Four Key Takeaways from the Bermuda Digital Finance Forum

I recently returned from SALT ’s latest event, the Bermuda Digital Finance Forum , co-hosted with Penrose Partners and DAIS - Decentralized AI Society in beautiful Bermuda. The event featured two days of content and a community activation where local attendees received a $100 USDC airdrop from Coinbase and Circle to shop at a curated vendor village.

As with all our SALT conferences, I left feeling energized by the conversations I had and heard, and even more enthusiastic about the opportunities that lie ahead for our industry. 

A few key takeaways: 

1. Bermuda can serve as a case study for success. Bermuda has emerged as a leading jurisdiction in the adoption and regulation of crypto and digital assets. The island’s proactive approach – led by the Bermuda's Premier The Honorable David Burt MP, who I had a chance to speak with onstage – focuses on regulatory clarity, supportive infrastructure and initiatives aimed at fostering innovation as well as local community development. With deep relationships with companies like Circle, Coinbase and Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, the island nation will continue to play an important role in the ecosystem. 

2. Wall Street is getting on board. I also had the chance to speak with Coinbase’s Head of Institutional Product, Greg Tusar, who announced live onstage their $2.9B acquisition of Deribit. Greg and I, both alumni of Goldman Sachs, discussed that a “rising tide” on Wall Street will develop, with investment banks getting into the space because of capital commitment needs, and the rest of the industry progressing from there. As I’ve previously written, the institutional adoption of crypto will continue to reshape the global markets, and with our ballroom full of eager audience members listening to speakers cover topics like financial markets infrastructure and the tokenization of capital markets, it’s increasingly clear the institutional community is here to stay.   

3. Layer 1s are driving the next wave of innovation. Ecosystems like Avalanche, Hedera and NEAR Protocol are stepping up in a big way, leading efforts to tokenize real-world and financial assets, while simultaneously building decentralized frameworks for artificial intelligence. These two trends – tokenization and decentralized AI – are quickly becoming defining narratives for the next evolution of crypto, and these platforms are positioning themselves at the forefront.

4. Washington is making progress, but bipartisan support is still needed. Will we have stablecoin regulation ahead of this summer’s Congressional recess, or will the industry's progress be derailed? That was the million-dollar question that Dante A. Disparte and I discussed onstage with Fortune’s Jeff John Roberts. While our crystal balls aren’t totally clear, one thing is: bipartisan support of the stablecoin legislation is needed imminently to champion U.S. innovation, stability and consumer safety. And while some progress has been made, it’s no longer a matter of the left vs. the right, but right vs. wrong, as we know the industry is hungry for more regulation, action and change.

For more, have a listen to Jacquelyn Melinek’s Talking Tokens podcast, which we recorded live on-site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW3SWknfSTw.

See you at the second annual Wyoming Blockchain Symposium in Jackson Hole this August!