Bitcoin.com News Interviews

Ashley Ebersole spent his early SEC years on the distributed ledger working group. He has a vantage on the agency's crypto enforcement era that very few industry voices have. At Paris Blockchain Week 2026, he sits with David Sencil to walk through the embodiment theory courts later rejected, the asymmetric settlement pressure that forced startups to fold, and what tx is now building: the first...

Arthur Firstov, Chief Business Officer at Mercuryo, joined Alex Richardson at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 to challenge the dominant DeFi narrative. The future isn't DeFi platforms beating banks — it's DeFi primitives living as backend infrastructure inside Revolut, neobanks, and traditional banks with polished UX and millions of users. Plus crypto cards as the consumer gateway, the 2026 fin...

Michael Amar founded Paris Blockchain Week in 2019 because U.S. and Asian investors told him Paris had no crypto ecosystem. This year, 250 banks showed up. At PBW 2026, he sits with David Sencil to put real numbers behind the institutional adoption story, explain why MiCA enforcement is filtering who can attend European events, and predict where the next year's crypto M&A will land. We cov...

Robby Yung runs Animoca Brands' investment business — 650 portfolio companies across Web3. At Paris Blockchain Week 2026, he sits with Alex Richardson to argue blockchain's real product-market fit was always agentic commerce, not human consumer apps. Plus the iTunes "false promise" of digital ownership, why 6 billion gamers are the natural mass-adoption vector, and how RWAs bridg...

Georg Harer was a financial lawyer for 10 years before joining Bybit. Now Co-CEO of Bybit EU, he sits with David Sencil at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 to walk through the post-MiCA European crypto landscape — including the regulatory gap MiCA hasn't closed (crypto loans), the three-license stack platforms need to operate, and his pitch to regulators for a consolidated license that would save fi...

Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation, sits down with David Sencil at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 for a wide-ranging conversation that starts with one big idea: using Satoshis as a gas fee natively on Cardano — so Bitcoin holders get programmable DeFi without leaving BTC. From there it goes deep — quantum resilience, AI agent identity at BMW and Lufthansa, the $400 trillion TradFi identi...

"Absolutely not multi-decade." That's AMINA Bank CPO Myles Harrison's window for stablecoin payments going mainstream — if the US and UK get their legislation over the line. Myles joins Alex Richardson at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 to unpack what AMINA — the Swiss–Austrian–Hong Kong crypto bank behind the BIS's Project Agora — is actually building: corporate payroll in stable...

Morgan Stanley's spot Bitcoin ETF traded a million shares by day four — at 14 basis points. Not bad for a firm that spent years on the sidelines of the ETF race. Amy Oldenburg, Head of Digital Asset Strategy at Morgan Stanley, joins David Sencil at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 to walk through how the bank is approaching digital assets — across product, infrastructure, and regulation — and why sh...

In 2017, a Bitcoin-maxi friend tried to convert Erald Ghoos. He didn't buy it — he'd spent his career building bank startups across Europe and was, in his own words, on "the dark side." Today he runs OKX Europe and says 80% of crypto exchanges on the continent won't survive what's coming. David Sencil sits down with Erald at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 to dig into the regu...

Tokenized stocks trading 24/7 alongside crypto on one app. One European bank planning on-chain equity infrastructure by year-end. A "financial supermarket" where every asset class converges. This isn't a forecast from a think tank — it's what Vlad Maltsev, Deputy CCO at WhiteBIT, is hearing from the banks themselves. Vlad Maltsev joins Alex Richardson at Paris Blockchain Week to...

Tokenizing an asset doesn't automatically make it liquid. After 14 years at the London Stock Exchange, KuCoin EU's Managing Director Sabina Liu has a reality check for crypto's RWA hype cycle. Sabina joins Alexander Richardson at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 to talk through what she actually saw in digital assets that TradFi missed, where tokenization genuinely solves a problem (and wher...

Most RWA projects bolt onto Ethereum or Solana. Real Finance didn't — they built their own chain. VP of Ecosystem Growth Brandon Kazakoff joins Alex Richardson at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 to explain why, in his view, real-world assets aren't just another token category. Issuance, risk classification, insurance logic, and governance all need to live at the protocol layer, not on top of it...

