Napoca.

Further Reading

• My favorite things Romania by Tyler Cowen

• Why Romania Excels in International Olympiads by Jordan Lasker

• Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) by ESMA

• Romania’s New Crypto Regulation under MiCA - Compliance & Licensing by BMA Legal

Thanks for reading!

Best regards,

Riely & the Geode Labs team

Have thoughts on this issue? Reply or DM me - I read everything.

Want to support Local Ethereum? Reach out about sponsorships.

Between a landmark regulatory ruling, a new Ethereum Foundation mandate, the launch of the Ethereum Economic Zone, and real movement on account abstraction at the protocol level, there was a lot that actually deserved attention this March. We’ve tried to cut through the noise and focus on what has lasting relevance for builders, communities, and anyone paying attention to where Ethereum is heading.

Here’s what matters, from every corner of the globe.

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🗺️ Regional Adoption

• U.S.: The SEC & CFTC issued a landmark joint 68-page rule classifying ETH as a digital commodity, not a security, reducing regulatory uncertainty and opening a clear path for institutional adoption.

• Canada: Ranked 27th in the 2025 crypto adoption index, Canada is steadily building its position, with stablecoin legislation consolidating, and the Bank of Canada and TD Bank just successfully piloting a $100M CAD bond issuance using Hyperledger Fabric.

• Taiwan: Our deep dive on the Taiwan Ethereum Ecosystem Overview covers adoption patterns, developer communities, and what’s being built there.

• Vietnam: The government is moving to restrict overseas crypto trading as banks and brokers bid for new local licenses - a regulatory tightening worth watching. For broader context, revisit our Vietnam Ethereum Ecosystem Overview.

• Brazil: How Brazil is Realizing its Crypto Potential is a great read on how crypto is being used on the ground, pair it with our own Brazil Ethereum Ecosystem Overview for the full picture.

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🪐 Global Ecosystem Update

Scaling, UX, and hardness

• Ethereum Foundation releases EF Mandate, clarifying the Foundation’s role as original steward, not owner or ruler of Ethereum, with a mission anchored in the CROPS properties: Censorship Resistance, Open Source and Free, Privacy, and Security.

• If the official Strawmap felt too dense, James breaks it down in plain language The Idiot’s Guide to Ethereum’s 2029 Strawmap: Fast L1, Gigagas L1, Teragas L2, Post-Quantum, Private L1). Everstake’s explainer is also good.

  

  

• A Deeper Look at a New Protocol Cluster Priority: Hardness.

• Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ) launched, a framework for synchronously composable rollups that unifies liquidity, identity, and execution across L1 and L2s in a single deployment, with no additional trust assumptions.

• EF Platform team published a post on the L1/L2 relationship, covering the role of each layer and how the ecosystem can leverage both to build the strongest version of Ethereum for all users.

• EF launches pq.ethereum.org, a dedicated hub for post-quantum cryptography work, covering the full PQ roadmap, open specs and repos, an institutional FAQ, and registration for the 2nd Annual PQ Research Retreat (Cambridge, Oct 2026).

• On UX and AA: Derek‘s breakdown of Frame vs. Tempo: the two clashing philosophies shaping native AA on Ethereum. Tempo offers simple, built-in features for better UX with less flexibility, while Frame (EIP-8141) goes fully programmable for maximum flexibility at the cost of greater complexity. And EF’s new EthUX, a living map surfacing UX challenges across the ecosystem and tracking solutions and their adoption.

• For more Ethereum core dev updates, check out the Ethereal news weekly by Andrew.

DeFi, Stablecoins & Payments

• On DeFi infrastructure: Aave V4 is now live on Ethereum, introducing a Hub and Spoke architecture where a single unified pool of capital can serve many distinct lending environments simultaneously. Lido has launched EarnUSD, a new stablecoin yield product letting users deposit USDC or USDT into a pooled vault that automatically allocates funds across DeFi strategies to generate yield.

• The institutional signal: Europe’s largest asset manager Amundi debuts $100 million tokenized fund on Ethereum. And BNP Paribas is now running a tokenised money market fund on Ethereum mainnet, made possible by ERC-3643, the standard for RWA tokenization.

• EF puts skin in the game: The EF has staked a record $46M in ETH from its treasury, in line with the foundation’s 2025 treasury policy to actively deploy assets for additional returns.

• Losses: Balancer Labs shuts down following a $128M exploit - a stark reminder that smart contract risk remains real at scale. And Tally, the Ethereum governance solution, is also winding down.

• For more on enterprise + Ethereum, check out the Enterprise Onchain Newsletter by James and David Walsh.

AI + Ethereum

• Identity: Etherscan now displays metadata for Trustless Agents registered via the ERC-8004 Identity Registry, letting you view an agent’s operational status, x402 support, services, and more directly on the NFT details page.

• Human verification: World and Coinbase launched AgentKit, a proof-of-unique-human layer for AI agents. Built on top of x402, it lets platforms distinguish between one person running a thousand agents vs. a thousand different people. The missing trust layer for the agentic web.

• Wallet layer: MoonPay open-sourced the Open Wallet Standard (OWS), a secure, local-first protocol that gives AI agents and developer tools a single way to store keys, manage wallets, and sign transactions across every major blockchain.

• Payment rails: A beginner’s introduction to Coinbase’s x402 protocol and what it means for the web. Learn more at x402.org.

• Private API access: ZK API Usage Credits: LLMs and Beyond by Davide Crapis and Vitalik Buterin that lets users deposit once and make unlimited anonymous API calls, with cryptographic guarantees for providers against double-spending, no identity required.

• Knowledge layer: Austin Griffith shipped ETHSkills, bridging the knowledge gap between AI agents and production Ethereum development.

• CryptoSkill: The App Store Moment for Crypto AI Agents by YQ.

• Over 1,500 builders submitted 685 projects to the synthesis_md hackathon, each evaluated by agentic judges with humans in the loop.

• On the philosophical side: Vitalik shared his self-sovereign local LLM setup, and then debated Beff Jezos at a16z on whether AI acceleration can be steered at all. Worth reading both together.

📊 Ecosystem Data

1. Client Diversity (as at 3rd April 2026)

   Lighthouse (51.58%) leads consensus; Geth (41%) & Nethermind (38%) dominate execution, all over goal thresholds. Switch to a minority client! ⚠️

   

2. Stablecoin TVL on Ethereum (Mainnet + L2s): $182B (as at 3rd April 2026)

   Ethereum mainnet holds 56% of the global stablecoin market, L2s add 5.3%, for a combined 61%+ share, reinforcing Ethereum’s position as the dominant settlement layer for digital stablecoins!

   

3. Real-World Assets on Ethereum Mainnet: $15.7B (as at 1st April 2026)

   RWA TVL (Ethereum Mainnet): $15.7B, up sharply through Q1 2026, with the steepest growth recorded in recent months, reflecting surging institutional tokenization activity on Ethereum.

   

4. ETH Staked Value: ～$79.8B (as at 3rd Apr, 2026)

   As of writing, total staked ETH stands at 38,487,492 ETH, equivalent to ~$79.8B at current prices.

   

   Staked ETH supply crossed 30% this year, as an increasing share of circulating ETH shifts toward validator commitments rather than immediately tradable exchange inventory.

   

5. ERC-8004 Adoption

   14,652 registered ERC-8004 agents and 2,891 feedback entries (as at 3rd April 2026), up from ~13.9K and ~2.5K last month. Feedback growth (+15.6% MoM) outpacing registrations (+5.4% MoM) points to genuine network utilisation, a stronger adoption signal.

   

💡 Opportunities

• Ethereum Foundation 2026 PhD Fellowship: Supporting PhD students in Ethereum-related research. Apply by April 22, 2026.

• Ethereum Developer Tooling Grant: for projects improving existing Ethereum developer tools and infrastructure. Apply now.

• ETHPrague 2026 Volunteer Program: Volunteer at ETHPrague (May 7-10) for full conference and hackathon access. Apply by April 10, 2026.

• ETHCluj 2026 Volunteer Program: Volunteer at ETHCluj (May 13-14) for full conference access plus meals. Apply by April 10, 2026.

• muShanghai Pop-Up City: Month-long builder city in Shanghai (May 10-Jun 6) with theme weeks on AI, biotech, robotics, and gaming. Apply now.

• Open Agents Hackathon (ETHGlobal): Online hackathon for building AI agents on Ethereum (Apr 24–May 6), $50K prize pool. Apply by April 23, 2026.

• RFP Hub Grant: Build an open-source API to aggregate and index Web3 funding opportunities across ecosystems. Apply by April 23, 2026.

• Post-Quantum Research Retreat (Cambridge, UK): Week of collaboration in Cambridge, UK (Oct 9-12) on post-quantum cryptography and decentralized systems. Apply now.

• Back Office Intern - Nyx Foundation (Japan): Research hub in Japan seeking an intern for office operations. Apply now.

✨ Highlighted Events in April

• EthCC, Cannes, France, Mar 30–Apr 2. Europe’s largest annual Ethereum conference.

• ETHGlobal Cannes, Cannes, France, Apr 3–5, 2026. Hackathon during EthCC 2026.

• Web3Privacy now Mumbai meetup, Mumbai, India, Apr 4, 2026. Privacy-focused local community meetup.

• Prover Killing Contracts Online (Zoom), Apr 8, 2026. Meetup from the Ethereum Engineering Group.

• ZuAfrique, Kilifi, Kenya, Apr 12–May 3, 2026. Experimental crypto pop-up village.

• Ethereum Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland, Apr 10, 2026. Conference in Zurich.

• ETHCapital Summit, Seoul, South Korea, Apr 15, 2026. Institutional crypto investment summit.

• Ethereum Munich #3, Munich, Germany, Apr 16, 2026. Local Ethereum developer meetup

• ETHSilesia 2026, Katowice, Poland, Apr 16-19, 2026. Four-day conference and hackathon by ETHWarsaw.

• Using OpenClaw to automate Web3, Online (Zoom), Apr 29, 2026. Online workshop from Ethereum Engineering Group.

For more Ethereum-related events, feel free to visit the Ethereum Event List!

Until next time, keep building, keep connecting. Happy Easter - rest up and recharge! 🐣

Best regards,

Riely & the Geode Labs team

Have thoughts on this issue? Reply or DM me - I read everything.

Want to support Local Ethereum? Reach out about sponsorships.

Special thanks to Hsiao Wei, Changwu, Martinet, Anton, Astro and Sunsec for feedback and review.

Tl;dr

• Community ownership and volunteer spirit make Taiwan’s Ethereum ecosystem unique, where people value digital democracy and open source.

• Many local OGs in the Ethereum R&D space are still active in the ecosystem. They serve as stewards of its values, while also onboarding newcomers to the space.

Policy

• Taiwan does not recognize cryptocurrencies as legal currency. The Central Bank and Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) consider cryptocurrencies to be speculative “virtual commodities” rather than currencies. Banks are prohibited from accepting Bitcoin or providing crypto-related services, and credit card companies cannot process crypto purchases.

• The FSC established AML guidelines for VASPs in 2023, with regulations officially starting January 2025 and registration required by September 2025. A comprehensive cryptocurrency law enabling stablecoin issuance and new trading rules is scheduled for June 2025. The regulatory framework’s feasibility study concluded in late 2024, with legislation now progressing through the system.

Values, Culture, and Digital Democracy

• Taiwan’s digital democracy, led by Minister Audrey Tang, uses technology to heal polarization and increase transparency, raising public trust from 9% to about 60%. Their approach features open-source tools, pro-social networks, and citizen deliberation processes that address challenges from AI deepfakes to cryptocurrency regulation, with Tang serving on the RadicalxChange Foundation board alongside Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin.

• While the government treats cryptocurrencies as “virtual commodities” with comprehensive taxation, Taiwan’s model represents a middle path between AI-powered authoritarianism and blockchain-fueled libertarianism, showing how technology and democracy can thrive together rather than in opposition.

• “g0v” (gov-zero): A decentralized civic tech community with information transparency, open results and open cooperation as its core values. The community embraces innovative approaches to civic participation and decision-making, including experiments with mechanisms like Quadratic Funding and Quadratic Voting.

• Open source culture: Taiwan has a vibrant and active open source ecosystem with organizations like Open Culture Foundation (OCF), COSCUP (Conference for Open Source Coders, Users & Promoters), g0v, MozTW, etc. Local Ethereum Communities like Taiwan Ethereum Meetup group actively support and sometimes organize Blockchain and Ethereum tracks at COSCUP.

Local Grassroots Communities

• Taipei Ethereum Meetups: Born in April 2016, this group stands as one of Taiwan’s earliest and most enduring Ethereum communities, evolving from basic discussions to exploring topics like scaling, zk proofs, DeFi, governance, and privacy. You can find more through their Luma page. Contributors includes Changwu, Chih-Cheng Liang, Hsiao-wei Huang, etc.

• ETHTaipei: emerged as a grassroots conference and hackathon in 2023, distinguished by its entirely volunteer-driven organization. Core contributors includes Changwu, Martinet, Nic, Anton, Ryan, Nicole, Yenwen, Bing. They come from different companies and organizations like Perpetual Protocol, Ethereum Foundation, Quantstamp, Zircuit, imToken, etc., all participating as passionate individuals rather than corporate representatives to advance the Ethereum ecosystem.

• DeFi TLDR: operates as a monthly meetup in Taipei focused on decentralized finance. Participants contribute news articles and interesting topics to a shared document before each gathering, then deliver brief 1-3 minute introductions during the meetup, followed by open discussion. This initiative is coordinated by Anton and Yenwen. Find more here through their Notion doc, Luma page via the ETHTaipei Luma.

• zkTaipei: A grassroots community where builders and researchers discuss about zk and its applications. Core team includes Moven, Nicole, Paul, PinHao, Ryan, and Oskar (listed alphabetically).

• DeFiHackLabs: Web3 security community that has grown to over 4,000 members, including 292 white hats from around the world. Previously they have organized the Ethereum & Web3 Security Bootcamp. The founder of DeFiHackLabs is SunSec, a respected hacker and CISO.

• XueDAO: A community in Taiwan focused on student developers and led by students. The Contributor Team of XueDAO currently includes students from 12 universities globally. Changwu and Martinet from ETHTaipei are mentoring students and supporting them to attend global Ethereum hackathons.

Ethereum and Related Startups

• DeFi:

  • Furucombo: multi-chain DeFi aggregator;

  • Perpetual Protocol: decentralized perpetual futures exchange built on Optimism;

  • Zomma Protocol: DeFi Options Protocol on zkSync Era and Arbitrum;

  • Teahouse Finance: multi-strategy DeFi asset management platform;

  • WooFi: multi-chain DEX;

  • XY Protocol: multi-chain DEX aggregator and bridge.

• Creator economy:

  • Matters Lab: a Web3 social media ecosystem, where you can publish blogs on Matters.Town.

• Wallet:

  • Most of Taiwanese use Metamask and Rabby, followed by imToken. Some of them use local hardware wallet like CoolWallet.

• Venture capital and accelerator

  • Sudo Research: crypto trading house and venture capital firm founded in 2017.

  • AppWorks: offers startup support via Accelerator, Funds, and School programs.

• Builders who do not work for Taiwanese companies are shining on the global stage, including companies like Ethereum Foundation, Quantstamp, imToken, various L2s...

Ethereum Users

• As observed, most users prefer MetaMask and Rabby wallet over local wallet options.

• For on-ramp and off-ramp services, the majority of users rely on MAX and BitoPro.

• When it comes to centralized exchange trading, most users select Binance and OKX due to their wide variety of trading pairs.

Web2 and Web3 Developers

1. Developers

Taiwan has more than 1.27 million developers, with many top talents gravitating toward semiconductor giants like TSMC, manufacturing leaders like Foxconn, and chip designers like MediaTek. These companies provide abundant job opportunities for graduates, while web3 positions remain comparatively limited on the island.

2. Ethereum devs

• Core devs & researchers: Taiwan has produced exceptional builders like Hsiao-Wei Wang from Taipei, who served as Consensus R&D team lead at Ethereum Foundation and now works as a managing director at the Ethereum Foundation.

• DApp Ecosystem: There are a good amount of Ethereum startups in Taiwan, mainly working in the DeFi and asset management space.

University & Blockchain Clubs

• Prof. Gong Chen, National Chengchi University, Department of Management Information systems

  • Course: Ethereum Smart Contract Development and General blockchain related courses

• Prof. Yu-Chi Chen, National Taipei University of Technology, Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering

  • Course: Cryptography and Privacy

• Prof. Lo-Yao Yeh, National Central University

  • Course: Cryptography and Its Applications

• Martinet Lee, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Institute of Network Engineering

  • Course: Blockchain Development and Fintech

• Blockchain Clubs: Almost all top universities in Taiwan have blockchain clubs, including National Chengchi University (NCCU), National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST), and National Taiwan University (NTU). These clubs are typically chain-agnostic and primarily focus on DeFi applications.

Media

• 區塊勢 Blocktrend: One of the best crypto media outlets that often covers developments in the Ethereum ecosystem. Founder 許明恩 (Astro Hsu) began his journey as an Ethereum miner and has contributed to the Taipei Ethereum Meetup Facebook page.

• Taipei Ethereum Meetup Medium Page: A community-owned technical column covering everything about Ethereum. Maintained by Nic Lin and Bing.

• ETHTaipei <> TEM substack: TEM and ETHTaipei now runs a publication on Substack summarizing local meetup topics & Ethereum news.

• There are also other general crypto media outlets such as CryptoCity, ABMedia, web3plus, blocktempo, zombit, etc.

Blockchain Ecosystem Mapping

• Taiwan blockchain ecosystem mapping by BlockTempo, AppWorks, TempoX.

• Taiwan Blockchain Industry Report and Ecosystem Map hosted by “Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Development Association” and co-organized by HOYA BIT, BSTYLE, KryptoGO and Starbit.

Further Reading

• Is Taiwan Still Becoming a Blockchain Island?

• BLOCKCHAIN & CRYPTOCURRENCY LAWS AND REGULATIONS 2025 – TAIWAN

• Taiwan’s digital revolution: Healing polarization and strengthening democracy

Thanks for reading!

Best regards,

Riely & the Geode Labs team

Have thoughts on this issue? Reply or DM me - I read everything.

Want to support Local Ethereum? Reach out about sponsorships.

Greetings! 👋

A lot happened this month, and not just on the price charts. From quantum resistance roadmaps to Ethereum’s role in an AI-driven future, the conversations shaping the ecosystem are getting sharper.

