Bridging Theory and Practice: Academic and Policy Perspectives on DeFi and Tokenization from our 2026 Annual Conference
We have just wrapped up 's 5th Annual Academic Conference. Our two-day agenda explored the pertinent field of DeFi and Digital Currencies, bringing together 100 top researchers, industry experts and economic policymakers to dissect and envisage the future of modern finance.
The Gillmore Centre's and opened the event, both drawing attention to the accelerating relevance of DeFi, with areas that were seen as specialised and niche in the first years of this conference now becoming the "mainstream questions in finance".
Day 1: Digital Currencies, AMMs, and Market Quality
Session 1 began with a deep dive into stablecoins, exploring their impact on interest rates and payment sovereignty, thanks to thorough presentations from I帽aki Aldasoro and Jonathan Chiu.
Next, , delivered his hotly anticipated keynote address 鈥楾he Wandering Path to Satoshi鈥檚 Vision鈥�.
A decade on from his pioneering success in implementing Bitcoin into Duke鈥檚 MBA syllabus, the professor criticised the 鈥済ambling den鈥� that has become the crypto-climate of recent years. Although we have wandered far from Satoshi鈥檚 vision of independence from traditional banking systems and currencies, Harvey shared with the room his own inspirational vision for the future, where a hybrid world of centralised and decentralised finance could address many of the issues such as inefficiency, opacity and lack of interoperability that are at large in both systems today.
Session 2 turned the spotlight onto decentralised exchanges and Automated Market Makers (AMMs) with and theorising 鈥渄ethroning the dollar鈥� in their provocative paper on multi-currency AMMs for FX, while discussed the numerous, potential benefits of trading with fully automated intermediaries.
With broader debate about blockchain design and market quality guiding Session 3, we heard papers by on, 鈥楤lockchains and Strategic Secondary Censorship鈥� and Shihao Yu on 鈥極ptimal Trading Speed on Blockchain鈥�.
Day 2: Blockchain Economics, Tokenization, and Policy
Prefaced in Monday鈥檚 keynote by Prof. Harvey as an emerging technology that could 鈥渂reathe new life鈥� into DeFi, the Tokenisation of Real-world Assets (RWAs) was the key topic of Day 2, with discerning papers presented by Brian Zhu, , and .
Complementing the theory, 's, crucial policy-led session gave voice to industry concerns and what policymakers are doing to catalyse innovation.
He shared with us insights into the Bank of England鈥檚 and FCA鈥檚 Digital Securities Sandbox, detailing how such initiatives allow institutions to innovate safely while addressing critical policy, compliance, and post-trade settlement architecture.
Key Takeaways
Key takeaways that emerged from the two days include:
- The future of finance will be hybrid: DeFi is here to stay, and as innovation continues, we will see increasing hybridity of our financial systems.
- Collaboration: Working together across institutions will be essential to successfully and efficiently integrate emerging technologies into finance鈥檚 existing architecture.
- Transparency is vital: With digital currencies becoming increasingly opaque and institutions historically secretive with their own innovation, it is paramount that transparency is viewed as a priority by all to enhance collaboration and minimise vulnerabilities to corruption.
- Some caution is necessary: The tokenization of real-world assets hinges on regulatory safe spaces, making sandbox initiatives essential for real-world legal and operational testing.
We would like to thank all of our aforementioned speakers, as well as the illuminating contributions by our discussants , , , , , , Tom Ernst, Yue Yuan, and Rashad A.
And finally... a big thank you to our delegates.
Full presentations from our speakers and discussants are available here.