Is Europe on a countdown clock? Bitpanda's Enterprise lead for France, Mathieu Henry, thinks so — and he's marking 2028 as the year crypto becomes fully commoditized across the continent. Mathieu sits down with David Sencil and Alexander Richardson at Paris Blockchain Week to talk about why MiCA pulled banks off the sidelines, how Bitpanda quietly runs the full crypto stack behind Lydia (F...

France has a crypto paradox. 93% of adults know what it is. Only 11% actually own any. Bybit France Country Manager Ambroise Helaine thinks the gap has almost nothing to do with regulation — and everything to do with product. Ambroise sits down with David Sencil and Alexander Richardson at Paris Blockchain Week 2026 to talk through what a conservative European retail market actually wants (hint: n...

Looking for a single app that combines crypto news, trading insights, prediction markets, and wallet integration? In this episode, Shrey Pandey (Tech Lead at Bitcoin.com) breaks down how their team built an all-in-one crypto news app designed for both beginners and advanced traders—in under 2 months using AI/ML tools. Discover how this app simplifies crypto for the 80% of users who are still hesit...

What happens when crypto payments go live in a real-world retail environment—like an airport? In this episode, Gen Adachi shares how Netstars launched a USDC payment pilot at Haneda Airport in Japan—and saw demand exceed expectations by 10x. This isn’t theory or hype—this is one of the strongest real-world use cases for stablecoins in everyday payments today. We dive into how USDC is being used at...

What does it take for Web3 social media to achieve real adoption? In this episode, Raul Velazquez discusses how ENVO has grown to over 500,000 users and what this means for the future of decentralized social platforms. As the shift from Web2 to Web3 continues, platforms like ENVO are exploring new ways to combine user-friendly design, creator monetization, and global accessibility. This conversati...

In this episode, Even Realities CEO Will Wang breaks down why smart glasses may be closer to mainstream adoption than we think. From subtle, everyday design to powerful AI features and developer-driven ecosystems, this conversation explores how wearable tech is evolving beyond novelty into something genuinely useful. We dive into the Even G2 and EvenHub platform, unpacking real-world use cases lik...

What is the real endgame for crypto? Phillip Pon, CEO of EMURGO, joins David Sencil to explore why the future of crypto lies in building onchain banking systems that function as real financial infrastructure—especially for emerging markets. In this episode, Phillip shares insights on why self-custody, stable value, and distribution are critical to crypto adoption, and why the industry must move be...

Hamze Fawzi, Founder and Chairman of Assets Advisors Capital (AAC), joins Bitcoin.com News to discuss the growing financial bridge between the Gulf region and Japan, and how institutional infrastructure is shaping the future of crypto. In this episode, Hamze explains why traditional financial systems failed to connect these two major economies—and how blockchain, tokenization, and “capital archite...

Justin Waldron, founder of Play.fun, joins David Sencil to explore the future of crypto gaming, Web3 game development, and how blockchain technology is reshaping the gaming industry. Recorded at Team Summit in Tokyo, this conversation dives into how frictionless onboarding, fair token launches, and fast, low-cost infrastructure like Solana are enabling a new generation of games. Justin also shares...

Mark Piano, Director and Consultant at Horizons Global, joins Bitcoin.com News to discuss the future of yen-backed stablecoins, Japan’s evolving crypto regulations, and how legal frameworks are shaping the next phase of Web3 growth. In this episode, Mark explains why Japan’s regulatory clarity could become a major advantage for blockchain builders, and how yen stablecoins may unlock new opportunit...

How did Japan become a leader in stablecoin infrastructure—and what role could JPY-backed stablecoins play in the future of global finance? Seihaku Yoshida, Founder and CEO of Hashport, joins Bitcoin.com News to share insights from the frontlines of Japan’s evolving crypto ecosystem. From launching during the crypto winter to building one of the country’s largest stablecoin payment platforms, Seih...

What is holding blockchain performance back? In this episode, Annabelle Huang, CEO of Altius Labs, discusses crypto scalability, execution-layer bottlenecks, and the growing demand for high-performance blockchain infrastructure. The conversation explores app chains, onchain trading, decentralized finance (DeFi), and how new market players are shifting expectations around speed and efficiency. Topi...

Gary Liu, co-founder of Terminal 3, breaks down why crypto isn’t dying—but evolving into a more mature financial system. In this episode, we explore the rise of stablecoins, the role of AI in enterprise environments, and the growing importance of security and governance for AI agents. Gary also shares insights on how agent-to-agent payments could reshape digital finance, and why stablecoins may be...