Here’s what matters, from every corner of the globe.

Subscribe

🗺️ Regional Adoption

Fun experiment

• Prague, Czechia: Our friend Mario Havel successfully raised $180k through a Bordel crowdloaning campaign to fund a DeFi mortgage for a new hacker community space. It’s a kind of peer‑to‑peer lending where individuals lend money directly, instead of relying on donations. There are no banks, no loan sharks, and no middlemen, just the power of Ethereum making it all possible.

Policy

• Hong Kong SAR: Hong Kong to issue first stablecoin issuer licenses in March 2026.

• Japan: Bank of Japan to test blockchain-based reserve settlement.

• Malaysia: Malaysia’s central bank to launch three stablecoin and tokenized deposit initiatives in 2026.

• Europe: European bank consortium targets 2026 launch for euro-backed stablecoin.

Share

🪐 Global Ecosystem Update

Scale L1, Scale Blobs and Improve UI/UX

• Protocol Priorities Update for 2026 - 3 new tracks: Scale, Improve UX and Harden the L1.

• Justin Drake introduced the “strawmap” roadmap, built around five north stars: a fast L1 with short slots and finality in seconds; a gigagas L1 hitting 1 gigagas/sec (10K TPS) via zkEVMs and real-time proving; a teragas L2 reaching 1 gigabyte/sec (10M TPS) via data availability sampling; a post-quantum L1 with durable cryptography via hash-based schemes; and a private L1 with first-class privacy via shielded ETH transfers. For a plain breakdown, check out James’s Idiot’s Guide to Ethereum’s 2029 Strawmap.

  

• Vitalik lays out the quantum resistance roadmap targeting four areas: consensus-layer BLS signatures, data availability (KZG commitments and proofs), EOA signatures (ECDSA), and application-layer ZK proofs (KZG or Groth16).

DeFi, Stablecoins & Payments

• ‘Ethereum Foundation believes in Defipunk‘, with focus on strengthening builder relationships and advancing security, decentralization, openness, privacy, standards, risk clarity, research, and content. The initiative spans domains such as DeFi × AI, institutional DeFi adoption, stablecoins and payments, and emerging financial primitives that don’t fit neatly into existing categories.

• Ethereum Foundation has begun staking part of ether treasury, with approximately 70,000 ETH being staked and rewards directed back to the EF treasury.

• In the past 30 days, x402 has processed 75.41M transactions with $24.24M volume.

• Visa and Stripe plan global expansion of stablecoin card issuance product to over 100 countries.

• Fintech and insurance giant TruStage pilots stablecoin geared for credit unions.

• Ether.fi shifts non-custodial crypto card product to OP Mainnet from Scroll.

• Stripe adds x402 integration for USDC agent payments on Base.

• Robinhood launches public testnet for blockchain built on Arbitrum.

• Barclays exploring blockchain settlement tools as banks brace for stablecoin growth.

• Ethereum’s tokenized RWA market jumps more than 300% year over year as value tops $17 billion.

• Defending DeFi in the Age of AI Offensive Tooling: A reality check on AI-powered attack tools, human audits, and defense strategies, before hype and panic lead to poor security decisions, by BlockThreat.

• For more on enterprise + Ethereum, check out the Enterprise Onchain Newsletter by James and David Walsh.

AI + Ethereum

• Introducing clawd.atg.eth, an AI agent with a wallet, building onchain apps and tools, by Austin Griffith.

• ETH2030: Agentic Coding ETH Client for 2030+ Roadmap, YQ single-handedly coded an Ethereum client using agentic coding, targeting the entire 2030+ roadmap.

• Cool experiment by Raul: two trustless agents discover each other over P2P (BitTorrent Mainline DHT) and agree on a content-addressed Wasm program as their shared state machine. They then transact in turns, emitting provable traces along the way.

• A better explanation on what ERC-8004 is by Vitto Rivabella.

• Web4.0: The Birth of Superintelligent Life and the Autonomous Web, by Sigil Wen. Is it better than Web3.0?

• A great read: AI Needs Crypto - Especially Now by a16z Crypto.

• Vitalik sketches a near-term vision for Ethereum’s role in an AI-driven future. His updated view focuses on the shorter term, where Ethereum plays an important role but remains just one piece of a bigger puzzle: building tooling for more trustless and/or private interactions with AIs, using Ethereum as an economic layer for AI-related interactions, making the cypherpunk “mountain man” vision a reality, and building better markets and governance.

  

🔢 Ecosystem Data

1. Client diversity

   Lighthouse currently holds 51.48% of consensus client share, crossing the majority threshold. Consider switching to a minority client for client diversity!

   

2. Total value locked on Ethereum

   As of writing (Mar 5, 2026), Ethereum’s total value locked (TVL) sits at $295.6B, largely flat compared to late February despite ongoing market volatility.

   

3. RWA growth on Ethereum

   RWA growth on Ethereum exceeded the combined total of the next five chains in 2025.

   

4. ERC-8004 continues to gain traction

   Ethereum mainnet now hosts ~13.9k registered agents with ~2.5k feedback entries, up from 11k agents and ~2k feedbacks last month.

   

💡 Opportunities

• Ethereum Foundation 2026 PhD Fellowship: Supporting PhD students in Ethereum-related research. Apply by April 1, 2026

• Ethereum Protocol Studies 2026: EF’s protocol study program with new tracks in cryptography and Lean Consensus/zkEVM, plus a year-round self-paced learning platform. Started February 23, visit epf.wiki to join.

• LI.FI Vibeathon on build autonomous agents: Build autonomous agents that move capital across chains. Submit by March 9, 2026.

• muShanghai Pop-Up City: Month-long builder city in Shanghai (May 10-June 6) with theme weeks on AI, biotech, robotics, and gaming. Apply now.

• Kolektyw3 Community Hub @ ETHWarsaw: Ethereum community hub in Warsaw with meetups, workshops, and coworking for Polish builders. Opening event March 12 - grab your spot, cowork or donate!

• ETHCluj 2026 Volunteer Program: Volunteer at ETHCluj (May 13-14) for full conference access plus meals. Apply by April 10, 2026.

• Community Privacy Residency 2026: 3-week residency (July 15-August 6) to build open-source privacy tools. Tracks: Countersurveillance, Privacy & Cryptography in AI, and Community Infrastructure. Apply by March 29, 2026.

✨ Highlighted Events in March and April

• Aleph March ‘26, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mar 4-26, 2026. Month-long pop-up city.

• Aleph Hackathon, Argentina & LATAM, Mar 20-22, 2026. Online & IRL hackathon.

• ETHSF 2026, San Francisco, USA, Mar 9-14, 2026. Week-long of curated talks, workshops, and collaboration.

• Ethereum Unblock SF, San Francisco, USA, Mar 10-12, 2026. Three-day design sprint.

• Funding the Commons SF: Intelligence at the Frontier, San Francisco, USA, Mar 14-15, 2026. Two-day conference.

• ETHMumbai, Mumbai, India, Mar 12-15, 2026. Hackathon.

• EthCC, Cannes, France, Mar 30-Apr 2, 2026. Europe’s largest annual Ethereum conference.

• BEAST MODE | zkEVM, Cannes, France, Mar 28, 2026. EthCC side event.

• FORT MODE | post-quantum consensus, Cannes, France, Mar 29, 2026. EthCC side event.

• ETHGlobal Cannes, Cannes, France, Apr 3-Apr 5, 2026. Hackathon during EthCC 2026.

• ZuKas, Kaş, Turkey, Apr 10-May 9, 2026. Month-long pop-up village.

• Ethereum Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland, Apr 10-12, 2026. Two-day conference.

• ETHSilesia 2026, Katowice, Poland, Apr 16-19, 2026. Four-day conference + hackathon by ETHWarsaw.

• For more Ethereum-related events, feel free to visit the Ethereum Event List! 📅

Thanks for reading! Spring is just around the corner - see you soon!

Best regards,

Riely & the Geode Labs team

Have thoughts on this issue? Reply or DM me - I read everything.

Want to support Local Ethereum? Reach out about sponsorships.

Special thanks to Paweł Bylica, Monika Zając and Martyna Jeuté for the review and the feedback.

TL;DR

Poland has emerged as a significant hub for blockchain and Ethereum development, driven by innovative projects, a strong pool of technical talent and vibrant communities. This deep dive explores the evolution of Poland’s Ethereum ecosystem, from its early days with pioneering projects like Golem and Nethermind to modern contributions such as L2beat’s growth, alongside with other key players and recent developments.

1. The Pioneers: Golem, Ethworks, and Nethermind

1.1 Golem: Decentralizing Computing Power

• Golem was founded in 2016 by Julian Zawistowski, Piotr Janiuk, Andrzej Regulski, and Aleksandra Skrzypczak in Warsaw, building on their experience at imapp and the Institute for Structural Research (IBS). The team’s deep involvement with Ethereum core development since 2014, working on EVMJIT and C++ client with ETHDEV, positioned them perfectly to create one of Ethereum’s most ambitious early projects.

• Golem raised 820,000 ETH (~$8.2M USD) in a groundbreaking 20-minute ICO in November 2016, creating a global “supercomputer” for rendering and scientific computations. By 2020, the project evolved to “New Golem” with a modular GLM token system, while the Golem Foundation split off to manage over $40 million in assets for research funding.

• Golem Ecosystem Fund: backed by 40,000 staked ETH, supports projects like Clan (private device networks) and Web3Pi (accessible Ethereum nodes), advancing AI, analytics, and decentralized infrastructure.

• Octant, launched in August 2023 by the Golem Foundation under co-founder Julian Zawistowski, is a decentralized platform using Golem’s GLM token to fund public goods, leveraging 100,000 staked ETH to allocate 70% of yields to user rewards and projects like L2beat, Protocol Guild and the Tor Project.

1.2 Nethermind: A true powerhouse in the Ethereum space, Nethermind, though headquartered in London, has deep Polish roots and significant presence there. Their flagship product, the Nethermind Ethereum execution client, is a critical piece of the network’s infrastructure, securing a substantial portion of the Ethereum.

Beyond their client, Nethermind is a leading research and engineering firm, actively contributing to core Ethereum development, Layer 2 solutions like Starknet, institutional DeFi, and cutting-edge cryptography research.

Nethermind employs over 350 team members across 66+ countries, operating with a remote-first model that allows them to attract top talent globally, including a strong contingent from Poland. Their highly successful internship program has successfully cultivated a diverse pool of over 617 talents from 94+ countries since 2021, many of whom transition to full-time roles.

1.3 Ethworks (acquired): As a prominent blockchain development studio based in Warsaw, Ethworks has been instrumental in building and auditing smart contracts, developing decentralized applications, and contributing to the broader Ethereum infrastructure. In September 2021, Ethworks was acquired by TrustToken, the company behind the TrueFi unsecured lending protocol. Despite the acquisition, the legacy of Ethworks’ contributions to open-source projects like Waffle and useDApp continues to benefit Ethereum developers globally.

Marek Kirejczyk, Founder of EthWorks joined TrueFi as a CTO and later started Vlayer Labs, a decentralized data infrastructure platform designed to enable trustless, verifiable data exchanges using zero-knowledge proofs.

2. Policy

Poland has, indeed, taken steps to establish a favorable environment for fintech companies and blockchain startups. While in terms of cryptocurrency, Poland’s approach has been cautious.

For Ordinary Crypto Users and Traders: Crypto is legal but cannot be used for government payments like taxes, though private parties can agree to use it for transactions. Income from the sale of virtual currencies is taxed at a flat rate of 19% and report through PIT-38 forms. There are no border declaration requirements when traveling with crypto, and mining is legal with no specific restrictions beyond general electricity and environmental regulations. All crypto transactions are subject to taxation and must be reported to authorities.

For Business Providers and Crypto Startups: Any entity providing virtual currency services must register in the Polish Register of Virtual Currency Activities operated by the tax authority within 14 days. Companies must implement comprehensive AML/KYC policies, appoint qualified AML officers, establish customer due diligence procedures for transactions over €1,000. Poland is implementing MiCA regulation, which will bring crypto service providers under direct PFSA supervision by July 2026, requiring additional licensing and compliance measures.

3. Other Key Players

3.1 Startups: As Maciej Zawadziński, a serial entrepreneur with three exits to his credit and partner at Hard2beat VC, explained: “Poland’s startup ecosystem has always been about resilience. Founders here have had to be resourceful, overcome capital constraints and think globally from day one…”. Here are some well-known Polish Ethereum startups that embody this spirit:

• Ramp: Led by Przemek Kowalczyk, Ramp simplifies crypto on-ramps, boosting ETH adoption. Raised $200M in a Series E round in 2025.

• RedStone: A blockchain oracle provider that supplies real-time, reliable data feeds to over 100 decentralized applications across EVM and non-EVM blockchains, securing billions of dollars in value. Founded by Jakub Wojciechowski. $15M in Series A funding.

• Vlayer Lab: Co-founded by Hubert Rachwalski and Marek Kirejczyk, vlayer provides smart contracts with access to on- and off-chain data through features such as Time Travel, Teleport, Web Proofs (zkTLS), and Email Proofs (zkEmail). The company raised $10M in a pre-seed funding round.

• T1protocol: A Layer-2 infrastructure to solve the fragmentation caused by rollups and aims to restore seamless composability and improve user experience in Ethereum. Raised $2.5M in a pre-seed round.

• L2Beat: A Polish-led analytics platform that has become the essential resource for tracking Ethereum’s Layer 2 scaling solutions, providing comprehensive data on value secured, risk analysis, UOPs, and more. Through its transparent methodology and neutral approach, L2Beat helps developers, investors, and users navigate the trade-offs between different L2 solutions, and is the go-to resource for understanding L2 adoption, performance, and risks.

• Herodotus: ZK-powered verifiable data and coprocessing for Ethereum and beyond.

• Uniqly: A digital layer of technology for physical assets through NFC tech, redeemable NFTs, and storefronts.

• Cookie3: AI Data Layer for crypto enterprise analytics across the whole funnel.

• Stablewatch: Analytics for stablecoins.

3.2 Communities

• ETHWarsaw: An active grassroots Ethereum community in Warsaw, Poland, known for organizing the largest yearly Ethereum conference and hackathon in the country, alongside regular Ethereum meetups.

  • ETHWarsaw 2025 [4]: 4-7 September 2025.

  • ETHLegal: A one-day conference for lawyers, scientists, and practitioners to jointly discuss the latest trends, challenges, and regulations in blockchain legal matters.

  • Kolektyw3: A curated, community-driven space for experimentation, collaboration, and creation in the worlds of blockchain, AI, and decentralized technologies.

• zkWarsaw: Warsaw-based community around zero-knowledge proofs. Running events with lectures and workshops for researchers, hackers, and builders.

• Blockchain Devs Wrocław: Local blockchain dev community at Wrocław.

• thePolacy: A diverse NFT community of traders, artists, memers, and yogis.

3.3 University Initiatives

• University courses:

  • University of Warsaw: Cryptography, Blockchain & Fintech; Blockchain programming; Digital finance.

  • SGH Warsaw School of Economics: Blockchain Postgraduate Studies - Blockchain: Business, Law, Technology; which also organizes the 1st International Onchain Economy Conference in May 2025.

• Research Group & Blockchain Center:

  • University of Warsaw: Cryptography And Blockchain Group.

  • Jagiellonian University: Blockchain implication for complex systems.

  • Łazarski University: Blockchain Technology Center, the first in Central and Eastern Europe and the third in Europe research and education unit dealing with blockchain technology. In October 2023, they opened a new course Financial Technologies courses with a special emphasis on blockchain.

  • Warsaw University of Technology: Blockchain related research publications.

4. Ethereum Adoption

There is increasing cryptocurrency adoption alongside cautious regulatory oversight. According to the data from statista and Polish Economic Institute, user penetration rate is expected to be 19.32% in 2025 and is forecasted to increase to 20.27% by 2026.

According to Chainalysis’ 2024 analysis, Poland ranks 24th globally in crypto adoption and is among the countries with the greatest cryptocurrency value received and DeFi growth in Eastern Europe, alongside Russia and Ukraine, particularly seeing significant growth in large institutional transfers.

5. Web2 and Web3 Developers

Poland stands out within Europe’s developer community, as highlighted by the 2024 Electronic Capital Developer Survey, which notes a 2% share of global blockchain developers. Beyond projects with Polish roots, Polish engineers are working at some of the best international projects in the Ethereum space, like Ethereum Foundation, MakerDAO, Matter Labs, Starkware, Consensys and more.

According to the 2022 Octoverse data, Poland led with over 981K new developers and a 30% increase. In 2023, the Octoverse data shows continued growth, with Poland contributing over 1.2M developers and a 24% year-over-year increase.

Further Reading

• Golem Blog: So who the heck are we, anyway

• Global Legal Insights: Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Laws and Regulations 2025 – Poland

• UPay Post: Crypto Adoption Around the World: Poland

• Chainalysis: Despite war and regulatory questions, crypto adoption grows in Eastern Europe driven by institutions and DeFi activity

• The Recursive: We’re Not Pitching Ice to Eskimos Anymore”: Poland Enters the Scaleup League

• ETHWarsaw’s Substack

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day! 🌸

Best regards,

Riely and the Geode Labs team.

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Ethereum and AI are hitting us at warp speed. Here at Local Ethereum, we’re diving deep to explore and document the freshest stories on Ethereum tech and community, from every corner of the globe.

Let's break down what's new, and what really matters for builders.

🗺️ Regional Adoption

• India: India’s 2026 budget keeps 30% crypto tax, adds $545 penalty for missed reports. 30% tax + 1% TDS is pushing users offshore.

• China: China tightens stance on RWA tokenization and offshore yuan stablecoins, reiterates crypto ban. Despite regulatory headwinds towards stablecoins, builders are pushing forward: muShanghai is happening this May and June - leveraging resources like connections to Unitree, DeepSeek and Qwen to help you build your ideas, whether in AI or crypto.

• Hong Kong SAR: Hong Kong regulator targets March for first stablecoin licences. Ethereum Community Hub is launching in Hong Kong!

• Japan: Nyx Foundation, a Japanese Ethereum R&D group, successfully raised their 2026 funding goal of $67,000 with support from Japanese and global donors to work on quantum resistance, formal verification, and MEV research.

• Vietnam: Everything you need to know about the Vietnamese Ethereum ecosystem, part 1 and part 2.

• Philippines: Everything you need to know about the Philippines Ethereum ecosystem.

