The HSC Conference opens in Seoul on October 1st, gathering leading voices from cryptocurrency, institutional finance, and blockchain infrastructure for a full day of high-level dialogue at Novotel Ambassador Seoul Gangnam.

The program will convene financial institutions, crypto investment funds, technology companies, and infrastructure providers from around the world for a schedule of panel sessions, a roundtable, and solo keynote addresses. More than 50 professionals are set to take part, among them senior figures from Maelstrom, Animoca Brands, Offchain Labs, S&P Global, Galaxy Digital, Canary Capital, Tether, Bybit, Base, IBM Digital Asset, Ledger Enterprise, BNB Chain, and many other organizations. The lineup spans the full spectrum of crypto-native firms, traditional institutions, and infrastructure builders shaping the next phase of digital finance.

Sessions across the day will take up the defining themes of the current market: investment trends and financial infrastructure in the digital economy, institutional adoption of digital assets, real-world asset tokenization, stablecoins as new global payment rails, the emergence of the agentic economy and the role of agentic AI in infrastructure and payments, and the path toward mainstream Web3 adoption — all examined with a dedicated lens on the Asia-Pacific region and Seoul's position within these shifts.

Taken together, the agenda moves from capital allocation and market infrastructure to the practical requirements for adoption, including custody, compliance, payments, interoperability, and user onboarding. That progression gives the conference a useful focus for readers tracking how digital-asset concepts are being translated into institutional products and operating systems, particularly across Asia-Pacific.

A session-by-session look offers a preview of the depth and breadth of what participants can expect throughout the day.

Investments Today

The opening panel will examine where capital is being deployed across digital assets at this stage of the market cycle, and how venture and fund investors are weighing token exposure, equity stakes, and regulated investment products. With Seoul positioned as a major hub for regional capital, the discussion carries particular relevance for Asia-Pacific.

Moderated by Seung Hyun Lee, Founder of CoinEasy, the panel features Ciara Sun, Founder and Managing Partner at C² Ventures; Catrina Wang, General Partner at Portal Ventures; Steven McClurg, CEO and Founder of Canary Capital; and Akshat Vaidya, Managing Partner at Maelstrom. Together they will assess which sectors are drawing serious commitments, what criteria experienced allocators apply, and how the investment landscape is changing as institutional participation grows.

Speech: FLOP – Bigger Than Bitcoin

Arthur Hayes, Chief Investment Officer at Maelstrom, will deliver a solo address under this title, presenting his market thesis on FLOP — the unit of computing power — and its significance relative to Bitcoin for investors and the digital asset industry.

Financial Infrastructure in the Digital Economy

Digital assets are being integrated into the systems through which money is stored, traded, secured, and regulated. This panel will examine the infrastructure layer connecting crypto-native markets with traditional finance, including exchanges, custody and security tooling, wallets, and the policy frameworks that shape them.

Mickey Hardy, Founder and Chairman of Arcadia, moderates a session bringing together Fernando Lillo, Marketing Director at Z Venture; Mykolas Majauskas, Global Head of Policy at Bybit; Takatoshi Shibayama, Head of APAC at Ledger Enterprise; Leonard Hoh, President of Bitstamp by Robinhood; and Moz, Japan Partnerships and BD Manager at MetaMask. Panelists will address how trading venues, wallet providers, and enterprise security firms are adapting to regulatory expectations and institutional requirements.

Infrastructure: Building Web3's Rails

Blockchain networks now compete on throughput, cost, developer tooling, and ecosystem depth. This panel will look at the base-layer and scaling infrastructure on which the next generation of applications will run, and at what differentiates the networks competing for developers and users.

Moderated by Alice Liu, Head of Research at CoinMarketCap, the discussion features Marco Cora, Director of the Foundation at ZKsync; Eunice Giarta, Co-Founder of Monad Foundation; Nick See Tong, APAC Lead at Base; Matt Visser, CEO of Sonic Labs; and Dasha Chernozub, Senior BD and Community Builder at [QR] Wallet and Global Adoption Lead at Dash. Panelists will compare technical approaches, discuss ecosystem growth strategies, and consider what the rails must support to serve mainstream demand.

Institutional Adoption of Digital Assets

"Institutional adoption" is often used loosely. This panel will examine what it involves in practice: the risk frameworks, custody arrangements, insurance coverage, and product structures that determine whether an institution moves from interest to participation.

