Crypto bigwigs are in Singapore for one of the industry’s biggest conferences amid a Bitcoin rally.
About 25,000 people are expected at Marina Bay Sands for Token2049 over Oct. 7-8, including Hyperliquid Chief Executive Officer Jeff Yan, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan and World Liberty Financial co-founder Eric Trump.
Bitcoin’s rally from US$58,000 (S$74,000) at the end of June to roughly US$85,000 has revived talk of another bull market although there is resistance at the US$87,000 level.
‘Not Euphoria’
The industry has weathered a prolonged slump since October last year, when Bitcoin plunged from its record high above US$126,000. But a 43% advance in the three months through September gave the largest cryptocurrency its strongest quarter since the final three months of 2024, when crypto-friendly President Donald Trump won reelection.
The conference itself is leaning into the rebound: one of its first keynote addresses, from BitMine Chairman Tom Lee, is titled “Crypto Spring Turning Into Full-Blown Bull Market.” The market has been less emphatic.
The mood is better than it was in June, but it’s “definitely not euphoria,” said Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at crypto-focused venture capital firm Dragonfly.
The market has absorbed setbacks such as the US Senate’s failure to advance the Clarity Act, while growing institutional participation and the expansion of stablecoin use have helped support confidence, he said.
Converging Worlds
One major theme at the conference will be how parts of traditional finance are moving onto blockchain networks, essentially putting assets and financial transactions on technology originally developed for cryptocurrencies. Tokenised assets, stablecoins and around-the-clock trading are increasingly bringing the two worlds closer together.
The value of tokenised real-world assets such as bonds, commodities and equities has surged, reaching more than US$38 billion at the end of September, according to RWA.xyz, whose tally excludes stablecoins.
The speaker lineup reflects that growing convergence, with crypto-native executives appearing alongside traditional financial industry leaders including Nasdaq Chair and CEO Adena Friedman and Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson.
Eric Trump, the US president’s second son and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, will speak on “The Future of Finance, Built in America.”
Other big-name speakers include Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, Binance co-CEO Richard Teng and crypto billionaire Justin Sun, an early investor in the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial who is now embroiled in a dispute with it.
Notably absent from this year’s lineup are Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, who were both key speakers in 2025.
Agentic Payments
Artificial intelligence will be another major thread, particularly as the crypto industry experiments with using digital currencies and blockchain networks to enable payments between AI systems.
Qureshi, who spends much of his time looking at the intersection of crypto and AI, said he is particularly interested in “agentic payments,” where AI agents make payments on behalf of users or transact with one another.
“It’s early, but it’s where I see the smartest founders trying out new ideas,” Qureshi said.
Hacks and cybersecurity are also likely to be topics of conversation following a spate of recent attacks, including the US$388 million heist at crypto exchange Bitget just two weeks ago.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said that, for her, the value of Token2049 lies less in what happens on stage than in the conversations off it. “It is a useful opportunity to compare what we are seeing at Bitget with what the broader market is prioritising,” she said.
Chen would like to see more regulators and policymakers speaking at the event, particularly as the industry grapples with how stablecoins, tokenised assets and crypto platforms should fit into the wider financial system.
Some of the most consequential questions “cannot be answered by the industry alone,” she said.
Crypto activity in Singapore totaled US$284 billion between July 2025 and June 2026, up 55.4% from the previous year, according to Chainalysis. BLOOMBERG