• Malaysia and Thailand: Zuzalu inspired communities like Pop X by UETH and 4Seas Chiangmai, with recent events including Pop X KL and ETH Chiangmai.

• Iran: Iran’s Ministry of Defence Export Center is accepting cryptocurrency payments for advanced weapons systems as a means of bypassing international sanctions that the country faces.

• Italy: New Ethereum Community Hub in Italy - The Urbe Hub.

• Portugal: Supportive policies boost Portugal’s crypto adoption by Crypto For Innovation.

• Argentina: Crecimiento continues building with ALEPH March ‘26, featuring privacy and DeFi summits.

• Brazil: Former Brazil central bank official unveils real-pegged stablecoin with yield sharing.

🪐 Global Ecosystem Update

Scale L1, Scale Blobs and Improve UI/UX

• Hyper-scaling state by creating new forms of state. Vitalik noted that scaling Ethereum requires expanding three resources: execution, data, and state. The goal is to scale Ethereum by ~1000x over the next five years.

• Ethereum researchers propose FOCIL as censorship-resistant headliner for Hegota upgrade.

• Carl proposed “Quick Slots” for Hegota, which would reduce Ethereum’s slot time from 12 seconds to as low as possible.

• Vitalik talked about 7 specific technical requirements that would allow the blockchain to ossify, with pre-emptive quantum-resistance cited as a non-negotiable priority for century-long security.

• Wonderland introduced Interoperable Addresses to make sending assets across any chain in the Ethereum ecosystem as simple as typing an address and clicking send.

• Ethereum Foundation formed a new Post Quantum (PQ) team, led by the brilliant Thomas Coratger.

• Native DVT for Ethereum staking by Vitalik.

• ClientBeat: Ethereum Client Dashboard by Geth dev Sina Mahmoodi.

DeFi, Stablecoins & Payments

• Y Combinator opens stablecoin funding option for startups starting Spring 2026.

• USDC payments surge 70% as global finance goes always-on.

• Vitalik pointed out that decentralized stablecoins face three unsolved problems: finding an index better than USD price to track, designing a decentralized oracle that can’t be captured with large capital, and addressing the competition from staking yield.

Institutional

• Robinhood Chain testnet is now live on the Arbitrum platform.

• Fidelity announced the launch of a USD stablecoin, FIDD, built on Ethereum and issued by Fidelity Digital Assets.

• Stripe is launching machine payments with support for x402 using USDC stablecoins on Base.

• Hang Seng debuts gold ETF with Ethereum-based tokenized units.

• Morgan Stanley widens crypto bet with proposed spot Ethereum ETF that includes a staking component.

• Uniswap Labs and Securitize partner to unlock DeFi liquidity for BlackRock’s BUIDL.

• The New York Stock Exchange develops tokenized securities platform which will facilitate 24x7 trading of U.S. listed equities and ETFs.

Security

• Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm says privacy will prove the key competitive moat in 2026, with decentralization in messaging, “secrets-as-a-service,” and design-level security as key trends shaping crypto’s next phase.

• The One Trillion Dollar Security Dashboard, a comprehensive view of Ethereum’s security across the ecosystem by the Ethereum Foundation, is now live.

• Vitalik Buterin commits roughly $45 million in ETH to open-source security and privacy projects.

• ‘The DAO is back!’: Ethereum dev Griff Green to use unclaimed hack funds for new security fund.

• Privacy Ecosystem Mapping research by Web3Privacy and community contributors.

dDAI

• The recent ERC-8004 is live! It’s a new standard developed by the Ethereum Foundation’s dAI Team, MetaMask, Google, Coinbase, and others, that aims to enable AI agents to interact with various entities on Ethereum, allowing them to participate in a decentralized economy.

• Welcome to ERC-8004 and the open agentic economy!

• Clawd.atg: Built by Austin Griffith, this AI agent with a wallet builds onchain apps and improves the tools used to create them.

• Vitalik talks about “Ethereum as an economic layer for AI-related interactions”, which includes API calls, bots hiring bots, security deposits that potentially eventually more complicated contraptions like onchain dispute resolution, ERC-8004, AI reputation ideas.

  

deSoc

• Farcaster refunds $180M to its investors. Mask Network stewards Lens Protocol. Vitalik vows full return to deSoc in 2026. Is decentralized social ‘dead’, or is a revival coming?

Ecosystem Data 🔢

1. Client diversity has improved!

   

2. Total value locked on Ethereum

   As of writing (Feb 12, 2026), Ethereum’s total value locked (TVL) sits at $293.5B, pulling back alongside a broader ETH price drop.

   

3. Ethereum stablecoin supply

   As of writing (Feb 12, 2026), Ethereum’s total stablecoin supply reaches $177.9B; stablecoin transfer volume and monthly senders are both at all-time highs in 2026 Jan.

   

4. Discover AI Agents on ERC-8004

   ERC-8004 is already live in Ethereum and being used across the ecosystem. 11k+ agents registered, ~2k feedback entries on mainnet.

   

Opportunities💡

• Ethereum Foundation 2026 PhD Fellowship: The Ethereum Foundation launched the 2026 PhD Fellowship Program, supporting PhD students advancing Ethereum-related research. Apply before April 1, 2026.

• TheDAO Security Fund: TheDAO Security Fund activates 75,000+ ETH ($220M+) for Ethereum security, including wallet UX, smart contracts, incident response, core protocol, and more. L2s, protocols, round operators, or security projects, please reach out and get involved!

• muShanghai Pop-Up City: muShanghai (May 10–June 6, 2026) bridges global talent with China’s tech ecosystem. Builders: apply now.

• Aleph March ‘26 Pop-Up City: Crecimiento’s month-long event in Buenos Aires (March 4–26) unites builders in crypto, AI, and emerging tech. Applications coming soon - stay tuned!

• Aleph Hackathon: Join the 3-day hybrid hackathon (March 20–22) inside Aleph March ‘26, tackling AI, DeFi, biotech, robotics, and more. Prize pool TBA with mentorship. Apply now.

• Electric Capital 2026 Thesis: Electric Capital’s 2026 investment thesis highlights 26 opportunities in personal software, agents, DeFi, and more. They invest $1M–$20M, reach out: info@electriccapital.com.

• Ecosystem Hiring Opportunities: The Ethereum Foundation and multiple other teams are hiring. Check Ethereum Opportunity Board.

Highlighted Events in Feb and March✨

• ETHDenver, Denver, USA, Feb 18-21, 2026. 100+ side-events; top 23 curated here.

• Aleph March ‘26, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mar 4-26, 2026. Month-long pop-up city.

• Aleph Hackathon, Argentina & LATAM, Mar 20-22, 2026. Online & IRL hackathon.

• ETHMUMBAI, Mumbai, India, Mar 12-15, 2026. Hackathon.

• Funding the Commons SF: Intelligence at the Frontier, San Francisco, USA, Mar 14-15, 2026. Two-day conference.

• EthCC, Cannes, France, Mar 30-Apr 2, 2026. Europe’s largest annual Ethereum conference.

• BEAST MODE | zkEVM, Cannes, France, Mar 28, 2026. EthCC side event.

• FORT MODE | post-quantum consensus, Cannes, France, Mar 29, 2026. EthCC side event.

• For more Ethereum-related events, please feel free to visit the Ethereum Event List!

Thanks for reading! Stay warm out there!

Best regards,

Riely & the Geode Labs team

Have any comments or feedback? DM.

Want to advertise on Local Ethereum? DM or Email.

If your company is interested in reaching an audiences of regional community and ecosystem builders, developer communities, universities, startup partners, or policymakers, you may want to advertise with us.

This piece continues our Vietnam Ethereum Ecosystem deep dive. In Part I, we looked at the foundations of Vietnam’s Ethereum ecosystem that made Vietnam one of the most underestimated crypto markets globally.

If you haven’t read it yet, we recommend starting there!

Part I

Special thanks to Jade Hoang, Kim Trong, Phuc Thai, Trong Nguyen, Sasha Mai, and Tuyen for the feedback and the review.

6. Investment Landscape

Vietnam’s crypto investment scene has cooled since new regulations cracked down on ICOs, IDOs, and scam projects, making token launches explicitly illegal, previously a gray area where rug pulls went largely unpunished.

Post-regulation, participants in scam projects (especially GameFi teams) face lawsuits, with many cases emerging since January; VCs investing in dubious projects can still profit but risk legal exposure if unaware of fraud.

Local VCs

• Coin98 Ventures: Active local crypto VC with 100+ portfolio companies

• Kyros Ventures: Early-stage incubator backed by Coin68 ecosystem, produces market research

• Kyber Ventures: Investment arm of Kyber Group, supporting DeFi ecosystem

• Caliber: Web3 venture builder by Kyber Network

International Funding

Most Vietnamese crypto startups raise from Singapore/US VCs. Vietnamese projects have attracted funding from Animoca Brands, Binance Labs, Pantera Capital, Hashed, Alameda Research (pre-collapse).

7. Developer Events & Education

Developer & Builder Community

• Vietnam ranks 8th globally for new blockchain developer share (3%), alongside Germany, Indonesia, China, Canada, and Turkey, trailing only India (22%) and the US (14%)

• Strong talent in gaming/frontend, cryptography and security, weaker in protocol development

• A significant portion of Vietnam's local software developers work for outsourcing giants like FPT, TMA, CMC Global and KMS, which dominate the IT sector

• Best developers often relocate or work remotely for foreign companies. Those staying in Vietnam tend to maintain a low profile

Communities and events

• ETHVietnam: Annual hackathon/conference (started 2023)

• GM Vietnam: Vietnam Blockchain Week, Multi-chain event

• Super Vietnam: Blockchain, RWA & AI Week - tradefi and crypto enterprises focus

• Conviction: Vietnam Digital Asset Economy Forum

• Web3 Builders’ Summit: Annually summit held in Da Nang since 2024, gathers founders and developers to discuss blockchain and AI integration

• Other communities include Web3 Saigon, sqrDAO, APAC DAO, though activity has declined. Various L2 groups (Starknet VN, Scroll VN) became less active after the ICO era. Base appears to be the most active L2 community currently.

University engagement

Education gap: Few universities offer blockchain-specific courses. Most of the devs are self taught through online course.

• Vietnam National University (Hanoi): Occasional blockchain courses

• RMIT Vietnam: Fintech program touches on blockchain

• Key universities targeted by crypto companies for talent recruitment:

  • Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT)

  • Hanoi University of Science and Technology

  • Ho Chi Minh City University of Science (HCMUS)

  • VNU Hanoi University of Science (VNU-HUS)

  • VNU University of Engineering and Technology (VNU-UET)

  • Da Nang University of Science and Technology (DUT)

• VIASM (Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics) is a premier research institute that has hosted IACR-VIASM Summer Schools on Cryptography (2016, 2022) focusing on lattice-based cryptography and Zero-Knowledge Proofs, connecting Vietnamese mathematicians with the global cryptography community. It serves as a critical academic foundation for Vietnam’s blockchain and ZKP talent pipeline, a schelling point for local zk builders! ✨

8. Regional Hubs

Vietnam’s blockchain activity centers on three cities: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) serves as the primary development hub, Hanoi is key for government relations/ policy and uni, and Da Nang is emerging as a tech city with sandbox initiatives.

9. Challenges

• Uncertain Policy → New Framework, Uncertain Implementation: Previously, the absence of a clear legal framework discouraged VC investment and deterred top talent. While the Law on Digital Technology Industry (effective Jan 1, 2026) and Decision 96/QD-BTC (effective Jan 20, 2026) have finally opened a licensing pathway, the “uncertainty” has transitioned into execution risk. The primary challenge is whether these official platforms can offer the variety and depth required to keep users from returning to the now “legally high-risk” gray market. For local startups, particularly those building DeFi or DEX infrastructure, the regulatory stance can make their work more difficult (harder to attract VCs, harder to conduct an ICO, harder to hire top talent…)

• The “Trust Deficit” & Brand Dilution: High-profile scams have left lasting skepticism among both users and policymakers. For users, this creates a much higher barrier for trusting new, local projects. For policymakers, this history has driven a “permission-first” regulatory approach. However, the new policy targeting scammers is a positive signal; it provides a protective floor for users and legitimate local players like Kyber Network, which may eventually unlock the ecosystem’s full potential.

• Talent Pipeline & Developer Barriers:

  • Vietnam has a strong technical foundation, but growth is limited by market perception and opportunity.

  • Compared to established fields like Gaming or AI, blockchain currently offers fewer stable career paths. Vietnamese developers are practical; they gravitate toward industries with clear professional progression.

  • Crypto’s scam-heavy reputation further discourages elite developers who want to protect their professional standing.

  • Furthermore, formal blockchain education is limited, and the dominance of English-language documentation creates a steep learning curve for local talent.

  • The result: a) Founders incorporate offshore to mitigate legal uncertainty. b) Developers work for foreign firms that pay significantly more.

• User Education & Use Case Gap: Education is “trade-centric.” Most users stay within the safety of CEXs, lacking the technical literacy to use self-custody or on-chain protocols. DeFi really works, but many users are looking for short-term gains. Real world use cases like remittance demand exists, but crypto off-ramp costs remain uncompetitive against traditional services like Wise. Startups lack incentive to build utility-focused products when user demand centers on quick trading gains.

10. Further Reading

• Vietnam’s Crypto Legislation Opens Door to New Business Opportunities by Crypto Council for Innovation

• Five reasons why Vietnam’s crypto usage is so high by Crypto Council for Innovation

• Resolution 222/2025 original, Resolution on International Financial Centers (IFCs) in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang

• Resolution No. 222/2025 on International Financial Centers by PwC Vietnam Newsbrief

• Vietnam Crypto Market 2025: Complete Analysis of 21 Million Investor by Tiger Research

• Blockchain in Banking: Challenges and opportunities for the banking system in Vietnam by Nguyen Thi Phan Thu

• Is Vietnam Southeast Asia’s Next Web3 Growth Engine by Republic

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day! 🌸

Best regards,

Riely and the Geode Labs team.

Have any comments or feedback? DM.

Want to advertise on Local Ethereum? DM or Email.

If your company is interested in reaching an audiences of regional community and ecosystem builders, developer communities, universities, startup partners, or policymakers, you may want to advertise with us.

Special thanks to Jade Hoang, Kim Trong, Phuc Thai, Trong Nguyen, Sasha Mai, Vi Vi, Mary Tran for the feedback and the review.

TL;DR

• Adoption paradox: Vietnam ranks #4 globally in Chainalysis’s adoption index despite legal restrictions on crypto payments, largely organic and retail-driven.

• Notable projects: Kyber, Pendle, Axie Infinity, Orochi Network, NE (previously Coin98), Coin68, etc.

• Gaming-driven engagement: Play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity catalyzed massive retail onboarding (2020–2022).

• Developer dynamics: Strong dev talent, but many work for outsourcing companies; Vietnamese builders on Ethereum often operate outside large, visible communities.

• Regulatory uncertainty: Despite ongoing regulatory uncertainty and prohibited crypto payments, Vietnam shows early openness through its new Digital Technology Law (June 2025, effective January 2026) and IFC sandbox initiative.

• Comprehensive ecosystem: DeFi/GameFi/infra startups (Kyber, Pendle, Axie, Orochi), venture capital (Kyros Ventures, Caliber, Coin98 Ventures), academic cryptography research (VIASM, HCMUT, HUST, VNU, ZKP Labs), media (Coin68, Coin98 Insights), and enterprise players (FPT, SotaTek).

• ZKP/cryptography foundation: Positioned as Southeast Asia’s premier crypto development hub with notable strength in zero-knowledge research.

• Infrastructure focus: Early Vietnamese teams built L1s (when L2s were nascent); more recent projects have shifted toward L2 and application-layer development.

1. Adoption Metrics

• Global Rankings:

  • Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index: 4th globally, up from 5th (2024), down from 3rd (2022)

  • TRM Labs 2025 Country Crypto Adoption Index: 7th globally, down from 5th (2024)

2. Why Vietnam’s crypto adoption is so high

• Limited productive investment options meet high savings rate: Vietnam has one of Asia’s highest savings rates at 25-30% of GDP, but people have limited good options. The stock market is volatile and retail-dominated. Capital controls make investing abroad difficult.

• Frictionless access and regulatory gray zone: Crypto infrastructure just works in Vietnam. Binance and major exchanges operate smoothly, on-ramps are simple, and you can start with just a few dollars. While the domestic stock market runs on T+2 settlement, crypto’s 24/7 trading and volatility appeal to retail traders. Crucially, the regulatory environment is a gray zone - not banned like China, not fully legitimized - which lets people use crypto freely without barriers or institutional gatekeeping.

• Appeal to young growth-seekers: The crypto adopters are predominantly young, mobile-native millennials and Gen Z (not the traditional gold buyers or conservative investors). With a median age of 33.5, a population of 102.3 million, and 84% internet penetration, the demographic conditions favor digital asset adoption among those drawn to crypto’s high-return potential over more conventional options.

• Proven builder ecosystem through DeFi and GameFi: High-profile successes like Loi Luu’s Kyber Network and Trung Nguyen’s Axie Infinity showed Vietnamese founders a path to wealth, inspiring many to follow. While Axie’s user boom during COVID happened mainly in the Philippines, the Vietnamese-founded project sparked a wave of local GameFi development in 2021, some finding decent success before the sector died off. These wins proved that local teams could build globally relevant products, attracting serious technical talent to the space.

3. Regulatory Landscape: Shift From Grey Market to Regulated Crypto Industry

Vietnam’s cryptocurrency regulation shifted decisively in 2025 from legal ambiguity to controlled legitimization. Historically, since 2017 it prohibited crypto as payment while leaving trading and ownership legally undefined, which can create a massive shadow economy.

The breakthrough came June 14, 2025, when the Law on Digital Technology Industry recognized digital assets as “property” under the Civil Code for the first time (effective January 1, 2026), though crypto remains NOT legal tender.

Resolution 05/2025/NQ-CP (September 9, 2025) operationalized a five-year pilot with strict requirements: exchanges need VND 10,000 billion minimum capital (~$378M USD), 65% institutional ownership, 49% foreign ownership cap, and Ministry of Finance licensing. Only Vietnamese enterprises can issue real asset-backed crypto assets. Foreign investor participation is restricted, and the same tax regime as securities transactions temporarily applies (e.g., 0.1% on transaction value).

Impact:

• Policy prioritizes institutional control, FATF compliance, and user protection, favoring stability and fraud prevention over capital inflows and investor enthusiasm.

