Traditional finance and digital asset balance sheets are colliding in Southeast Asia.
Binance confirmed its first wave of speakers for Binance Blockchain Week Bangkok 2026 on Wednesday, booking the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center for November 28–29. The summit marks an operational return to Asia. Capital allocators from Wall Street, sovereign digital ministers, and on-chain infrastructure founders will convene under this year's designated theme: Evolve.
Payments networks, tokenized equities, and real-world yield vehicles are consolidating onto single settlement layers. Institutional barriers are unraveling.
Big-ticket global asset managers are stepping directly onto the Bangkok stage, underscoring institutional demand for regulated digital plumbing. Dan Maley, APAC Head of Digital Assets at BlackRock, headlines the institutional delegation alongside Roger Bayston, Head of Digital Assets Ecosystem Development at Franklin Templeton. Their presence reflects a structural migration: exchange-traded funds and tokenized Treasuries have transformed digital asset desks from speculative outposts into core institutional allocations.
South Korean institutional brokerage Mirae Asset Securities Limited will dispatch Kelly Sohn, Head of Digital Asset, while decentralized Treasury issuer Ondo Finance sends Min Linn, Managing Director and Head of Global Business Development. Payments giants are moving in parallel. Visa's Head of Digital Currencies for Asia Pacific, Nischint Sanghavi, joins PayPay Corporation's Head of Financial Business Development Yuki Jinguji and United Stables Chief Executive Athena Y to address cross-border settlement rails. Brokerage infrastructure provider Alpaca will be represented by Co-Founder and Chief Executive Yoshi Yokokawa, alongside Ella Zhang, Managing Partner and Head of YZi Labs, and Thomas Chen, Chief Business Officer at BNB Chain.
The macro derivatives market will also take center stage through Maelstrom Chief Investment Officer Arthur Hayes, who created the perpetual swap contract that underpins hundreds of billions of dollars in daily crypto trading volume. He joins early venture pioneer Matthew Roszak, Chairman of Bloq, Tether APAC Expansion executive Sushant Singh, and CZ, founder of Giggle Academy and Binance.
Regulatory innovation is no longer confined to traditional financial centers. Increasingly, emerging jurisdictions are shaping the future of digital finance. The regulatory frameworks and financial infrastructure countries build today will determine where capital flows, where companies choose to grow, and which markets lead tomorrow. We're grateful to convene this critical dialogue in Bangkok." >
Richard Teng, Co — CEO, Binance
Market Context: The crossover between tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) and traditional custodial systems has moved past experimental sandbox trials. Sovereign treasuries, commercial banks, and tier-one clearing institutions are actively engineering multi-currency settlement rails to compress trading settlement cycles from T+1 to atomic, real-time clearing.
Policymakers from frontier development corridors are bypassing legacy European and American regulatory playbooks. Kazakh Vice Minister Gizzat Baitursynov, representing the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan, will address sovereign frameworks alongside Shaun Tan, Head of Crypto and Fintech Growth for Bhutan's Gelephu Mindfulness City special administrative region.
Both jurisdictions have moved rapidly to integrate compute infrastructure, central bank settlements, and state reserves with distributed ledgers. Regulators are no longer drafting statutes in isolation—they are bargaining directly with exchange liquidity engines.
| Participant / Institution | Sector / Mandate | Strategic Focus Area |
|---|---|---|
| BlackRock (Dan Maley) | Global Asset Management | Institutional ETF inflows & sovereign mandates |
| Franklin Templeton (Roger Bayston) | Institutional Fund Management | On-chain liquidity pools & tokenized funds |
| Visa (Nischint Sanghavi) | Global Payment Networks | Cross-border retail & institutional digital settlement |
| Kazakhstan Ministry of AI (Gizzat Baitursynov) | Sovereign Governance | Pan-regional digital asset regulatory architectures |
Data analytics houses and market microstructure researchers will dissect on-chain settlement flows during the two-day summit. The roster features Alex Svanevik, Chief Executive of blockchain analytics platform Nansen; Anastasia Melachrinos, Head of Research at Kaiko; Roosa Kivisto, Head of Business Development at DeFiLlama; Coin Bureau Founder Nic Puckrin; and CoinDesk Research Lead Joshua de Vos.
"As traditional finance and digital assets converge, our focus remains constant: improving access, strengthening user protections, and delivering seamless experiences," stated Yi He, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Binance. "Under this year's theme, Evolve, Binance Blockchain Week convenes the architects of this transformation."
Internal operational leadership across Binance’s trading, regulatory, and localized operations will also address participants. Scheduled platform speakers include Co-CEO Richard Teng; Co-CEO and Co-Founder Yi He; Chief Marketing Officer Eowyn Chen; Head of APAC SB Seker; Head of VIP and Institutional Catherine Chen; Head of Exchange and Trading Shunyet Jan; Vice President of Payments and Fiat Thomas Gregory; Vice President of Product Jeff Li; Deputy Chief Compliance Officer Antonio Alvarez Lorenzo; and Nirun Fuwattananukul, Chief Executive Officer of Binance TH by Gulf Binance.
The physical gathering follows prior host-city editions across Singapore, Istanbul, Paris, and Dubai. Market participants will access early panel agendas through a live digital forum broadcast on November 17 at 11:00 UTC via Binance Square, featuring a $5,000 promotional liquidity pool allocation.
Exchange organizers confirmed that additional sovereign speakers, liquidity providers, and investment bank trading heads will be added to the Bangkok roster as institutional registrations open over the coming weeks.
| Mirae Asset Securities (Kelly Sohn) | Investment Banking & Brokerage | Asian institutional capital market digitization |
| Ondo Finance (Min Linn) | Tokenized RWAs | Short-term sovereign debt on-chain liquidity |