Signal Week (formerly Paris Blockchain Week)

The next wave of institutional adoption will be built on identity. “This is almost indistinguishable from reality.” Reinhard Hochrieser (@rhochrieser , from @jumio ) took the stage to show why identity verification has to keep evolving. With one LinkedIn photo and an off-the-shelf tool, he appeared on screen as Tom Cruise. His point: many identity systems still treat KYC (know your customer, the identity checks banks and exchanges must run) as a single moment at sign-up. The stronger approach treats identity as continuous, verified throughout the relationship, not only at the door. Trust at scale starts with knowing who’s on the other side. This is the conversation that shows what it takes to build trust at institutional scale, and it is the conversation that Signal Week 2027 will take further, 6–7 July at the Palais des Congrès and Château de Versailles. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Link in the comments.

France spent a decade courting the digital asset industry. Now it is building the security to match. “You are particularly exposed when it comes to security, in a context where organised crime and cybercrime are two worlds that are increasingly porous.” @JD_Berger , France’s Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Interior, spoke directly to the industry from the stage. For the past 10 years, France has worked to create the most favourable conditions to welcome digital asset companies. Choosing France, he said, is an excellent choice. With that growth comes a responsibility to keep the sector secure, and the state is working on it on several fronts: inside government, with the platforms and with the industry itself, alongside new laws brought before the National Assembly and the Senate. That work is already under way. The government has set out a plan built on international intelligence sharing, closer work with ADAN (the Association for the Development of Digital Assets, France’s industry body) and tighter coordination between security services. Welcome the industry. Then protect it. This is the conversation that shows how governments are adapting to digital assets at the level of people, not just markets, and it is the conversation that Signal Week 2027 will take further, 6–7 July at the Palais des Congrès and Château de Versailles. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Link in the comments. #blackoctober

AI can now find flaws in software that has run the internet for decades. That cuts both ways. Digital asset protocols hold billions in user funds. Yet the industry still can’t agree on what good operational security looks like. There’s no shared set of standards. And waiting for regulators to write them is no longer an option. The industry has to step forward with real solutions of its own, before the attackers move faster. So is AI a threat or a defence? “It can be really helpful for security, or it can be really harmful for security.” Jessi Brooks (@RibbitCapital ), with Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos (@StarkWareLtd ) and @TuongvyLe12 (Veda). The debate continues at Signal Week 2027, 5–7 July, Paris. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Link in the comments. #blackoctober

What happens to the US stock market when the rest of the world can finally buy in? “Does it go to 100 trillion?” In conversation with Peter Kerstens (European Commission), Haider Rafique (@okx ) pictured close to a billion investors gaining access to US and European equities through tokenization: no time-zone barriers, lower costs, fractional trading and 24/7 markets. With foreign investors holding around 18% of a roughly $70 trillion US market, he asked how much bigger it could grow. The early data points his way. The IMF found that more than half of tokenized equity trading happens outside US market hours, and most trades are for less than one share. On-chain trading in tokenized stocks and ETFs passed $37 billion last quarter. Investors don’t keep market hours. Markets are starting not to either. This is the conversation that asks how big global markets could become once access stops being the barrier, and it is the conversation that Signal Week 2027 will take further, 5–7 July at the Palais des Congrès and Château de Versailles. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Link in the comments.

MiCA didn't just regulate Europe's crypto market. It shrank it. "I believe firmly that 80% of the exchanges in Europe will not survive MiCA." Erald Ghoos (@okx ) took the stage to explain where that prediction comes from. Smaller competitors had been approaching OKX for over a year, ready to "throw in the towel". The burden goes beyond MiCA, the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation. It also covers DORA, the EU's rules on digital and cyber resilience, GDPR, the EU's data protection law, and the consumer protection safeguards built around all three. For firms without the technology to comply, it's a heavy build. His forecast: a wave of consolidation as the transition period closed. That period ended on 1 July 2026. Only around 244 firms had been authorised across Europe by then, and an estimated 75–80% of pre-MiCA platforms are leaving or have left the European market. Fewer players. Higher standards. A market built for institutions. This is the conversation that shows how regulation is reshaping Europe's crypto market, and it is the conversation that Signal Week 2027 will take further, 5–7 July at the Palais des Congrès and Château de Versailles. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Link in the comments.