• Traders & Users: Legal recognition of digital assets as property boosts legitimacy and combats scams, with domestic/foreign users able to trade via MOF/IFC-licensed CASPs (post-6-month grace period); mandatory AML/KYC, 0.1% transaction taxes, and penalties curb P2P/grey-market activity, enhancing security but restricting informal volumes.

• Startup founders: cannot access exchange licensing due to the VND 10T (~$378M) capital barrier or conduct traditional ICOs, as token issuances require licensed platforms only. Local Vietnamese GameFi projects and devshops face shutdown pressure, several have already suspended services early this year, unable to meet compliance demands.

• Investors see clarity and limits

  • Investors (Foreign): The 49% foreign ownership cap plus data localization requirements under Decree 53 mandating user data stored within Vietnam means you can’t just parachute in, you’ll need local Joint Venture structures and onshore infrastructure.

• This reinforces the existing pattern: incorporate in Singapore for regulatory clarity and capital access, operate teams in Vietnam for talent and market proximity.

• It gives room for innovation under Resolution No. 222/2025 on International Financial Centers, e.g., Members can conduct transactions such as payments, transfers with each other and with foreign entities.

4. Key Local Startups

• KyberSwap

  • OG DEX aggregator on Ethereum, founded in 2017 by Vietnamese founders Loi Luu and Victor Tran.

  • Served as a talent incubator for Vietnam and SEA’s DeFi ecosystem. Kyber alumni are founders and core contributors behind RISE (L2), Pendle (yield protocol), Jupiter (DEX), and Tokenlon (DEX).

• Pendle

  • A permissionless yield-trading protocol on Ethereum where users can execute various yield-management strategies.

  • Founded in 2021 by TN Lee (former Kyber Network founding team) and Vu Nguyen. Current TVL at $3.451B, now the leading yiel-trading protocol in DeFi.

• Axie Infinity (Sky Mavis)

  • A blockchain game developed by Vietnamese studio Sky Mavis in 2018, co-founded by Trung Nguyen (CEO) in Ho Chi Minh City.

  • Ronin transitioned from a sidechain to a full-fledged L2 built to scale Ethereum gaming in 2025. 1M wallet downloads and $4.2B in NFT trading volume on App.axie, the #1 NFT project by all-time volume.

• Ninety Eight (previously Coin98)

  • A DeFi super app integrating wallet, DEX, and cross-chain bridge, founded by Le Thanh, a Vietnamese engineer who started as a YouTube crypto educator in 2017.

• Orochi Network

  • Verifiable data infrastructure using Zero-Knowledge Proofs, founded in 2021 by Chiro Hiro and Mary Tran in Ho Chi Minh City.

  • Raised $20 million total; zkDatabase has processed 700+ million proofs since launch.

• Sotatek

  • Major dev shop with a dedicated blockchain division.

• FPT Software

  • Vietnam’s largest IT company.

  • Built akaChain (Hyperledger Fabric) and eTradevn (first blockchain L/C platform). Actively expanding blockchain services.

• Verichains

  • HCMC-based security firm specializing in blockchain and cryptography.

• Decentralab (Copin.io)

  • A Da Nang–based Web3 company founded in 2021. Flagship product Copin is a data platform for on-chain perpetual trading, alongside Mintty, Trustgem, TrueDrop, and other internal initiatives.

5. Institutional & Public Sector Adoption

Banking & Finance

• Vietnamese banks are not crypto-friendly, though bankers are generally open-minded toward blockchain technology. Major banks (Vietcombank, BIDV, etc.) do not support crypto transactions.

• P2P transfers are permitted, but banks internally flag transactions containing keywords like “crypto” or “bitcoin” for monitoring - particularly if linked to suspicious fund sources. This is informal bank policy rather than official government regulation (confirmed via banking contacts). Accounts can be frozen at police request for money laundering investigations, not crypto activity per se.

• The core issue: Vietnam lacks licensed on/off-ramps, pushing users to P2P and informal OTC channels where fund provenance is harder to verify. Legitimate traders risk getting caught up when counterparties have tainted funds.

• Real-World Assets (RWA): Not an active sector yet.

• Despite crypto restrictions, Vietnamese banks are actively deploying blockchain use cases:

  • Vietcombank: Applied blockchain to Letters of Credit, cutting processing from 3-5 days to 27 minutes.

  • VietinBank: Streamlined the duration of both domestic and international interbank transactions from 5-7 working days to just 24 hours through blockchain implementation.

  • TPBank: The first bank to successfully implement international money transfers via Blockchain through RippleNet.

  • Techcombank: Through its subsidiary TCBS, successfully implemented blockchain technology in bond management (Blockchain-enabled Bond) and iXu reward point system (Blockchain-enabled iXu).

Corporate/Enterprise

Limited exploration of public blockchain (including Ethereum) due to legal concerns

• FPT Group (tech conglomerate): Enterprise blockchain focus, primarily Hyperledger.

• SotaTek: IT services and consulting firm, a subsidiary of Sota Holdings.

Government - NDAChain

• Layer 1 permissioned blockchain using Proof-of-Authority (PoA) consensus, enhanced with Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) for privacy.

• 49 public-private validator nodes; average of 1,200 TPS.

• Developed by National Data Association; operated by Data Innovation and Exploitation Center (under Ministry of Public Security).

• Products: NDA DID (decentralized identity for verifying counterparties, integrated with VNeID), NDATrace (product verification and traceability), and NDAKey (quick identity authentication app).

• Goal: Build Vietnam’s sovereign digital infrastructure, the verification layer for e-government, finance, healthcare, and logistics, ensuring data security, transparency, and trust.

What’ Next?

In Part II, we will walk you through Vietnam’s investment landscape, developer events and education, regional hubs, and other deep dives. 🇻🇳

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day! 🌸

Best regards,

Riely and the Geode Labs team.

Have any comments or feedback? DM.

Want to advertise on Local Ethereum? DM or Email.

If your company is interested in reaching an audiences of regional community and ecosystem builders, developer communities, universities, startup partners, or policymakers, you may want to advertise with us.

Special thanks to Bogdan Jovicevic, Petar Popovic and Tanja Mladenovic for the review and the feedback.

Tl;dr

• Serbia has become a leading blockchain hub in Eastern Europe, driven by early innovators like MVP Workshop, Tenderly and DeFi Saver, with a strong focus on Ethereum development.

• A dynamic ecosystem thrives through collaboration between startups, grassroots communities, academia, and ventures, with companies actively giving back to foster growth.

• Key players like MVP Workshop and Tenderly lead with cutting-edge Ethereum solutions, supported by a robust developer talent pool skilled in engineering and mathematics.

• Progressive policies, such as the Digital Assets Law create a supportive environment for blockchain innovation.

• Despite government support, Serbian startups face challenges in raising venture capital compared to EU member states, limiting their ability to scale.

Policy

• Digital Assets Law (2020): Serbia’s Law on Digital Assets, effective December 2020 and implemented by mid-2021, legalized cryptocurrency trading, issuance, and mining. It regulates virtual currencies (including Ethereum) and digital tokens, providing legal protection for transactions. The National Bank of Serbia (NBS) oversees virtual currency services, while the Serbian Securities Commission (SSC) handles token investments, ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) rules.

• Taxation: Crypto transactions not involving fiat conversion are VAT-exempt, making Serbia tax-friendly for Ethereum users. Capital gains tax (15%) applies to profits from ETH sales, with deductions available for reinvesting in Serbian companies within 90 days. Mining costs are deductible if documented, but the lack of a standardized tax return form for digital assets has caused minor delays.

Society and The Culture

Resilience and Innovation:

Serbia’s history of economic and political challenges, including 1990s international sanctions, hyperinflation, and restricted access to global payment systems like PayPal and Stripe in their early days, has fostered a resilient, problem-solving culture. Political instability from the Yugoslav wars and slow EU integration pushed developers toward crypto like Ethereum for cross-border transactions, spurring early Web3 innovation. This “underdog mentality”—a drive to succeed despite adversity, as noted by Ivan Bjelajac of ex-MVP Workshop (now with Tenderly) —fuels Serbian developers to create globally competitive solutions from day one.

Community and Collaboration & Giving It Back:

Serbian culture’s emphasis on mutual support during challenging times indirectly shapes its blockchain ecosystem. Events like Belgrade Blockchain Week and ETH Belgrade unite local and global Web3 communities for knowledge-sharing and networking, reflecting values of openness and collaboration. Major players like Tenderly, Decenter, MVP Workshop, and Ethernal actively support the local community through educational programs such as the Petnica Ethereum bootcamp, by mentoring and hiring top mathematics and computer science talents, and by sponsoring grassroots hackathons and conferences like ETH Belgrade. This commitment to community development strengthens Serbia’s position as an emerging Ethereum development hub.

Local Grassroots Communities

• ETHBelgrade: ETH Belgrade hosts regular meetups, Solidity workshops, ZK and Security bootcamps, monthly coworking sessions, and the annual ETH Belgrade conference and hackathon. These grassroots activities, led by Petar, Tanja and the local community, have established Belgrade as a regional Ethereum hub.

• Garaža by Tenderly: A community of Serbian tech startup founders, initiated by Tenderly cofounders to strengthen the local startup ecosystem. It focuses on three main pillars: connection, education, and startup promotion, focusing on peer exchange with the goal of giving back and promoting pay-it-forward culture.

• Web3Academy: An offline and online free educational initiative that introduces Ethereum and Web3 to technical high school students, university students, and junior developers looking to enter the Ethereum ecosystem.

• Belgrade Blockchain Week (3–5 June 2025): A week-long gathering featuring ETH Belgrade, the CEE region’s premier Ethereum conference and hackathon. These events connect Web3 founders, builders, and enthusiasts, fostering innovation and collaboration.

Ethereum and Related Startups

Serbia hosts numerous Ethereum and blockchain startups with different specializations. Here are some of the most prominent ones:

• Tenderly: A leading Ethereum developer tooling and infrastructure platform product that supports creation, testing, and monitoring of every stage of the smart contract lifecycle, providing fundamental framework for developer onboarding to the Ethereum technology stack.

• DeFi Saver: An advanced DeFi platform product that provides hassle-free user experience and gateway to DeFi—enabling users to create, manage, and track DeFi positions across various protocols. Available on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base and Optimism.

• Decenter: An R&D center and project incubator (behind DeFi Saver) focused on building Ethereum-based products, including dApps and DeFi solutions.

• Attic42: A venture builder focused on Web3 products, contributing to Ethereum’s ecosystem through startup launches like MVP Workshop, Route3 and innovation hubs.

• MVP Workshop: A Web3 venture builder and developer workshop instrumental in creating over 50 blockchain products, including work on Polygon and Celsius Network. The company was founded by Malisa Pusonja and Ivan Bjelajac and played a pivotal role in Polygon’s development before part of its team was acquired by Celsius to form their Belgrade development center. Some of the notable MVP Product Suite includes:

  • 3327: An R&D digital collective focused on developing cutting-edge Web3 technologies with an emphasis on Ethereum-based solutions, backed by MVP Workshop.

  • Bizzllet: A self-custody wallet for organizations and individuals powered by Account Abstraction and MPC technology, designed to work with Ethereum and other networks.

  • Polygon Nightfall

• Ethernal: Blockchain engineering studio and research hub that designs, builds and audits high-performance distributed-ledger systems for enterprise and public-sector clients, with particular expertise in Ethereum infrastructure.

• Ponos Technology: Highly specialized research and development studio, providing proving-as-a-service solutions for the emerging proving market, as well as full-stack solutions for modular, highly optimized blockchain infrastructure.

• OriginTrail: Enterprise team of innovators building the Decentralized Knowledge Graph to turn data into discoverable and verifiable “Knowledge Assets” for supply-chain, AI systems, and other complex, trust-critical applications. Recognized by powerhouses like Google and Microsoft, their work serves as a bright example of decentralization paradigm and blockchain technology applied in the fundamental Web2 sectors.

• TX Fusion: Innovative blockchain development team building infrastructure, developing products, and assisting projects in onboarding to enhance the utilization of Zero-Knowledge across Ethereum and Bitcoin ecosystems. A Serbian sister company of Shard Labs.

• Thales Market: An Ethereum protocol enabling the creation of peer-to-peer parimutuel markets that anyone can join, supporting multiple networks including Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, and BNB Chain.

• Curvy: Started as a research paper and a stealth address protocol from 3327 kitchen. Now it has become a startup and a privacy-preserving wallet. Similar to Fluidkey, just from Serbia.

• Treesury: Tokenizing hazelnut trees with approval and a license from the Serbian Securities and Exchange Commission.

• Namespace: 2 times ENS grantee ($600k in total). Namespace is making ENS subdomains more accessible.

Ethereum Users

• As of 2021, approximately 200,000 people in Serbia owns crypto, out of a population of over 7 million, or about 3% of the population.

• Younger, tech-savvy individuals in Serbia are the primary adopters of crypto, often using platforms like Binance for trading.

• Crypto and particularly stablecoins offer a cost-effective solution for cross-border payments and remittances, which account for 8–10% of Serbia’s GDP annually.

Web2 and Web3 Developers

Serbia’s Web2 sector is thriving, with a 20% annual increase in engineering graduates from its universities and expanding Science and Technology Parks in Belgrade, Niš, Novi Sad, and Čačak. The country is becoming a hub for skilled Web2 engineers, with a growing presence in software outsourcing for EU markets.

Belgrade has emerged as a surprising Web3 powerhouse in Eastern Europe:

• 40+ Web3 companies based in Belgrade alone.

• Major projects like Polygon and Tenderly originated from Belgrade.

• Excellent 3 Supercluster: One of the flagship initiatives of Serbia Innovates, a multi-lateral project funded by USAID with $6M investment-conducts a plethora of blockchain community nurturing activities, often leaning into collaboration with educational institutions. Notable projects include:

  • Web3 & Blockchain Policy Lab: Led by lawyers Ilija Rilakovic, Željka Motika, and Miloš Velimirović, Policy Lab is a working group tackling the challenging task of addressing the problems in the existing national and regional Web3 regulatory frameworks.

  • Girl Pow3r: Community-first initiative, established to empower women entrepreneurs and professionals venturing into the Web3 space. It’s conceptualized as an umbrella initiative of networking and educational workshops, conferences, and financial support programs.

• Numerous blockchain projects recruit exceptional engineers from Serbia, including Chainlink, Optimism, Status, MetaMask, Reown, Gnosis, Morpho, Nethermind, and Paradigm…

University & Blockchain Clubs

• Serbia’s higher education system produces exceptional engineers and developers, particularly in computer science and IT. Universities in Belgrade, Novi Sad, and Niš are known for their rigorous STEM programs. This is particularly highlighted in the bedrock research tradition in the fields of cryptography, P2P networks, and blockchain technology, with some of the leading contributors:

  • Marija Mikić, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Belgrade

  • Darko Čapko, Full Professor, Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad

  • Srdjan Vukmirović, Full Professor, Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad

  • Pavle Vuletić, Associate Professor, School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade

  • Vladimir Ćirić, Full Professor, Dean, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Niš

  • Dragan Janković, Full Professor, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Niš

  • Miodrag Mihaljević, Corresponding Member and Deputy Director of the Mathematical Institute, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

• Ethereum NS is a newly launched grassroots initiative in Novi Sad dedicated to empowering students, academics, and professionals to explore Ethereum—both as a technology and a catalyst for community coordination. Led by a team of seasoned professors —its flagship activities encompass hackathons, technical workshops, expert public lectures, student conferences, and open-source educational resources.

• Web3 Kamp in Petnica Science Center: Hosted in the oldest and largest independent educational institution in Serbia, Petnica Science Center, Web3 Kamp blends fundamental theory (cryptography and decentralisation paradigms) with practice (smart-contract workshops and mentor-led projects attendants devise). Nurturing academic ethos and immersive research environment, Petnica has propelled generations of Serbian talent.

• Matematicka Akademija: Where Marija Mikić also teaches a ZKP cryptography course.

Learning more about faculties, professors, and blockchain clubs that are researching and educating about Ethereum, please visit our friend Bogdan’s Serbia Academia list.

Further Reading

• Europe’s crypto capital might not be where you expect

• Crypto Adoption Around the World: Serbia

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day! 🌸

Best regards,

Riely and the Geode Labs team.

Have any comments or feedback? DM.

Want to advertise on Local Ethereum? DM or Email.

If your company is interested in reaching an audiences of regional community and ecosystem builders, developer communities, universities, startup partners, or policymakers, you may want to advertise with us.

Welcome to Local Ethereum, a newsletter where we cover the geo-story of Ethereum. We explore and document the latest stories on Ethereum technology and community from every corner of the earth.

This month: Ethereum communities worldwide shipped infrastructure - AI agents from Japan found critical bugs, Argentina documented 17 years of builder history, and new hubs opened in Lagos. Meanwhile, the broader ecosystem saw prediction markets go mainstream, remittance giants adopt stablecoin settlements, and JPMorgan tokenize money markets on Ethereum.

Let’s dive in!

🗺️ Regional Adoption

Asia-Pacific

• India: ETHIndia experimented with ETHIndiaVilla - 52 builders working with “Super Hackers” in small teams over 2 days in Bengaluru produced 17 projects across DeFi, x402 payments, and privacy. Quality over quantity.

• Japan: Nyx Foundation, a young R&D collective, deployed an AI agent that discovered 17 vulnerabilities across 8 client implementations in the Ethereum Fusaka audit contest, ranking #1 in submissions and 6th overall in prizes. Automated security finding real bugs.

• China: UC Berkeley’s Decentralized Finance course now has a CN version, translated by Dapp Learning, a grassroots Ethereum dev community making technical education accessible.

• Philippines: Our deep dive on the Philippines Ethereum Ecosystem covers adoption patterns, developer communities, and what’s being built in Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing crypto market.

• Stablecoins and RWA tokenization shape Asia’s crypto rulebook in 2025 - clear frameworks emerging after years of uncertainty.

Europe & North America

• UK: The FCA will prioritize stablecoin payments regulation in 2026, part of the UK’s post-Brexit push to become a crypto-friendly financial hub.

• Ukraine: Ethereum Ukraine turned 4 years old in December 2025, maintaining community and developer activity through unprecedented conditions.

Latam & Africa

• Argentina: The Argentina Builders Archive documents 17 years of crypto history - people, startups, and ideas that shaped the ecosystem. Co-created by Crecimiento with 50 builders and founders. This is how ecosystem memory should be preserved.

• Mexico: Ethereum Mexico 2025 and ETH Cinco de Mayo 2025 recap published. 2026 conference scheduled for June in Mexico City.