Moderated by Wenny Ow, APAC Lead at IBM Digital Asset, the session convenes Matthew Dawson, Co-Founder of Ethereum Institutional; John Cahill, COO Asia at Galaxy Digital; Charles Jansen, Managing Director, DeFi and Digital Assets at S&P Global; Henson Orser, Founder and CEO of Soter Insure; and Mike Silagadze, Founder and CEO of Ether.fi. Drawing on experience with institutional clients, the panel will offer a ground-level account of where adoption stands and what barriers remain.

Roundtable: Welcome to the Trillion-Dollar Agentic Economy

As autonomous AI agents begin to transact, allocate resources, and coordinate with one another, blockchain networks are being considered as their settlement and identity layer. This roundtable will examine the scale of the opportunity implied by its title and the infrastructure it would require.

Moderated by Francesco Andreolí, Director of DevRel at MetaMask, the discussion features Michael Heinrich, Co-Founder and CEO of Zero Gravity Labs; Yat Siu, Chairman and Co-Founder of Animoca Brands; and Ed Felten, Co-Founder of Offchain Labs. Participants will consider where the convergence of AI and blockchain is producing real activity and where expectations run ahead of it.

Tokenization: The RWA Opportunity

Tokenized real-world assets have moved from proof-of-concept to a growing market segment. This panel will look at what is required for tokenization to scale, including liquidity, oracle and data infrastructure, custody, compliance, and investor access.

Moderated by Nicolai Svistunov, Head of Liquidity Desk at Turtle, the session features Marcin Kaźmierczak, Co-Founder of RedStone; Alenka, Head of Tokenisation at Atom Finance; Tomer Weiss, Global Partnerships at Hypernative; Felix Eigelshoven, Head of APAC at Dfns; and Jake Park, East Asia Lead and Korea Market Head at Hashgraph. Panelists will map the distance between technical capability and institutional-scale tokenization, with attention to the Korean and wider regional context.

Stablecoins: The New Global Rails

Stablecoins have become embedded in cross-border payments, settlement, and treasury operations. This panel will examine how issuers, payment providers, and financial firms are building on them, and how the regulatory environment is shaping the next phase.

Moderated by Chris Mihos, Co-Founder and CEO of makebanc, the panel brings together Brian Mehler, CEO of Stable; Anthony Koo, Head of Payments at StraitsX; Jiyeon Park, APAC Lead at Steakhouse Financial; Queenie Le, Regional Expansion Lead APAC at Tether; and Leila Mcharek, CEO and Founder of Izora Capital. Panelists will discuss regional payment use cases, the competitive position of dollar-denominated and local-currency stablecoins, and the infrastructure needed to operate at scale.

Keynote: Beyond Chain Boundaries: The Next Layer of DeFi

Andrey Fedorov, CMO and CBDO at STON.fi, will deliver a solo keynote on the direction of decentralized finance as activity spreads across multiple blockchains, addressing cross-chain interoperability and what it means for liquidity, user experience, and protocol design.

Agentic AI: Infrastructure, Payments, and Beyond

Building on the roundtable, this panel moves from the macro thesis to implementation: the technical infrastructure, payment mechanisms, and product design that AI agents operating on-chain will depend on.

Moderated again by Francesco Andreolí, Director of DevRel at MetaMask, the session features Coco, CMO at AI PET; Vasily Nikonov, Co-Founder and CEO of Velvet; Youngjun Kim, CPO at Rewardy Wallet; Leo Li, Co-Founder and CTO of AEON; and Terrence, Web3 Lead at TiDB of PingCAP. Panelists will draw on their own products to assess what is working today and what remains to be built.

Keynote: AutoLinta: Building a Sovereign and Open Agent Ecosystem

Molly, Chief Brand Officer at AutoLinta, will present a solo keynote on the company's approach to an agent ecosystem that is open and not controlled by a single platform, covering the case for sovereignty and openness in agent infrastructure.

Mainstream Web3 Adoption

The closing panel will address why Web3 has not yet reached a mass audience and what would change that, examining onboarding friction, product design, custody, and developer support as the areas where mainstream adoption is won or lost.

Moderated by Taweh Beysolow, CEO and Co-Founder of Bond, the session features Gwen Martin, DevRel Lead at BNB Chain; Jeffrey Tchui, Executive Director and Head of APAC at Hashgraph; Daniel Lee, CEO of Cactus Custody; and Delane Foo, Regional Managing Director (APAC) at Nethermind. The discussion will draw on regional market conditions to assess whether the remaining barriers are primarily technical, behavioral, or structural.

Additional program details are available on the official event page and via Hack Seasons.

This article was first published by Metaverse Post.