Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Yeouido Leaders to Gather in Seoul for EastPoint 2026 as First Lineup Is Unveiled

Private event to be held at The Westin Seoul Parnas on Sept. 28

Key digital-asset and stablecoin issues on the agenda

Closed-door talks for senior officials planned

Franklin Templeton, the U.S. asset manager with about $1.8 trillion under management

Andreessen Horowitz, one of the world’s largest venture capital firms

Stablecoin heavyweights Tether and Circle

Top global digital-asset executives to converge

Political figures including Democratic Party lawmaker Min Byung-duk and Reform Party lawmaker Lee Jun-seok

Major financial firms including KB, Shinhan, Hana, Woori and Mirae Asset

Senior executives from fintech companies such as Kakao Pay and Toss to attend

Senior executives from some of the biggest names in global digital assets, including Franklin Templeton, which manages about $1.8 trillion, Andreessen Horowitz and stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle, will gather privately in Seoul for EastPoint: Seoul 2026, billed as South Korea’s largest private digital-asset conference.

The event will be held Sept. 28 at The Westin Seoul Parnas in Seoul’s Samseong-dong. It is co-hosted by global venture firm Hashed, digital-asset media outlet Bloomingbit and the Korea Economic Daily. This year marks the conference’s second edition.

More than 200 institutions and 503 decision-makers attended last year’s event. This year, a select group of policymakers, global institutions and Web3 leaders will again discuss South Korea’s developing digital-asset market and the broader trend of institutional adoption.

EastPoint on Sept. 1 released its first round of speakers and participating companies for the 2026 event. The initial lineup includes Chetan Karkhanis, senior vice president at Franklin Templeton, and Guy Wuollet, general partner at a16z Crypto.

Other speakers include Harry Jung, former deputy director of the White House digital assets advisory council; Caroline Pham, chief executive officer of MoonPay Institutional and former acting chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission; and Kirk Cullimore, Republican majority leader in the Utah Senate. Ryo Kato, senior executive vice president at SBI and chief executive officer of HashHub, and Wai Lum Kwok, senior executive director for authorization and fintech at Abu Dhabi Global Market, or ADGM, are also on the attendee list.

Global stablecoin and digital-asset companies including Tether and Circle will also be represented. Speakers include David Katz, Circle’s vice president for Asia-Pacific strategy and policy; Francesco Fabrizi, head of tokenization expansion at Tether; Yuval Rooz, chief executive officer of Canton Network; Joseph Lubin, founder of Consensys and co-founder of Ethereum; Arthur Hayes, chief investment officer at Maelstrom; and Hong Kim, chief technology officer at Bitwise. Senior executives from Coinbase, Ripple and digital-custody firm BitGo are also set to attend.

In South Korean politics, speakers include Democratic Party lawmaker Min Byung-duk, Democratic Party floor deputy leader Ahn Do-geol and Reform Party lawmaker Lee Jun-seok. From the local securities and fintech industries, senior executives from Mirae Asset Securities, NH Investment & Securities, Meritz Securities, Eugene Investment & Securities and Toss will attend.

Executives from Visa, Samsung Card, Hyundai Card, BC Card, Mirae Asset Global Investments, KB Asset Management, Shinhan Asset Management and Hana Asset Management also plan to join the event.

Sponsors for EastPoint: Seoul 2026 include Tether, Circle, MoonPay, Presto, Ondo Finance, Limitless, BitGo, Anchorage Digital, Plume Network, Optimism, Injective, Talos and the ADI Foundation. South Korea-based companies including Kakao Pay, SOOHO.IO, D'CENT and Kaia are also listed as sponsors. Bitman will participate as a community partner, while official research partners include Hashed Open Research, Tiger Research and 4Pillars.

This year’s event will center on five main themes: the start of the institutional investment era, the evolution of stablecoins, the onchain transformation of capital markets, the age of AI agents and the adoption of blockchain in everyday life. Compared with last year, the agenda has broadened to include AI agents, real-world assets and stablecoins. As in 2025, the conference will use a dual-track format combining a main stage with private roundtables.

At the inaugural EastPoint last year, more than 200 institutions and 503 decision-makers took part. The event hosted more than 50 business meetings and over 40 private roundtables. Lawmakers from the Democratic Party, the People Power Party and the Reform Party attended alongside policy leaders from the White House and the CFTC for discussions on digital-asset regulation and policy direction.

Hashed Chief Executive Officer Kim Seo-jun said stablecoins and asset tokenization have become part of the real market after years of experimentation. “The question now is no longer whether they are possible, but which businesses and systems can work over the long term,” he said.

He added that EastPoint is a place where the people building markets and the people designing institutions gather in Seoul to find that answer together.

Bloomingbit Chief Executive Officer Kim San-ha said EastPoint brings together senior figures from global institutions, policy circles and capital markets for in-depth discussions on the most important issues facing digital assets. The first speaker lineup, participating institutions and headline themes already show the depth of this year’s conversations, he added.

He said future lineup announcements and undisclosed attendees would let participants experience firsthand the value that only EastPoint can offer.