• Nigeria: A new Ethereum Community Hub opened at Web3Bridge in Lagos - providing physical space for the growing developer community.

🪐 Global Ecosystem Update

Scale L1, Scale Blobs and Improve UI/UX

• Ethereum Fusaka shipped. Consensys published everything you need to know - focused on blob optimization and validator improvements.

• Vitalik argued Ethereum needs to do more to meet its stated mission: “Build the world computer that serves as central infrastructure for a more free and open internet.”

• Hegota Upgrade timeline published - implementations expected Q2 2026. Focuses on historical data management and state growth.

• Vitalik proposed a trustless gas futures market to provide clear signals of expected gas fees and enable hedging. Users could prepay for gas within defined time intervals.

• Josh Rudolf’s summary of what shipped in 2025 on UX improvements - from Open Intents Framework to EIL.

DeFi, Stablecoins & Payments

• Uniswap governance passed the ‘UNIfication’ proposal, triggering a 100 million UNI token burn and restructuring the protocol’s economics.

• E.H. breaks down the state of x402 at year-end 2025. Adoption growing but fragmented.

• MoneyGram (50M+ customers, 200+ territories) partnered with Fireblocks for stablecoin settlements, following Western Union and other remittance giants. Blockchain payment rails are now proven at scale.

• x402 V2 launched, evolving the standard for internet-native payments based on production learnings.

• Moody’s proposed a framework for rating stablecoins focused on reserve quality. Traditional finance treating stablecoins as a permanent category.

• Visa launched a ‘stablecoins advisory practice’ to help banks and businesses build strategies. The question is “how fast,” not “if.”

Institutional

• JPMorgan launched a tokenized money-market fund on Ethereum.

• Tom Lee’s Bitmine added 44,463 ETH and started staking, treasury now at 3.4% of total supply.

Security

• BlockThreat’s weekly roundup covers latest security news, tools, vulnerabilities, and threats across crypto.

• Busy year for SEAL_911 - An emergency security response team. Review common security tickets to take preventive action early.

Prediction Market

• Coinbase to acquire prediction markets startup The Clearing Company.

• MetaMask and other wallets expanding into prediction markets with Polymarket integration. What was standalone is becoming embedded infrastructure.

2026 Predictions and Theses

• Messari’s Crypto Theses 2026 unpacks the biggest trends shaping capital allocation and builder focus.

• Nine Predictions for 2026 by Paul Veradittakit, Managing Partner at Pantera Capital.

Ecosystem Data 🔢

The Ethereum story isn’t written in numbers, but data offers a glimpse into how the ecosystem moved in 2025.

1.Client diversity has improved!

2.Total value locked on Ethereum

Ethereum’s TVL reached $332.9 billion in December  2025, up 18.7% YoY from $280.4 billion in December  2024.

3.Stabelcoin adoption in 2025

Stablecoin supply across all blockchains hit an all‑time high of around $300 billion in 2025. Ethereum remained the leading network, closing the year with $157.27 billion in stablecoins issued on‑chain, a 42.6% YoY increase from 2024.

4.Perps and prediction markets drive onchain volume growth in 2025.

On‑chain trading surged in 2025, led by perpetuals and prediction markets. Monthly volume across perpetual protocols exceeded $1 trillion for the first time in October, with Ethereum contributing nearly $80 billion.

Prediction markets rebounded following the 2024 U.S. election, reaching $181.95 million in notional volume by January 1, 2026.

5.Top Ecosystem by Monthly Active Developers

Ethereum continues to host the largest number of active developers, maintaining its position as the most developed ecosystem by scale.

6.Ethereum treasuries

As of December  2025, 68 entities collectively held 6.81 million  ETH, valued at $20.23 billion - the highest level recorded in  2025.

Opportunities💡

• ETHPrague 2026 (May 8-10) is opening volunteer applications. Support the event, meet builders, and join the organizing crew - apply by April 10.

• DEPCON Hakodate, a research house side event by Nyx Foundation during Japan’s largest cryptography and security conference SCIS2026, is now accepting applications.

• Circle Ventures is launching Arc Builders Fund, backing early-stage projects building on Arc, the Economic OS for the internet.

• Thinking about starting something in crypto in 2026? ETHGlobal shared ideas worth exploring.

• Stateless Consensus team (EF) shared a proposal on addressing Ethereum’s state size. Calling client developers, node operators, and builders to contribute feedback through forums and calls.

• EF is hiring for multiple roles across Enterprise Acceleration, Protocol, dAI, and more.

Highlighted Events in Jan and early Feb✨

• ETHChiangmai, Chiangmai, Thailand, Pop up city themed “Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again”, Dec 8, 2025-Feb 3, 2026.

• BUIDL Europe 2026, Lisbon, Portugal, Two-day technical conference, Jan 7-8, 2026.

• HackMoney 2026 by ETHGlobal, Online, Async DeFi hackathon, Jan 30-Feb 11, 2026.

• Digital Assets Forum, London, UK, Institutional conference, Feb 5-6, 2026.

• Consensus Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, Digital assets conference, Feb 10-12, 2026.

• Browse 100+ Ethereum events worldwide at ETHStars Events.

Thanks for reading! Wishing you a Happy New Year and exciting 2026 ahead! 🎄

Best regards,

Riely & the Geode Labs team

Have any comments or feedback? DM.

Want to advertise on Local Ethereum? DM or Email.

If your company is interested in reaching an audiences of regional community and ecosystem builders, developer communities, universities, startup partners, or policymakers, you may want to advertise with us.

🗺️ Regional Adoption

Asia-Pacific

• India: The Ethereum Foundation selected Mumbai to host Devcon 8, recognizing India as the one of the world’s fastest-growing developer hub. India onboarded 17% of all new crypto developers globally, the highest of any country. With over 21.9 million developers on GitHub and leading global crypto adoption for the second consecutive year, India’s grassroots Ethereum communities (Devfolio, Polygon, EthMumbai) have created a thriving Web3 ecosystem. India also plans to launch ARC, a rupee-backed stablecoin built by Polygon, in Q1 2026 to operate within the Reserve Bank of India’s CBDC framework.

• Japan: Japan’s Financial Services Agency is pushing legislation to slash crypto profit taxes from 55% to 20% (matching stock trading rates). Sony Bank also plans a USD-pegged stablecoin for gaming and anime by fiscal 2026. Japan’s three megabanks (MUFG, SMFG, Mizuho) received approval for yen-stablecoin pilots, with JPYC becoming the country’s first regulated yen-backed stablecoin.

• South Korea: The ruling party demands passage of the Digital Asset Basic Law by January 2026, establishing a “Korean-style stablecoin” with banks holding 51%+ equity. KakaoBank is developing a won-pegged stablecoin. Unpacking the state of Ethereum ecosystem in South Korea by Obol and DSRV.

• China: The central bank reaffirmed its crypto ban following multi-agency meetings, explicitly flagging stablecoin risks. Despite restrictions, blockchain infrastructure advances: a letter of credit system launched using dual-layer “Hangmao Chain + GFIX” architecture with major banks (ICBC, Bank of China, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank), covering full on-chain trade finance services. The National Development and Reform Commission also released guidelines promoting blockchain for logistics digitalization.

• Hong Kong: Hong Kong prices world’s first government bonds with tokenised settlement. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) also announces the new phase of Project Ensemble to support real-value transactions in tokenised deposits and digital assets. Regarding Tokenization/RWA, Hong Kong government is actively exploring applications in international shipping, corporate treasury management, and other real use cases.

• Singapore: MAS announced a 2026 pilot for tokenized government bills settled using wholesale CBDC, and bring in laws to regulate stablecoins as it presses forward with plans to build a scalable and secure tokenised financial ecosystem

• Philippines: Everything you need to learn about The Philippines Ethereum Ecosystem Overview.

• United Arab Emirates: New Ethereum Community Hub in Dubai at Hadron Founders Club.

Europe & North Americas

• Amundi, Europe’s leading asset manager, announces the launch of its first tokenized share of the AMUNDI FUNDS CASH EUR money market fund on Ethereum through a partnership with CACEIS.

• Ethereum based prediction market Polymarket has officially received approval from the CFTC to operate in the United States.

• EU MiCA implementation ongoing; Bank of England soften stablecoin stance with new proposals.

Latam & Africa

• November is the Latam month! The month culminated in Devconnect Buenos Aires (Nov 17-22), the largest Ethereum Devconnect ever: 14,000+ attendees from 130+ countries, 500+ events, 80+ exhibitors at the first-ever “Ethereum World’s Fair.” Local communities Crecimiento, SEEDOrg, ETHKipu, Odisea Labs and many others grassroots communities Road to Devconnect activities across the region. Earlier in the month, ETH Latam brought together one of Latam’s biggest community conferences and hackathons in São Paulo. Learn more about the Argentina Ethereum Ecosystem Overview.

• Full house for the Devconnect ARG Opening @EFDevcon

• Nigeria: There are more than 60 million Nigerians own cryptocurrencies, while only fewer than three million invest in the Nigerian capital market.

• Cameroon: Stablecoin payment rails transform humanitarian aid delivery in Cameroon by enhancing speed, transparency, and efficiency.

🪐 Global Ecosystem Update

Scale L1 & Scale Blobs & Improve UI UX

• Vitalik proposes possible “targeted optimization” for 2026: 5x gas limit increase together with 5x gas cost increase for operations that are relatively inefficient to process.

• Ethereum raises block gas limit to 60M as ecosystem throughput hits new records ahead of Fusaka upgrade.

• Headliner PeerDAS (EIP7594): blobs scale up to 8x as nodes only store 1/8 data.

• Ethereum Foundation’s Account Abstraction team reveals latest work on ‘Ethereum Interop Layer’ to make L2 ecosystem ‘feel like one chain.

• More on interop from Josh Rudolf: 1) Open Intents Framework (audited and production ready, next steps: accelerate adoption and more secure/trustless settlement); 2) EIL (a trustless crosschain path, possible backend for intents + more); 3) Interop SDK for wallets/dapps; 4) Interoperable addresses aka chain-specific addresses like alice.eth@linea or bob.eth@arbitrum (ERC 7828, 7930); 5) ERC-7786 crosschain messaging standard and more.

• Anything you need to know about Fusaka by EF’s Protocol Coordination Team, and improvements in Fusaka.

Privacy

• Ethereum Foundation unveils more details about Kohaku, a privacy-focused framework for Ethereum.

• Vitalik donates 128 ETH to both Session and SimpleX to support digital privacy.

• Aztec launched Ignition Chain L2 on Ethereum.

• FHE company Zama launched testnet v2, preparing for Ethereum mainnet deployment.

• The privacy focused Nillion network announced migration to Ethereum, with L2 deployment planned for 2026

DeFi & Payment

• Vitalik talks Ethereum scaling, financial freedom and protocol security, that ‘Defi as a form of savings is finally viable’. Earlier, he shared that low-risk defi can be for Ethereum what search was for Google.

• By Tomasz: “Peanut points to charity, I guess, works Pix, Mercado Pago, ACH, SEPA.” The Devconnect standout P2P payment solution provider Peanut Cash offers better rates than credit cards and most stablecoin cards. It sells your USDC directly for pesos at the crypto dólar rate. Learn more from kkonrad.

Institutional

• BlackRock files for Staked Ethereum ETF, signaling its move to capture yield-focused institutional demand.

Security

• November hacks in the Ethereum ecosystem.

• Learn more about the $128m Balancer Hack from Peter Kacherginsky.

• More updates of the Trillion Dollar Security Initiative from Fredrik Svantes and Mehdi Zerouali at devconnect.

dAI

• EF dAI team lead Davide Crapis shared dAI 2026 roadmap positioning Ethereum as “global decentralized settlement and coordination backbone for AI” with autonomous agents interacting under publicly auditable rules.

Prediction Market

• MetaMask moves into prediction markets with Polymarket integration.

🔢 Ecosystem Data

1. Client diversity

   Execution client diversity has improved, but for consensus clients, please switch from Lighthouse to a minority client!

   

2. Centralization watch

   Validator Distribution: Lido’s share holds steady at 24.6%, flat from the prior month.

   

3. Total value locked on Ethereum

   Fell to $324.94B (December 1) from $369.28B (November 1), down 12% MoM.

   

4. No. of Monthly active address + onchain transaction.

   Active addresses: 16.79M (−5.1% MoM, November) Transactions: 45.67M (−4.9% MoM, November)

5. Ethereum Treasuries

   Holdings across 68 entities rose 4.8% MoM to 6.36M ETH in November. Total value stood at $19B, down from $23B in October.

6. Stablecoin Adoption on Ethereum.

   Reached $166.365B on December 1, a ~0.81% MoM increase.

   

7. Top 10 projects who generate the most fees on Ethereum:

   

💡Opportunities

• A list of cool ideas that Coinbase Ventures is excited about.

• The Ecosystem Support Program’s (ESP) new grants program. Check out the new wishlist!

• Sign The Trustless Manifesto Pledge on Ethereum mainnet by Yoav Weiss, Vitalik Buterin, Marissa Posner. Your signature will be recorded on Ethereum mainnet.

• Vyper, a team working on Pythonic Smart Contract Language for the EVM, is hiring a DevRel Engineer!

• Ethereum Job Board, various Ethereum companies are hiring!

Thanks for reading! Wishing you a wonderful Christmas season. 🎄

Best regards,

Riely & the Geode Labs team

Have any comments or feedback? DM.

Want to advertise on Local Ethereum? DM or Email.

If your company is interested in reaching an audiences of regional community and ecosystem builders, developer communities, universities, startup partners, or policymakers, you may want to advertise with us.

Special thanks to Michael Mislos, Ruben Lacumba Jr., Christine Erispe, Luis Buenaventura, and the ETHPH community for their insights and contributions.

TL;DR

• Adoption Powerhouse: The Philippines remains in the global top 10 for crypto adoption, with an estimated 12+ million Filipino users in 2025. Adoption is driven not only by speculation but by real needs: remittances, income generation, digital payments, and financial access.

• The “Axie Effect”: Play-to-Earn gaming became the country’s first mass-scale Web3 on-ramp. Although the hype has cooled from its peak in 2021, it established widespread crypto literacy and wallet usage across millions.

• Regulatory Friction: With the BSP’s VASP moratorium and the SEC’s CASP rules, uncertainty persists. Yet real-world blockchain pilots, from tokenized bonds to digital credentials and public finance tools, show the country’s increasing capacity for innovation.

• Ethereum Opportunity: While retail users are heavily into crypto trading and Web3 games, there are massive untapped opportunities to Ethereum-based DeFi, real-world assets (RWA), and stablecoin infrastructure, especially for the still 49.8% unbanked population.

1. Adoption Metrics: A Regional Leader

• Global Rankings

  • Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index: 9th globally (down from 8th in 2024 and a peak of 2nd in 2022).

  • TRM Labs 2025 Country Crypto Adoption Index: 4th globally (up from 8th in 2024).

  • Crypto Friendly Cities Index 2025: 20th in crypto wealth concentration, with Filipino crypto holders averaging $14,194.46.

    

    

• User Base and Market Size

  Approximately 10% of Filipinos engage with cryptocurrency, projected to reach 12.79 million by 2026. The domestic crypto market in the Philippines is expected to grow from $49.85 billion in 2024 to $114.70 billion by 2033, representing a 9.68% CAGR.

  Crypto adoption reflects deep structural realities:

  • One of the world’s largest diaspora communities sending billions in remittances.

  • Nearly half the population underserved by traditional banks due to its challenging island geography, socio-economic constraints and informal employment, lack of documentation, limited financial literacy, and the deep-rooted preference for cash-based transactions over formal banking services.

  • High smartphone and internet penetration.

  • A digitally literate and youthful population.

  • A culture that rapidly experiments with new income streams.

• The Axie Infinity Effect

  The Philippines has a very strong gaming culture and active Web3 game community. At its peak in 2021 (COVID times), nearly 40% of Axie Infinity’s global players were Filipino. This phase:

  • Normalized wallet usage.

  • Introduced millions to DeFi and tokens.

  • Built cultural familiarity with Web3.

  Even though P2E speculation has faded, the literacy and habits remain.

  

2. Regulatory Landscape: A Paradox of Progress and Uncertainty

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the country’s central bank, was an early mover, issuing Circular No. 944 (2017) to regulate VASPs (virtual asset service providers). Yet the environment today is widely viewed as a “quasi-legal realm”, crypto is neither banned nor fully legitimized

Recent developments:

• BSP VASP Moratorium (renewed as of September 2025).

• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Action: ISP blocks + app delisting request for Binance, OKX, Bybit, KuCoin, Kraken.

• Multiple Senate Bills proposing blockchain-based transparency, digital asset regulation, and stablecoin rails.

• Worldcoin ordered to cease operations by the National Privacy Commission over Data Privacy Act violations.

• While the Philippines lacks specific legislation regarding cryptocurrency taxation, the National Internal Revenue Code mandates that income derived from any source is subject to tax.

There is no explicit framework yet for DeFi, DAOs, RWAs, or Web3 infrastructure, creating uncertainty for builders, investors, and institutions, but a bill was filed in the 20th Congress to establish a national framework for digital assets and tokenized investments. Separately, House Bill 421 proposes establishing a national Bitcoin reserve of 2,000 BTC per year.

Key bodies shaping the ecosystem:

• BSP (payments + VASPs)

• SEC (CASP rules)

• AMLC (compliance, monitoring)

• NPC (privacy)

• DICT (government blockchain adoption)

• DOST (research + innovation)

3. Economic Engine: Stablecoins & Remittances

• Remittance Powerhouse

  The Philippines received about $38.34 billion in remittances in 2024, a 3% increase from the previous year. These funds from Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) remain a vital economic pillar and a lifeline for millions of households. To make cross-border transfers faster and cheaper, stablecoins are increasingly being used as an alternative to traditional remittance channels. In 2025, Coins.ph partnered with BCRemit to launch a stablecoin-based remittance rail that converts overseas transfers into USDC/USDT, moves them on-chain, and allows instant peso cashouts, reducing transfer fees by around 80%.

  The Reality: Crypto Remittance Isn’t Always Cheaper: on-chain transfers are cheap, but off-ramps are expensive. In real-world conditions, bank-based remittance platforms like Xoom or Wise often outperform crypto off-ramps.

  This contradiction shows that the promise is real, yet the infrastructure gap remains critical. Fixing off-ramp costs is one of the most important industry challenges.