Is agentic payments the next wild west? Bybit’s CEO isn’t convinced. “AI is only the means to the end.” Asked by Brian McGleenon whether agentic payments, where AI agents make transactions on a user’s behalf, are the industry’s next frontier, Ben Zhao (@Bybit_Official ) took a more grounded view. AI doesn’t rebuild the rails, he argued: it runs on existing financial infrastructure as a tool, much like Excel when it first arrived. Bybit has already launched AI sub-accounts, separate accounts where a client’s AI agent can operate and even trade within set permissions. Clients are connecting their AI tools to Bybit’s API (the interface that lets software pull data from the exchange) to fetch price data and run analysis. What hasn’t followed yet is the trading. The agents are plugged in. The trades are still waiting. This is the conversation that separates the hype around agentic payments from what is actually happening, and it is the conversation that Signal Week 2027 will take further, 5–7 July at the Palais des Congrès and Château de Versailles. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Link in the comments.

Stablecoin volumes are now rivalling Mastercard’s. Should Mastercard be worried? “I would say that’s an unfair comparison.” Asked by @gazza_jenks (@TheBlockCo ) whether stablecoin transaction volumes, at times exceeding Mastercard’s own, are a concern, Christian Rau (@Mastercard ) pushed back on the comparison itself. Mastercard’s volumes reflect real-world economic activity: people and businesses paying for goods and services. Stablecoin volumes, he argued, are still driven to a large degree by crypto trading and financial transactions. Big numbers, but not the same kind of activity. Volume is one thing. Real-world payments are another. This is the conversation that tests how far stablecoins have really come as a way to pay, and it is the conversation that Signal Week 2027 will take further, 5–7 July at the Palais des Congrès and Château de Versailles. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Link in the comments.

You can’t legislate markets into one. You have to rebuild the rails they run on. “To integrate markets, you have to move them onto shared ledgers, onto distributed ledgers.” Peter Kerstens (European Commission) took the stage to explain why laws alone have not created one integrated European market. Today’s infrastructure is a set of separate institutions, “scotch taped together”, that spend their time reconciling accounts with each other. His answer: move markets onto distributed ledgers, a single shared record of transactions that every participant works from, and integration follows. The prize: a massive wave of investors and liquidity coming on-chain. The Commission is already pointing that way. Its proposed Market Integration and Supervision Package would scale up the DLT Pilot Regime, the EU’s framework for trading and settling securities on blockchain, raising its cap to €100 billion per market infrastructure. Shared ledgers. One market. This is the conversation that shows how Europe plans to integrate its markets, and it is the conversation that Signal Week 2027 will take further, 5–7 July at the Palais des Congrès and Château de Versailles. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Link in the comments.

In the US, stablecoin holders can still earn yield, indirectly. In Europe, they can’t. That gap could decide who wins the global stablecoin race. “We absolutely need to have an equivalence between the two obligations to make sure that European stablecoins can compete globally.” Stephanie Cabossioras (@SocieteGenerale - FORGE) took the stage to unpack one of the least discussed differences between US and European stablecoin rules: remuneration, or whether holders can earn a return. Under the GENIUS Act, the US federal stablecoin law, issuers cannot pay yield directly, but holders can still earn it indirectly through crypto platforms. Under MiCA, the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, it is forbidden entirely. Her argument: without equivalent rules on both sides of the Atlantic, European stablecoins start the race at a disadvantage. Same product. Different rules. Uneven competition. This is the conversation that shows how regulation is shaping the global stablecoin market, and it is the conversation that Signal Week 2027 will take further, 5–7 July at the Palais des Congrès and Château de Versailles. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Link in the comments.