• The Unbanked Opportunity

  With an estimated 49.8% of the population unbanked or underbanked, crypto infrastructure: wallets, stablecoins, tokenized savings products, offers an alternative to traditional banking barriers.

  As of 2024-2025, digital payments account for roughly 57.4% of retail transactions, creating fertile ground for further crypto integration.

• Cross-Border Payroll: Stablecoin payroll rails are emerging for freelancers and remote workers to avoid high bank fees and multi-day settlement.

• Real-World Asset (RWA) Tokenization: The Philippines’ Bureau of Treasury has made government bonds available as tokenized assets on GCash, Unionbank, and PDAX. These RWAs have been sold to half a million Filipinos since it launched in July 2025. Additionally, the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that one of the entities in its regulatory sandbox is a real estate tokenization project.

4. “Invisible” Ethereum: Government & Corporate Adoption

• Unionbank i2i Project

  In May 2018, UnionBank launched Project i2i in Davao City, an Ethereum-based payment platform developed with ConsenSys that connected rural banks to the national financial system. The platform operated independently of traditional payment infrastructures like PhilPass and SWIFT, addressing the challenge that 70% of Filipinos remained unbanked. Starting with five rural banks, the project became one one of the world’s earliest examples of enterprise Ethereum adoption.

• Department of Budget Transparency on Polygon

  The DBM’s system, implemented in partnership with BayaniChain and ExakIT Services, secures documents into NFT on Polygon, enabling citizens and auditors to instantly verify their authenticity and enhance public trust in government financial transactions.

• The Cadena Act

  A bill which seeks to institutionalize transparency in government spending. The measure mandates the creation of a digital budget portal to fully disclose government transactions, allowing citizens to track public funds and help prevent corruption.

• Tokenized Treasury Bonds

  Issued by the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) in partnership with PDAX and GCash, nearly 50% of all government bondholders in the Philippines now hold their bonds in tokenized form.

  Instead of requiring a bank account and a minimum investment of PHP 10,000 or more, users can buy government bonds for as little as PHP 500 (approximately $9).

• “Project Bayani“: The $60 Billion Opportunity

  A 2025 study by PDAX, Onigiri Capital, and Saison Capital to transform Philippine finance by tokenizing $60 billion in assets by 2030, enabling millions to access investment products via blockchain.

• Philippine Peso Stablecoin

  Several Philippine peso-backed stablecoins have been introduced, including PHX (UnionBank, 2019; inactive), PHD (UnionDigital, 2022; stalled), C Peso (C Pass, 2022; inactive), PHMU (DA5/Gurufin, 2023; no launch), PHPC (Coins.ph, 2024; on Polygon and Ronin), PUSO (Celo, 2024; remittance-focused), and PHPX (UBX/RCBC et al., 2025; pending BSP approval), but no peso stablecoin has yet achieved meaningful traction due to regulatory caution, trust concerns, no clear commercial use cases…

5. Ethereum Startup and Infrastructure Ecosystem

• Centralized Exchanges and Wallets

  BSP-licensed VASPs serve as the country’s safest fiat-crypto on-ramps amid an ongoing moratorium on new licenses. The Philippines has a diverse set of regulated crypto gateways, each serving different segments of the market.

  • GCash (Mynt): The largest e-wallet in the Philippines, integrating accessible crypto trading that is powered by PDAX for millions of Filipinos.

  • Coins.ph: An established custodial crypto wallet with more than 16 million users, now backed by deep capital following its acquisition by former Binance CFO Wei Zhou.

  • Maya: A fully licensed digital bank with seamless banking-to-crypto features.

  • GoTyme Bank: Recently launched “Go Crypto” in October 2024, enabling direct PHP-to-crypto trading for 11 major cryptocurrencies inside a regulated digital bank.

  • PDAX: Compliant order-book exchange with support for digital assets and tokenized financial products. Key player in tokenized treasury bonds initiative.

  • Moneybees serves as the country’s primary OTC crypto network.

  • UnionBank remains one of the most crypto-friendly banks supporting the broader ecosystem.

  The Offshore Reality: Despite the presence of licensed VASPs, many Filipinos still on-/off-ramp through unlicensed global exchanges. This is reflected in the SEC’s public advisories and ISP blocks against platforms like OKX, Bybit, and KuCoin. Deeper liquidity and wider asset availability continue to pull users toward these offshore venues.

• Web3 Gaming Infrastructure

  The Philippines remains the incubator for startups focused on building tools for large-scale Web3 community management.

  • Yield Guild Games (YGG): The pioneering Filipino-led gaming guild that standardized the P2E scholarship model globally. YGG has now pivoted to become a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) focused on infrastructure and tooling for the “Play-to-Own” future.

  • Sovrun (formerly BreederDAO): Previously specialized as an NFT asset factory but now producing optimized digital assets at scale for blockchain games and virtual worlds.

• DeFi & Payments Infrastructure

  • Rampz: Decentralized peer-to-peer platform for on-ramping and off-ramping.

  • Sparkpoint: A full-stack ecosystem combining payments, DeFi, wallet infrastructure, education, and (recently) AI + blockchain tooling.

• Dev Shops

  • Nuxify: A Davao-based software development and solutions firm that builds Web3 and blockchain products on the EVM and in the Ethereum ecosystem.

  • Bayanichain: Infrastructure provider tokenizing government and enterprise systems, including DBM documents migrated to Polygon for efficient on-chain access.

• Digital Credentials & Identity

  • Certifika: A homegrown Web3 startup from Mindanao focused on issuing verifiable, tamper-resistant digital certificates and credentials.

• Media

  • Majority of Filipinos get their news on crypto social media like Facebook and Twitter. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of media platforms in the Philippines: BitPinas, BitDigest, PhilStar Tech, The Cryptology Academy, YGG Alerts, Decrypt, and credible key opinion leaders like Luis Buenaventura.

• Education

  • Bitskwela: Education platform partnering with universities, featuring BitDev for blockchain developer microlearning and skill-building.

  • The BLOKC: Edutech initiative delivering direct blockchain and Web3 curricula to Philippine universities and students.

6. Community & Education: Cultivating the Builder Pipeline

• The Early Days

  • The Philippine Ethereum ecosystem started around 2015 with grassroots meetup groups like Manila Ethereum and Makati Digital Currency, where early enthusiasts organized the country’s first blockchain-focused meetup and hackathon to educate developers about smart contracts and decentralized applications.

• Current Grassroots Communities

  • Ethereum Philippines (ETHPH), originally ETH63, is the schelling point local community. Through close collaboration with local groups like the Davao DeFi Community (DDC) and Cebu Tech Communities (CTC), they drive Ethereum workshops, developer tracks, university programs, and meetups across the country. Layer-2 aligned groups like Base Philippines, Arbitrum PH, Celo PH, and Lisk SEA complement the broader Web3 ecosystem with their own community meetups and initiatives.

  • Events: ETHPH organized long-term, developer-focused programs across Manila, Cebu, Baguio, and Mindanao beginning in 2024. These included month-long technical deep-dives like Infinite Hack, Proof of Teach with the instructors of 20+ universities in Mindanao, and the first workshop on modern cryptography, Cipher Cebu.

• Web2 Developer Communities

  • Alongside Web3 communities, the Philippines also has a strong network of traditional developer and tech groups that indirectly support Ethereum talent growth. These include ecosystems like Google Developers Group (GDG), AWS Community, Devcon PH (distinct from Ethereum Devcon), and the multiregional FOSSASIA, as well as active regional programming groups such as PizzaPy, DurianPy, SugarPy, and other Python, Linux, and open-source circles. The Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP) and local tech communities in major cities contribute additional developer pipelines, while government-backed programs like START under DOST help strengthen STEM capacity and regional tech education.

• Web3 Developer Gap

  • Despite having one of Southeast Asia’s largest software developer bases, the Philippines faces a significant blockchain developer gap. This gap persists despite high retail crypto adoption because:

    • Trading and speculation overshadow builder culture.

    • Limited blockchain education in university curricula.

    • Brain drain to other opportunities in AI and Cybersecurity.

    • Limited financial safety nets, many prefer stable, good-paying roles rather than volatile startup environments.

  • However, the ecosystem is rapidly addressing this through grassroots education initiatives, university partnerships, and developer bootcamps focused on Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains.

• University & Academia

  • Strong CS/IT/engineering foundations exist at top universities (UP, ADMU, DLSU), but blockchain education lags. Universities in Mindanao like USEP show relative momentum via grassroots ETHPH-led SpeedRun Ethereum workshops.

7. Acceleration & Investment: Capitalizing the Ecosystem

Incubators & Accelerators

• Archipelago Labs (A-Labs): Incubate and invest in startups and ideas focused on consumer applications, infrastructure & tools, Web3, and digital experiences.

• Lisk SEA: Southeast Asia program providing full lifecycle support for blockchain startups building on the Lisk ecosystem.

• Active International VCs: Animoca Brands (backed YGG and gaming infrastructure), Hashed and others.

• Local Incubators & Innovation Hubs: Several Philippine incubators with strong Web2 backgrounds have shown interest in supporting Ethereum and Web3 startups, including: Marian TBI (Technology Business Incubator at UIC), Upgrade Innolab and IDEAS Davao.

Angel Investors: Gabby Dizon (Co-founder of YGG), Luis Buenaventura (ex-YGG Pilipinas Country Manager, Head of Crypto at GCash), Nichel Gaba (PDAX CEO) and others.

The Investment Gap: Philippine Web3 remains underfunded versus regional peers (Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia) due to limited local crypto-native VCs, regulatory uncertainty deterring institutional capital, brain drain to crypto-friendly jurisdictions, and market perception challenges despite high retail adoption.

8. Challenges & Path Forward

Critical Challenges:

• Regulatory Uncertainty: BSP moratorium, SEC enforcement, no DeFi/DAO frameworks, inconsistent tax compliance.

• Infrastructure Gaps: Expensive off-ramps negating stablecoin benefits, limited banking integration, custodial vs. non-custodial education deficit.

• Talent Drain: Developer shortage, university curriculum lag, migration to AI/cybersecurity or foreign jurisdictions.

• Capital Scarcity: Nascent VC ecosystem, limited exits creating LP base, funding gaps versus regional competitors.

Unique Opportunities:

• Proven Retail Adoption: 12M+ crypto-native users with established wallet habits and Web3 literacy.

• Massive Addressable Market: 49.8% unbanked population, $38B remittance flows, 57.4% digital payment penetration.

• Government Validation: Operational blockchain systems (budget transparency, tokenized bonds) proving institutional viability.

• Competitive Advantages: English proficiency, youthful population (median age 26.1), gaming culture, technical talent at lower costs than regional peers.

9. Further Reading

• Transformation Under Way in Philippines as Crypto Market Matures, by Crypto Council for Innovation.

• Project Bayani by PDAX, Saison Capital, and Onigiri Capital.

• Select Philippine Budget Documents Now on the Blockchain by BitPinas.

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day! 🌸

Best regards,

Riely and the Geode Labs team.

Have any comments or feedback? DM.

Want to advertise on Local Ethereum? DM or Email.

If your company is interested in reaching an audiences of regional community and ecosystem builders, developer communities, universities, startup partners, or policymakers, you may want to advertise with us.

Welcome to Local Ethereum, a newsletter where we cover the geo-story of Ethereum. We explore and document the latest stories on Ethereum technology and community from every corner of the earth.

Special thanks to Ana Belén, Don Pepe, Abraham FuGa and Celic Torres for the feedback and the review.

TL;DR

• Mexico is among Latin America’s fastest-growing crypto markets, ranking 13th-14th globally in adoption, driven by a unique combination of high remittance flows ($64.7B in 2024), financial inclusion needs, and a young tech-savvy population.

• The U.S.-Mexico remittance corridor, the world’s largest, has become a proving ground for crypto innovation. Platforms like Bitso processed over $6.5 billion in crypto-based transfers in 2024, representing more than 10% of total corridor volume.

• Mexico’s Ethereum community is rapidly maturing, with growing university blockchain clubs, developer education initiatives reaching students, institutions and governments integrating Ethereum and emerging local projects focused on DeFi, stablecoins, and cross-border payments.

The Economic Foundation: Remittances as Catalyst

Mexico stands as the world’s second-largest recipient of remittances after India, with $64.7 billion received in 2024, roughly 3.7% of the nation’s GDP. These transfers are a critical lifeline for millions of households, especially in poorer states.

The U.S.-Mexico corridor dominates global remittance flows, and the cost of sending money has historically been high. Traditional channels charge slightly below 5% for a $200 transfer. This inefficiency has created massive opportunity for crypto-based alternatives.

Crypto has emerged as a cost-effective solution, with stablecoin transfers costing as little as ~$0.02 on-chain (depends on the network and can fluctuate based on network activity), though total fees (including conversion to local currency) typically range from 0.5-3% depending on the corridor and platform. For example, Bitso processed $3.3 billion in remittances from the U.S. to Mexico in 2022 with transaction fees of less than 1%, up from $2 billion in 2021. Stablecoins like USDT and USDC have become the most practical vehicles for these transactions, offering dollar stability without the volatility of traditional crypto.

Financial Inclusion Gap

Approximately 45% of Mexican adults lack access to traditional banking services, according to various estimates. This massive unbanked population represents both a challenge and an opportunity for blockchain-based financial services. For many Mexicans, crypto wallets provide their first real access to digital financial infrastructure.

The combination of high remittance volumes, significant financial exclusion, and tech-savvy youth has made Mexico fertile ground for crypto adoption as practical financial infrastructure, not just a speculative asset.

Regulatory Landscape: Conservative Framework, Innovative Workarounds

Mexico was a regional pioneer with its 2018 Fintech Law (Ley para Regular las Instituciones de Tecnología Financiera), one of Latin America’s first comprehensive frameworks for digital financial services.

Key Regulatory Features

Legal but Not Legal Tender: Virtual assets are legally recognized under the Fintech Law but explicitly not considered legal tender.

Banking Restrictions: In 2019, Banco de México (Banxico) issued Circular 4/2019, effectively prohibiting financial institutions (banks and regulated fintechs) from offering crypto services to the public. They can only conduct “internal operations” with virtual assets, and only after obtaining prior authorization from Banxico.

Non-Financial Entity Space: The regulations created an opening for non-financial entities (like Bitso) to operate exchanges and custody services, subject to strict Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements.

Taxation: As of 2025, Mexico has not yet implemented a dedicated tax framework for crypto-assets. Crypto profits are subject to income tax (up to 35% for individuals, 30% for corporations). Capital gains under 90,000 pesos may be tax-exempt.

Tax Treatment, Clear Obligations, Unclear Execution

Mexico’s Constitution requires all residents to contribute taxes proportionally and equitably. However, no comprehensive framework defines how crypto is categorized, what events are taxable, or how reporting should occur.

As a result, both individuals and institutions face interpretative uncertainty.

Common classification proposals include:

1. Intangible asset (most aligned with international practice)

2. Merchandise

3. Investment

4. Money substitute (least applicable under Fintech Law)

In 2021, the Federal Taxpayer Advocacy Office published a non-binding technical note addressing only crypto sales. It offered no guidance for mining, staking, airdrops, or DeFi and lacks legal weight.

A major operational barrier is the incompatibility between crypto transactions and CFDI, Mexico’s mandatory electronic invoicing standard. CFDIs require identifiable counterparties, physical addresses, peso-denominated prices, and logged payment methods, conditions that decentralized crypto transactions often cannot satisfy.

As a result, taxpayers face uncertainty about valuation, documentation, and compliance, pushing many entrepreneurs and developers to structure activity abroad.

CBDC Development

In 2021, Banxico first announced plans to issue a Mexican peso Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) by 2024 to promote financial inclusion, but progress has stalled and updates remain scarce. In April 2024, Banxico joined the BIS-led Project Agorá to explore tokenized deposits and wholesale digital money for cross-border payments. The project is experimental and aims to report initial findings by the first half of 2026.

Regional and Governmental Innovation

Despite the lack of top-down national policy, subnational governments and legislative bodies have begun experimenting with blockchain technology, especially using Ethereum and ZK-based infrastructure for transparency, identity, and citizen-service use cases.

• Nuevo León:

  The state, Mexico’s second-largest economy and a leading technology hub, has launched NLinea, a Decentralized Digital Identity (DID) platform for citizens. Built on Sovra, a blockchain developed with the Ethrex stack on Ethereum, NLinea creates a verifiable, privacy-preserving digital ID system to streamline access to public services and reduce fraud.

• Mexico City & Other Regions:

  The Cámara de Diputados (Chamber of Deputies) has hosted a series of educational sessions, policy roundtables, and public forums focused on blockchain’s potential for transparency, procurement, and digital governance.

Market Dynamics: Adoption Beyond Hype

Scale of Adoption

• User Base: Estimated 15 million crypto users by 2025, representing 10.1-12% of Mexico’s population (129.7 million)

• Demographics: 37% of crypto investors are aged 25-34, with 22% each in the 18-24 and 35-44 age groups. 74% of users are men, 26% women

Local Stablecoins

In recent years, multiple projects have launched Peso-pegged stablecoins (MXN-backed) to bridge Mexico’s traditional financial system with onchain liquidity. These tokens aim to enable faster cross-border payments, remittances, and yield-bearing DeFi products denominated in the local currency.

• Arbitrum x Bitso – MXNB

  A collaboration between Bitso (the leading LATAM exchange) and Arbitrum to launch MXNB, a peso-backed stablecoin fully collateralized 1:1 with MXN. MXNB aims to facilitate onchain payments, payroll, and remittances, leveraging Bitso’s fiat rails and Arbitrum’s scalable infrastructure.

• Etherfuse x Base – MXNe

  Etherfuse introduced MXNe on Coinbase’s Layer-2 Base (as well as Solana and Stellar), combining local-currency exposure with institutional compliance. The token is designed for on-chain payments, remittances, and payroll

• Tether (MXNT)

  Launched in 2022 as Tether’s expansion into emerging markets. Despite Tether’s brand strength, MXNT adoption remains small, largely due to limited DeFi integrations and preference for USD-pegged liquidity pairs.

Use Cases

Remittances: The killer app. Crypto-based transfers are faster and cheaper than Western Union or wire transfers. Bitso alone processed over $6.5 billion in remittances in 2024, which is more than 10% of the total U.S.-Mexico corridor.

Dollar Access: Stablecoins provide a way to hold dollars without relying on banks that may impose currency controls or unfavorable exchange rates during volatile periods. During the pandemic, crypto markets acted as efficient forex markets when banks had enormous spreads.

Freelance & Remote Work: Mexico’s tech workforce increasingly receives compensation in crypto, especially stablecoins, from global clients. This is particularly common among developers and digital professionals.

Investment & Trading: Beyond utility, many Mexicans use crypto for speculation and portfolio diversification. Bitcoin remains the most held asset (~50% of portfolios), but stablecoins captured 34% of purchases in 2024 (up 6% YoY).

Startup Ecosystem

1. Infrastructure: Exchanges and On/Off Ramps

• Bitso: The Dominant Player. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Mexico City, Bitso stands as Mexico’s largest crypto exchange, and the first crypto unicorn in Latin America, establishing a major presence across the region with operations in Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia. By the end of 2024, the platform reported approximately 9 million retail clients across Latin America, with 4.4 million of those users based in Mexico.

• Binance: Popular for international trading but faces regulatory scrutiny. Binance launched Medá on Sept. 1, 2025, a Mexico-based Electronic Payment Funds Institution (IFPE) fintech expanding peso deposits and withdrawals to connect traditional finance with its crypto ecosystem and boost financial inclusion.

• Trubit: Mexican exchange.

• Payment Rails: Mexico’s SPEI (Sistema de Pagos Electrónicos Interbancarios) is Mexico’s critical real-time rails. It’s operated by Banco de México, runs 24/7, and processes near-instant interbank transfers.

  • Note: SPEI integration is regulated. Most of the crypto projects or fintech usually offer instant MXN deposits/withdrawals via partner banks or licensed PSPs that are the actual SPEI participants.

2. Payment and DeFi Startups

• Dollar App: On/Off ramp, Remmitances, global payments and credit card.

• Bando: Bando is a stablecoin payment protocol that connects crypto with traditional financial services, reducing the gap between the two.

• Capa: Capa simplifies global payments, enabling companies to move money across borders via stablecoins fast, cost-effective, and fully compliant.

• Monato is a fintech company building payment rails. Empowers businesses to automate payments, deposits, transfers, credit operations, and business intelligence through a single, unified API.

• Meta Pool: Staking and Liquidity Provider Protocol.

• Rio Trade: Trading and TX platform.

• Cash Abroad.- On/off ramp platform.

• Maya Protocol: Crosschain liquidity: Decentralized swapping experience across multiple blockchains

• Chipipay: The payment SDK that allows building invisible wallets and payment experiences.

• Dollar App: On/Off ramp, Remmitances, global payments and credit card.

• Revert Finance: Analytics for AMM liquidity providers.

• Moca: Multichain Wallet.

• Rancho Stake: A Mexico/LatAm community-run Ethereum staking collective operating 100+ validators with 20+ home-staking operators using multi-operator clusters (Obol/SSV, often on Dappnode).

Grassroots & Community: Growing but Early Stage

Developer Scale & Momentum

Mexico has approximately 1.9 million developers with 21% YoY growth in 2024, making it one of the fastest-growing dev communities in Latin America. While the blockchain-focused subset remains small compared to Brazil, momentum is accelerating through university clubs, regional hacker houses, and builder collectives.

International Contributions: Mexican builders are actively contributing to global Ethereum projects including Ethereum Foundation (All Core Devs), Arbitrum, Optimism, Uniswap, Base, and others, strengthening Mexico’s presence in the broader Web3 ecosystem.

Community Infrastructure

Mexico’s Ethereum community has grown education-first and grassroots, driven by university students, Spanish-language creators, and regional organizers rather than top-down VC funding.

• Ethereum México: An organization dedicated to promoting Ethereum adoption, education, and events in Mexico. It organizes University Blockchain Days, Builders Days, events with Fintech organizations and the yearly flagship conference and hackathon, ETH México.

• Regional Nodes: Regional chapters: Ethereum Monterrey (infrastructure/enterprise) and Ethereum Veracruz (university-focused).

• Others:

  • Content & Education: Espacio Cripto runs Latin America’s leading Spanish blockchain podcast.

  • Builders: Frutero organizes technical workshops. ETH Cinco de Mayo organize hackathons. HERDAO Mexico drives female participation. CryptoUNAM anchors activity at Mexico’s top university. Mexico Tech Week is one of Mexico City’s largest tech events, attracting local Web3 builders and hackers.

  • Institutional: Bitso’s Stablecoin Conference bridges grassroots builders with institutional players.

Highlighted Education Initiatives

Leading Mexican universities are introducing blockchain education, though most programs remain introductory. Notable initiatives include:

• UNAM offers faculty courses through FCA Educación Continua, while student club CriptoUNAM drives campus workshops. Tecnológico de Monterrey pioneered blockchain-secured diplomas and offers online programs. ITAM runs executive courses on blockchain applications with detailed public syllabi. These institutions also serve as key target schools for Web3 hiring.

• Universidad Veracruzana stands out as the birthplace of Ethereum Veracruz (led by CJ Valdez), offering hands-on courses in DApps and smart contracts alongside regular student hackathons.

• Additional programs: UIA, Anáhuac, UVM. See more here.ru

The gap: Most programs focus on awareness over technical depth. Mexico lacks advanced protocol development or cryptography specializations comparable to Stanford or MIT programs, though student-led communities are filling this void through builder-focused events and hands-on learning.

Challenges

• Outdated Regulatory Framework

  The main challenge for the Ethereum ecosystem in Mexico is regulatory uncertainty that creates an operational limbo where cryptocurrencies are legal under the 2018 Fintech Law but operationally restricted by Banxico’s Circular 4/2019 which prohibits banks from offering crypto services. This ambiguity extends to the tax realm, generating a domino effect where entrepreneurs incorporate startups in other jurisdictions, developers work remotely for foreign companies capturing value outside Mexico, vulnerable users lack government education violating the constitutional right of Article 3, and the banking system remains completely disconnected from the crypto ecosystem creating two parallel financial universes. All this occurs while the world’s largest remittance corridor with 64.7 billion dollars annually represents a massive opportunity where Bitso already processes 6.5 billion through crypto with fees below one percent versus the traditional five percent, demonstrating the transformative potential that could be scaled with a clear regulatory framework that balances innovation with consumer protection.

• MXN Stablecoin Liquidity

  Multiple peso-pegged tokens exist (MXNB, MXNe, MXNT), but onchain depth and integrations are limited. Without liquid MXN pairs, remittances and DeFi rails stay USD-dominated.

• Restricted Access to Payment Rails

  SPEI, Mexico’s instant payment system, is crucial but heavily regulated. Most exchanges rely on partner PSPs instead of direct integration, slowing fiat on/off-ramps.

• Fragmented Ecosystem & UX Friction

  Liquidity is spread across L2s, wallets remain complex, and gas fees confuse new users.

• Limited Institutional Connectors

  Few professionals can bridge regulators, banks, government and DeFi builders. This slows pilot projects and policy alignment that could unlock larger adoption.

Conclusion

Mexico’s crypto ecosystem has evolved far beyond speculation, it’s become critical financial infrastructure. The remittance corridor created the use case, stablecoins provided the rails, and L2s made it economically viable. What began as a workaround for expensive Western Union transfers is now a testing ground for the future of programmable money.

The next phase hinges on three catalysts: regulatory clarity that enables rather than restricts, MXN stablecoin liquidity that makes peso-denominated DeFi practical, and a maturing developer community that builds for local needs. Mexico isn’t following the crypto playbook written elsewhere, it’s writing its own, shaped by remittances, financial exclusion, and a generation that sees blockchain as infrastructure, not ideology.

Further Reading

• Mexico’s Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Laws and Regulations in 2026 by Global Legal Insights

• Mexico’s Crypto Economy: More Than Just Remittances by Crypto Council for Innovation

• Latin America Emerges as a Crypto Powerhouse Amid Volatile Growth by Chainalysis

• Innovation promises efficiencies in remittances, if regulation can keep up by Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day! 🌸

Best regards,

Riely and the Geode Labs team.

Have any comments or feedback? DM.

Want to advertise on Local Ethereum? DM or Email.

If your company is interested in reaching an audiences of regional community and ecosystem builders, developer communities, universities, startup partners, or policymakers, you may want to advertise with us.

Welcome to Local Ethereum, a newsletter where we cover the geo-story of Ethereum. We explore and document the latest stories on Ethereum technology and community from every corner of the earth.

Asia 🌊

• India: India continues to lead global crypto adoption, driving APAC’s fastest-growing on-chain activity, as reported by Chainalysis. Devfolio’s pioneering ETH Blocktrain, India’s first moving train hackathon from Bangalore to New Delhi, drew over 5,200 applications, 55 hackers, 21 projects, and nearly 30,000 votes via quadratic voting. Meanwhile, new regulations seek to balance legitimacy with systemic risk. More.

• China: Ant Group expands blockchain use blockchain, planning to tokenize over $8 billion in energy assets and exploring RWA tokenization through Hong Kong’s CBDC sandbox. Ant Digital launched Jovay, an Ethereum Layer 2 network without issuing cryptocurrencies. Yunfeng Financial Group, linked to Jack Ma, acquired 10,000 ETH (~$44M), marking a major Asian Ethereum purchase (details). Hong Kong regulators’ pauses underline ongoing policy challenges.

• Singapore: The city continues to emerge as a regional Ethereum hub, hosting major events like Token2049 and Ethereum Singapore Week, growing enterprise adoption and startup growth.

• Philippines: The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) secures budget data using the Prismo Protocol, a private blockchain with Polygon PoS transparency layer. The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) remains in exploratory phases for blockchain public document transparency solutions.

• Taiwan: The iThome Ironman Challenge, a 30-day IT writing marathon, fosters community learning. Ethereum contributor Chih Cheng Liang completed it with an in-depth documentation on Ethereum nodes and blockchain systems.

• Japan: ETHTokyo 2025 successfully brought together grassroots developers and international participants. The hackathon saw 124 hackers working on projects centered on Privacy & Security, Financial Innovation, and AI & Society.

• South Korea: One of the world’s largest crypto exchanges in the world, Upbit to be acquired by Korean tech giant Naver. LINE + Kaia are launching a stablecoin superapp for cross-border payments. Upbit also launches Ethereum Layer 2 chain Giwa on testnet, aiming to provide faster transactions for future use in digital finance.

Europe 🏰

• U.K. and Germany: London and Berlin each launched an Ethereum Community Hub to foster local developer and community activities.

• Switzerland: The Swiss Banking Alliance made history by conducting the first legally binding bank payment via a public blockchain, marking a milestone in integrating public blockchain with regulated traditional finance.

• Poland: The largest Polish Web3 event, ETHWarsaw Conference & Hackathon, gathered nearly 800 attendees, including 114 hackers working on 40+ projects. Focused on Mass Adoption, Financial Freedom, Infrastructure, and Resilience and secured strong support from local ecosystem leaders like Golem and RedStone. Learn more about Poland’s growing Ethereum ecosystem and grassroots momentum.

• Turkey: The ETHIstanbul conference and hackathon engaged 216 hackers and showcased over 40 projects, highlighting Türkiye’s vibrant and globally connected Ethereum ecosystem.

• Serbia: Serbia’s Ethereum ecosystem is growing steadily with expanding community and developer initiatives. Learn more about Serbia Ethereum Ecosystem Overview.

• Others: ING, UniCredit and seven other European banks to jointly develop euro stablecoin, aiming to streamline cross-border payments.

North America 🗽

• Uniswap Labs unveiled Compact v1, a system designed to reduce fragmentation of liquidityacross multiple blockchains. The goal is to improve onchain execution and routing across Ethereum and non-Ethereum networks, a significant step toward a unified multi-chain trading layer grounded in Ethereum’s architecture.

• Columbia Engineering launched the Columbia-Ethereum Research Centre, funded by the Ethereum Foundation and directed by Prof. Tim Roughgarden, focused on advancing blockchain research and education.

• American Express introduced on-chain travel stamp NFTs on Base. Each “stamp” is an ERC-721 token minted via a custodial wallet, creating a novel digital collectible experience.

• Stripe eyes stablecoin infrastructure and U.S. banking license, with plans to help companies launch their own stablecoins and is reportedly seeking a federal banking charter. The move positions Stripe as a bridge between traditional financial systems and programmable digital money.

• Google launched an experimental agent-to-agent payments protocol, enabling AI systems to autonomously transact using stablecoins. The framework allows digital agents to pay for services, data, or compute, highlighting how Ethereum-compatible stablecoins could underpin machine-to-machine economies in coming years.

Latam 💃

• LatAm is emerging as a powerful crypto hub with nearly $1.5 trillion in transaction volume from mid-2022 to mid-2025. Economic volatility, inflation, and capital controls fuel demand for stablecoins as a store of value and vehicle for cross-border payments.

• Brazil Leads the Region: Brazil dominates LatAm with $318 billion in crypto flows in 2025, driven by stablecoin use for payments and remittances, innovation through its Pix instant payment system, and the blockchain-based Drex pilot. Institutional adoption is strong, with banks like Itaú, Mercado Pago, and Nubank integrating crypto products backed by clear regulations that foster secure growth. Learn more about Brazil Ethereum Ecosystem.

• Argentina:

  • Crecimiento: The Aleph Festival (Aug 25–Nov 22) in Buenos Aires hosts LatAm‘s largest Web3 hackathon, a 6-week Buildathon Season, and prepares startups for the Devconnect Startup World Cup. The festival accelerates Argentina’s Ethereum ecosystem through hands-on support, protocol-aligned tracks, demos, workshops, and community events around Ethereum and Layer 2.

  • ETHKipu: ETHKipu continues to expand the Ethereum Developer Pack while also organizing ETHLatam, one of the region’s largest Ethereum conference and hackathon, set to bring together builders and communities from across LatAm.

  • SEEDOrg: SEEDOrg’s 2025 highlights include the first University Day at Devconnect Buenos Aires with 25+ universities engaged and a nationwide tour onboarding 1,500+ builders. SeedOrg fosters blockchain adoption through government and enterprise partnerships, runs an independent ETH validator, and trains node operators in Distributed Validator Technology across seven LatAm countries.

  • Odisea Labs: recently announced the launch of Núcleo, an immersive platform for LatAm and global builders to make the leap onchain. Núcleo offers learning by building, a vibrant community, real opportunities, $2,500 USD in Buildathon prizes, 24/7 AI tutors, and onchain certifications on Base.

Africa 🦁

• Sub-Saharan Africa is now the third-fastest-growing crypto region globally, with over $205 billion in on-chain value from July 2024 to June 2025, a 52% increase year-over-year. Nigeria leads with $92.1 billion in transactions, driven by inflation and restricted foreign currency access, pushing many to use stablecoins as a dollar substitute. The region’s crypto growth highlights real-world use cases, from inflation hedging to cross-border payments, amid regulatory and infrastructural challenges.

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Global Ecosystem Update 🗺️

• Scale L1 & L2: Ethereum Fusaka Upgrade: Scheduled for mainnet launch on December 3, 2025, Fusaka will significantly increase Ethereum’s block gas limit from 45M to 150M and introduce Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS) to reduce costs for Layer 2s and validators. A four-week security audit contest offers $2 million in rewards to uncover bugs before launch.

• Improve UX through two parallel tracks:

  1. Intent layer foundations: Standardizing intent layer (e.g., Open Intents Framework + extensions), allowing users to define desired outcomes rather than craft transactions. Protocols like Permit3 handle cross-chain approvals with single signatures, while Axal manages intent execution abstracting gas, batching, and multi-chain complexity.

  2. Faster Settlement & Reduced Latency

  • L1 finality: FSF achieving 12-second finality (vs 16 min), enabling faster L2 state proof verification for interop.

  • L2 withdrawals: Research into reducing 7-day challenge periods to 1 day while maintaining censorship resistance.

  • “SNARK-ify everything” as proofs get cheaper; design with ZK in mind.

• Privacy: Ethereum Foundation sets end-to-end privacy roadmap, with private writes, reads and proving. Check out the PSE roadmap: 2025 and beyond! At the same time, the Privacy Cluster announced a new leadership structure with Igor Mandrigin and Andy Guzman being appointed as co-leads to drive coordination across privacy initiatives and accelerate deployment of privacy-preserving technologies into production.

• Payment: Swift announced it is adding a blockchain-based shared ledger to its global infrastructure, collaborating with over 30 banks to enable instant, 24/7 cross-border payments across 200+ countries. As part of this initiative, Swift is piloting migration of interbank messaging processes onto Ethereum Layer 2 Linea by ConsenSys, highlighting growing institutional adoption of Ethereum L2 scalable settlement rails.

• Institutional: The Ether Machine filed with the SEC to go public via a merger, signaling growing institutional activity around Ethereum assets.

• Others: Ethereum Foundation formed the ‘dAI’ team to position Ethereum as the foundational base layer for the AI economy, with ongoing work on privacy roadmaps including private writes, reads, and proofs.

Ecosystem Data 🔢

• Client diversity has improved.

• Centralization watch. Validator Distribution, Lido at 23.5%, down 0.5% from last month.

• Total value locked on Ethereum. Reached $367.12b on October 1, up from $333.9b on September 1, marking a 9.95% month-over-month increase.

• No. of Monthly active address + onchain value.

• Ethereum Treasuries. Across 68 entities surpass 5.4 million ETH, valued at over $22.72b on 30th Sept 2025.

• Stabelcoin Adoption on Ethereum. Reached $158.5b on October 1, up from $150b on September 1, marking a 5.7% month-over-month increase.

• Top 10 projects who generate the most fees on Ethereum:

Opportunities 💡

• Ethereum Foundation launches a $2M Fusaka audit contest with Gnosis & Lido on Sherlock! (Sept. 15 to Oct. 13, 2025), join now!

• Crecimiento Buildathon Season, apply now!

• GCC Public Goods Grant Cohort 1, a $100k funding pool focused on Chinese Web3 open source, community, and education (Oct 1–Nov 2), apply now!

Highlighted Events in October ✨

• TOKEN2049 and Ethereum Singapore week, Singapore, Sept 29-Oct 3

• Latincrypt 2025, Medellín, Colombia, cryptology and information security conference, Oct 1-3

• ETHOnline 2025, async hackathon, Oct 10-31

• ETHRome Hackathon, Rome, Italy, Oct 17-19

• Edge Patagonia, San Martín de Los Andes, Argentina, month-long popup village, Oct 18-Nov 15

• Encode London 2025, London, U.K., hackathon and conference, Oct 24-26

• ETH Bishkek, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, hackathon, Oct 24-26

• Invisible Garden, Buenos Aires, Argentina, popup city, Oct 27-Nov 16

• Ethereum Mexico 2025, Monterrey, Mexico, hackathon and conference, Oct 31-Nov 2

Thanks for reading! Wishing you a Happy New Year and exciting 2026 ahead! 🎄

Best regards,

Riely & the Geode Labs team

Have any comments or feedback? DM.

Want to advertise on Local Ethereum? DM or Email.

If your company is interested in reaching an audiences of regional community and ecosystem builders, developer communities, universities, startup partners, or policymakers, you may want to advertise with us.

Special thanks to Rob Junior, Thiago Rocha, Romina Sejas, Cristiano Silva, Luciana and João Kury for the feedback and the review.

TL;DR

• From early pioneers like Alex Van de Sande to Brazil’s Central Bank experimenting with Drex, Brazil’s Ethereum journey is a story of experimentation, setbacks, and breakthroughs.

• Brazil ranks among the top 5 countries globally for crypto adoption, driven by strong fintech infrastructure like PIX (Brazil’s instant payment system), widespread stablecoin use, growing retail and institutional participation, and clear regulations. Its vibrant developer communities support a dynamic ecosystem focused on payment infra and DeFi, while sectors like RWA tokenization remain emerging.

• PIX solved instant payments in Brazil, but Ethereum is solving global programmable payments and assets.

• Though the highly anticipated Drex (Digital Brazilian Real) V1 has pivoted away from blockchain, its exploratory phase served as an essential institutional ‘boot camp,’ giving Ethereum legitimacy and deepening technical expertise within Brazil’s major financial firms.

1. Policy Landscape

• Brazil’s regulatory environment is characterized by an overall positive view and strong interest in crypto from federal authorities, making it one of the most robust legal frameworks in Latin America.

• Legal Status: Crypto is not legal tender but is recognized as an asset class. It provides legal certainty for major financial firms to tokenize assets, trade, and custody in a clear jurisdictional domain.

• New Tax System (Provisional Measure 1303): Brazil is moving to a flat 17.5% tax rate on all capital gains from crypto transactions, effective 2026.

• Primary Regulator: The Brazilian Central Bank (BCB) is designated as the primary regulator for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs).

• Compliance: Businesses dealing in crypto must comply with stringent Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) rules, with reporting requirements to the Financial Intelligence Unit.

2. Local Roots: The Historical Foundation of the Brazilian Ethereum Ecosystem

The sustained strength of the Brazilian ecosystem is built on a deep history of both technical contributions and early institutional engagement, establishing the necessary technical foundation for the current RWA boom. Key milestones include:

• Early Contributor (2014): Alex Van de Sande, a crucial Brazilian figure who joined the Ethereum Foundation before the network launched in 2014. His team led the design of the first Ethereum wallet (Mist) and engineered fundamental standards, including the ERC-20 token standard and the Ethereum Name Service (ENS).

• OriginalMy (2015): One of Brazil’s pioneering blockchain startups, initially built an on-chain property registry to replace expensive notaries. The venture has since evolved into an e-Governance framework that provides tools to reduce bureaucracy and increase transparency across multiple sectors.

• EthereumSP Meetups (2015–2018): A grassroots developer community organized by local builders in São Paulo, serving as an early hub for Ethereum discussions and experimentation. Victor Taelin, later known for his AI and programming language work, was an active participant while collaborating with the Ethereum Foundation.

• Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) (2019): At Devcon 5 in Osaka, presented a token project for better tracking of investment funds and combating corruption.

• Pods Finance (2020): Originating at ETHDenver, Pods built the first live implementation of on-chain options based on the Opyn whitepaper. After running two DeFi protocols with millions in TVL, they later pivoted to a B2B API, helping wallets and fintechs launch DeFi features.

• Picnic (2023): A DeFi consumer app that has become one of the world’s largest implementations of ERC-4337.

• RWAs: Brazil has become a global leader in tokenized private credit (top 5 by volume), with Mercado Bitcoin driving this sector.

• In 2025, Brazil ranks top 5 worldwide in crypto adoption, with an estimated 16+ million Brazilians having owned cryptocurrency. Stablecoin and DeFi usage are widespread. (Chainalysis).

3. Ethereum, PIX, and DREX (Digital Brazilian Real)

tl;dr

• Ethereum: offers the highest decentralization and programmability but has variable fees and slower finality.

• PIX: provides instant, 24/7, free payments but is centrally controlled by Brazil’s central bank.

• DREX: combines central bank control with programmable features, was in pilot phase using Hyperledger Besu and now V1 will not use blockchain at all.

PIX

Launched in November 2020, PIX is Brazil’s instant payment system, and one of the largest in the world, second only to India’s UPI. It has become a global benchmark for adoption. Before PIX, bank transfers were limited to business hours (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), and transfers between different banks often could not be processed on weekends. Today, PIX regularly handles record volumes, such as 237 million transactions in a single day, moving BRL 136 billion (~USD 30 billion). It is a public infrastructure layer owned and operated by the Central Bank of Brazil.

But what’s missing? Why do we still need programmable blockchains?

The main limitation of PIX is that it only solves payments. Broader financial markets, the trading of stocks, bonds, funds, property, and other assets, continue to operate under restricted schedules (5 a.m. to 8 p.m.), and often require multiple intermediaries. This makes settlement slow and costly.

Blockchains, however, allow both “money” (tokens) and “assets” (also represented as tokens) to exist and interact in the same programmable environment.

Drex

Drex was designed as Brazil’s attempt to merge programmability and composability into a state-backed blockchain system. It aimed to be slightly more decentralized than the current model, running on Hyperledger Besu with validator nodes operated by entities such as the Central Bank, the national mint, and other financial institutions.

The Central Bank of Brazil has been researching blockchain since at least 2017, as shown in their technical paper following Ethereum closely: Distributed Ledger Technical Research in Central Bank of Brazil.

The Drex Pilot

The first pilot phase tested issuance, transfer, and redemption of tokenized deposits, as well as interoperability experiments between platforms. Participants, including banks, fintechs, and other players, simulated use cases like payments, asset settlement, and smart contract integration. This phase was exploratory, focused on mapping technical requirements, cybersecurity risks, and potential regulatory adjustments.

The main challenge was finding a way to make the blockchain programmable with privacy. Pseudonymity, as seen in existing blockchains, was insufficient since with analytics and inference it would be possible to identify institutions, and even individuals, behind addresses.

To address this, the team experimented with privacy tools, mostly involving Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs).

Current Status

The conclusion of phase one was that existing privacy solutions were not yet mature enough to deliver both programmability and composability. Since then, the pace of the project has slowed considerably. The Central Bank even announced that the first version of Drex will not use blockchain at all. It is unclear whether this decision was influenced by leadership changes, fatigue among the team, or security concerns after recent hacks.

Is Drex a failure? Absolutely not. Even if Drex does not go live as originally envisioned, the project elevated awareness, credibility, and legitimacy of crypto in Brazil. Traditional financial institutions experimented hands-on with Ethereum tools such as Foundry and Hardhat, building contracts originally authored by the Central Bank itself. Even the broader web3 ecosystem can learn from Drex’s challenges as we collectively work toward a more programmable and privacy-preserving future.

4. Key Players: Startups and corporations

Brazil’s ecosystem is characterized by a unique blend of powerful traditional financial institutions, unicorn exchanges, and core infrastructure builders, all committed to web3 solutions.

• Infra & DeFi and Payment

  • Balancer: A decentralized AMM on Ethereum. Launched in 2020 after a 2018 concept, it became a key DeFi player. It’s a top-10 DeFi platform with a TVL of about $900 million.

  • Pods Finance: B2B API, helping wallets and fintechs launch DeFi features..

  • P2P.me: Ethereum-based P2P payment app for remittances; supports BRL-to-crypto swaps.

  • Blockful: Blockful establishes key parameters to enhance governance security and strengthen the DAO ecosystem. Like L2beat, but for DAOs.

  • Chainless: A self-custodial superwallet with a built-in fiat ramp.

  • PoolParty: A decentralized finance (DeFi) project built on Uniswap, focusing on community-driven liquidity pools and yield farming. It aims to provide accessible DeFi solutions for users.

  • Rayls Labs: Rayls is an EVM compatible blockchain, built to unite TradFi and DeFi, bringing $100T of TradFi liquidity and the 6 Billion banked population into DeFi.

  • Núclea: A major infrastructure backbone in Brazil’s payments and settlement ecosystem. Núclea manages 100% of boleto (invoice) registrations and 90% of debit and credit card settlements in Brazil.

  • ENS: Co-founded by Brazilian Alex Van de Sande, ENS domains are core to Ethereum’s Web3 identity layer. Brazil has ~50K active .eth domains.

  • M0: A universal platform powering builders of application-specific stablecoins. It simplifies stablecoin issuance, collateral management, and compliance for builders, powering projects like MetaMask’s mUSD, Noble, Usual, USDHL, and KAST.

  • Transfero: Blockchain payment solutions and BRL stablecoin issuer.

  • BlindPay: Stablecoin API for global payments.

  • Avenia: A project focused on developing Brazil’s cryptocurrency infrastructure through BRLA Digital, promoting audited stablecoins and facilitating global payments using PIX and blockchain technology.

  • Orda Network: Builds intents into real-world transfers across chains, stablecoins, and banking systems.

  • SmartPay: A fintech platform that enables users to make payments and transactions seamlessly, including using USDT where PIX payment is accepted.

  • AmFi: The first regulated Digital Fixed Income platform in Brazil, offering digital assets with higher yields than traditional investments.

  • Decentral: The first multichain RWA protocol connecting web3 investors to opportunities in the Creative Economy.

• Financial Giants & Asset management

  • Nubank: Latin America’s largest digital bank with more than 100 million customers in Brazil. It launched its crypto trading platform in May 2022, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) among the first offerings, and later launched its own loyalty token, Nucoin, in early 2023. It is now piloting stablecoin credit card payments in Brazil.

  • Hashdex: A crypto asset management firm that has launched the world’s first crypto index ETF in 2021 and even working on Ethereum futures ETFs.

  • Itaú Asset Management’s crypto division: launched in 2021, offers Ethereum ETFs and tokenized funds via the B3 exchange. Itaú holds ~$500M in crypto assets and focuses on Ethereum for tokenizing RWAs.

  • Méliuz Bitcoin: Largest public holder of BTC in Latin America.

• Exchange

  • Mercado Bitcoin: Brazil’s largest crypto exchange, with over 3M users. Supports 200+ assets including ETH staking, spot and futures trading. A founding member of the BRL1 stablecoin consortium.

  • Foxbit: Another major exchange with 1.5M users and part of BRL1 consortium.

• BRL stablecoins related

  • Major issuers including BRL1 (Bitso, Mercado Bitcoin, Foxbit consortium), BRLA (Avenia), BRZ (Transfero), cREAL (Celo) and BBRL (Braza).

5. Developers & Technical Talent

Brazilian developers are known for strong Fintech and security talent.

• Growth Trajectory: Brazil’s developer community is expanding rapidly. According to GitHub’s Octoverse (2023), Brazil is projected to remain among the top 10 countries for developers globally through 2030, with blockchain and Web3 as fast-growing verticals.

• Web3 Share: Brazil accounts for roughly 2.5% to 3% of the world’s Web3 developers (2024-2025). And it is growing gradually.

• Hub: The ecosystem is heavily concentrated in São Paulo, Latin America’s largest tech cluster, with its dense fintech scene, accelerators, and universities providing fertile ground for Ethereum talent.

• Community: Hackathons and meetups have been crucial in bringing new developers into Ethereum. Flagship events like Ethereum Rio, ETH Samba, and ongoing meetups run by ERC55 provide training, mentorship, and visibility for emerging builders.

6. Community: Cultivating the Builder Pipeline

Hackathons, meetups, and dedicated educational programs have been critical in onboarding the next wave of Ethereum builders, providing training, mentorship, and visibility.

Grassroots Communities

• Flagship Events: ETH Samba (a high-energy, prominent hackathon), Ethereum Brasil, and Ethereum Rio are key annual pillars, significantly boosting both technical output and developer talent.

• The Core Technical Community ERC55: ERC55 is the community with the lowest profile, the most technical, and one of the most aligned with Ethereum. It began its activities in August 2023 with monthly meetups. In 2025, in partnership with the Ethereum Foundation and the ZK Education Team, they ran the Core Program course, an immersive 6-week journey focused on Programmable Cryptography (ProgCrypto).

• Decentralized Reach: Local Web3 communities are thriving, ETH Beagá (Belo Horizonte), Token Hub Economy (Curitiba), Favelaverso (Rio’s favelas), and Modular Crypto, driving education, culture, and social impact across the country.

• For some years, scalability and L2 solutions have been recurring topics in Brazil. Today, this momentum has materialized, with networks like Arbitrum, Base, and Scroll establishing a strong local presence and even appointing dedicated country leads.

Physical Hubs

Dedicated physical spaces are vital for converting virtual communities into tangible, collaborative ecosystems.

• São Paulo Hubs: Vega House provides a physical venue in São Paulo for networking, workshops, and ecosystem development. Nouns House acts as a venue for meetups and an incubator for builders and enthusiasts. Distrito is a physical hub for innovation and artificial intelligence.

• Rio & Beyond: Bamba Labs is a Rio de Janeiro-based community focused on development and innovation. Node Hub Web3 is a hub of companies and professionals driving real onboarding into Web3.

• The Future City: Ipê City is an ambitious, month-long experimental city concept brings together global talent to co-live, learn, and prototype AI and blockchain solutions, aiming to prototype a governance system for the city of the future (see 2026 edition).

Media Groups

• Modular Crypto: One of Brazil’s largest web3 media and education projects, providing educational content, organizing events, conducting blockchain research, and participating in governance across the ecosystem.

• Brazil Crypto Report: A community and media source offering news, insights, and analysis about the Brazilian crypto economy.

7. Acceleration & Investment: Capitalizing the Ecosystem

Both domestic and international capital recognize Brazil’s potential, and they are supporting startups to get access to crucial funding. However, accessing that capital is not easy, mainly due to limited presence of local and global VCs in Brazil (and LATAM in general), as well as language barriers, since English proficiency is lower compared to hubs like India.

• Domestic

  • QR Capital: One of the first crypto-focused firms in Brazil. Runs a $100M+ hedge fund, manages ETH in treasury, invested in 50+ projects (including Polygon), and prioritizes Brazilian founders.

  • Monashees and Valor Capital Group: Traditional VC funds that have started backing blockchain startups (e.g., participation in Mercado Bitcoin’s funding rounds).

  • Iporanga Ventures: An early-stage venture capital fund investing in the Future of Finance.

• International

  • SoftBank Latin America Fund: Poured $200M into Mercado Bitcoin’s parent 2TM in 2021, giving Brazil its first crypto unicorn.

  • Coinbase Ventures, Sequoia, a16z: All have backed LatAm projects and scout actively in Brazil.

  • LIFT Lab (Banco Central): Central Bank accelerator that has incubated Ethereum pilots and Drex-related projects.

  • One of the biggest Global Accelerators Y Combinator has admitted Brazilian Web3 startups, such as Trace Finance, confirming the ecosystem’s capacity to compete internationally.

8. University & Academia

While formal blockchain curricula remain limited at Brazilian universities, student-led clubs, community-partnered courses, research labs, and grassroots meetups are filling the educational gap through community-driven initiatives.

Blockchain Club

• Polichain (USP): Blockchain study group at USP’s Polytechnic School, founded in 2021

• ITA Blockchain Group: Student-led blockchain initiative at the Aeronautics Institute of Technology.

• Unicamp: Student-run organization spreading blockchain knowledge on and off campus

• Blockchain Insper: Latin America’s first university blockchain organization (est. 2017).

• Blockchain Fatec: Student organization at Fatec Americana focused on blockchain and Web3.

• UnBChain (University of Brasília): An integrated research center for blockchain and related technologies.

• Inteli Blockchain: A Brazilian student org focused on advancing blockchain technology.

Ethereum Course

• CIn-UFPE (Computer Science Center of the Federal University of Pernambuco): Ethereum and Solidity course in partnership with ETH Kipu, Web3EduBrasil, and Plexos Institute.

• UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina): Offers Ethereum and Solidity course, in partnership with ETH Kipu, Blockful.io, ETH Samba, and ETH Latam, brings the Ethereum Developer Pack to UFSC.

• UFES (Federal University of Espirito Santo): Offers Ethereum and Solidity classes in partnership with the ETH Kipu and Espírito Bitcoin.

Research Labs

• Computing Systems Engineering Laboratory (UFV): Research lab at Federal University of Viçosa conducting blockchain and Ethereum related research.

• NetLab UFJF (UFJF): Network and distributed system lab at Federal University of Juiz de Fora.

9. Highlighted Events

• ReCity (Recife, 6-26 Oct 2025): A three-week pop-up city project blending technology, regeneration, and culture, with blockchain woven into its design.

• Web3 PE (Pernambuco, 21-23 Oct 2025): A part of the National Science and Technology Week program, featuring workshops, lectures, and discussion groups on Web3 tech.

• ETHLatam (São Paulo, 6-9 Nov 2025): The biggest Ethereum conference in Latam.

• Real-World Ethereum Hackathon (São Paulo, 6-7 Nov 2025): A focused hackathon addressing RWA use cases on Ethereum, running alongside ETHLatam.

• ETH Floripa (Florianópolis, 11-12 Nov 2025): A builder retreat following ETHLatam.

• Blockchain Conference Brazil (São Paulo, 28-29 Nov 2025): A chain-agnostic crypto conference.

Further Reading

• Has Brazil Invented the Future of Money? by Paul Krugman

• DREX for gringos, part I, part II and part III, by Leandro Pereira

• Drex – Digital Brazilian Real by Banco Central do Brasil

• Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Laws and Regulations 2025 – Brazil by Global Legal Insights

• Brazil’s Legal Framework for Cryptoassets and Upcoming Regulation by International Bar Association

• Tokenization in Brazil by ABcripto

• The Money Layer: LATAM Crypto 2025 Report by Filippo Armani at Dune

• Brazil Pioneers DeFi Integration with Drex and Bold Crypto Reforms by Crypto For Innovation

• The Rise of Crypto Economy in Brazil by Crypto For Innovation

• Learning from Brazil and India’s Instant Payment Systems by Polina Kempinsky at Harvard Kennedy School

• Payment Technology Complementarities and Their Consequences on the Banking Sector: Evidence From Brazil’s Pix by Matheus C Sampaio and Jose Renato H Ornelas at The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Paper

• Lift Challenge of Digital Brazilian Real

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day! 🌸

Best regards,

Riely and the Geode Labs team.

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