Buenos Aires has a definite frequency. It’s a metropolis the place European grandeur collides with Latin American depth, a spot the place financial principle just isn’t an summary idea mentioned in ivory towers, however a visceral, every day battle for preservation. It’s, subsequently, no accident that this metropolis was chosen to host Devconnect 2025. The backdrop of Argentina, a rustic synonymous with each financial volatility and grassroots crypto adoption, supplied the right stage for an business that’s lastly rising up.
If earlier years within the crypto cycle have been outlined by noise, spectacle, and the blinding lights of speculative mania, paying homage to a Las Vegas on line casino ground, Buenos Aires provided a stark, sobering distinction. The air didn’t odor of “simple cash” and vaporware; it smelled of sturdy espresso and severe engineering. Right here, the narrative shifted. We’re not constructing toys for the bored and rich; we’re constructing infrastructure for a world that’s cracking on the seams.
To navigate this profound shift, we enlisted the insights of key business architects: Arthur Firstov (Mercuryo CBO), who targeted on the privateness mandate; Vivien Lin (BingX CPO), who detailed the mixing of AI into buying and selling ecosystems; and Ivan Machena (8lends CCO), who supplied a significant evaluation of the layer-2 adoption panorama.
By in depth back-channel conversations with these leaders, a transparent image emerges. We’re coming into a brand new epoch. That is the story of how privateness turned a mandate, how Synthetic Intelligence is demanding a seat on the monetary desk, and the way international range lastly shattered the parable of the “archetypal person.”
The Privateness Mandate, From Characteristic to Basis
Probably the most potent message from Buenos Aires was not broadcast by way of fireworks or movie star endorsements. It was whispered within the dense material of technical workshops and crowded hacker homes. The message is straightforward: transparency is a characteristic, however whole publicity is a flaw.
In Bangkok, at earlier gatherings, privateness was merely a “observe”, a facet room visited by cypherpunks and idealists. In Buenos Aires, it was the primary occasion. The business has collectively realized that with out privateness, there is no such thing as a mass adoption, solely mass surveillance.
Arthur Firstov, the Chief Enterprise Officer of Mercuryo, captured this paradigm shift completely. Reflecting on the dominant analysis areas of the occasion, Firstov famous a definite change in temperature.
“Privateness was the defining theme,” Firstov asserts, earlier than persevering with:
“In comparison with Bangkok, the place privateness was only one essential observe, Buenos Aires elevated it to the primary stage.”
His remark aligns with a sentiment that permeated each venue of the convention. A phrase started circulating across the co-working areas and lecture halls, turning into the unofficial motto of Devconnect 2025:
“In case your pockets just isn’t privacy-preserving by design, it’s legacy.”
This isn’t a technological fad, it’s a response to an more and more clear world the place monetary knowledge is weaponized. Firstov highlights that the tone was set from the highest, with Vitalik Buterin providing a “full walkthrough of his private privateness stack, from OS and cellular units to non-public RPC.”
However the essential evolution lies in how this know-how is now being packaged. It’s not about command-line interfaces for the elite; it’s about invisibility.
Firstov explains:
“Builders targeted on stealth addresses, sensible AA [Account Abstraction] patterns, selective disclosures, and ‘creating higher defaults so customers don’t even discover how a lot complexity is being dealt with beneath the floor.”
This “invisibility” is the holy grail. The person doesn’t wish to perceive zero-knowledge proofs; they merely wish to know their financial institution stability isn’t public property.
Alongside this push for privateness, Firstov recognized a practical evolution in DeFi: the rise of “preconfirmations for instant-feeling stablecoin funds” and new yield surfaces that supply “easy, ‘money-market fashion’ experiences with out going full degen.” The business is transferring away from 10,000% APY Ponzi schemes towards boring, dependable, personal finance.
The “Black Field” Controversy, Who Do We Belief?
Nonetheless, no revolution is with out its inside schisms. Whereas the consensus on the want for privateness was absolute, the tactic of reaching it sparked essentially the most heated technical debates of the week. The attention of the storm was the reliance on Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), hardware-based safe enclaves.
Is the way forward for privateness present in cryptographic math or in silicon manufacturing?
Firstov describes this division because the “most sudden or controversial technical debate” of the occasion. On one facet stood the pragmatists. He notes:
“One camp argued that TEEs are ‘virtually obligatory for high-throughput, low-latency, and personal computation’, notably for personal settlement, derivatives methods, and agent-based execution.”
The argument is compelling: if we would like Wall Avenue speeds on the blockchain, math alone is likely to be too gradual. We’d like {hardware} acceleration.
However the opposition was loud, principled, and deeply skeptical. Firstov relays their warning: “If the belief mannequin turns into ‘belief this black-box server in an information heart,’ then crypto just isn’t enhancing a lot over conventional finance.”
If we merely change a financial institution’s server with Intel’s SGX enclave, have we truly decentralized something?
This led to an unresolved meta-question that may possible outline analysis priorities for the remainder of the last decade:
“How a lot of the world’s stablecoin and cost rails are we comfy operating on opaque {hardware}… and what does ‘trust-minimized sufficient’ truly imply in that context?”
The Rise of the Machines: AI because the New Monetary Architect
Whereas cryptographers sparred over {hardware} belief, one other titan was quietly integrating itself into the crypto stack: Synthetic Intelligence. Devconnect 2025 wasn’t simply in regards to the ledger; it was in regards to the inevitable marriage of the decentralized database and the autonomous mind.
Vivien Lin, Chief Product Officer and Head of BingX Labs, introduced a perspective from the entrance traces of centralized exchanges (CEXs), that are quickly morphing into one thing much more complicated. For her, the first theme was plain.
Lin says:
“The first theme for me was the mixing of AI into trade infrastructure and the conclusion that exchanges are evolving into full monetary ecosystems, not simply buying and selling functions.”
She paints an image of a future the place AI acts because the connective tissue of finance.
“Builders have been targeted on how AI can unify buying and selling, custody, funds, danger administration, and person intelligence right into a single ‘tremendous app’ expertise.”
Nonetheless, very like the TEE debate within the privateness sector, the mixing of AI brings its personal safety paradox. How do you belief an AI together with your life financial savings? Lin notes a powerful push towards “safe, verifiable techniques, together with privacy-preserving compute and on-chain proofs, that guarantee AI-driven options don’t compromise person knowledge or fund security.”
The objective is to create ecosystems which can be “each clever and deeply safe, giving customers extra automation and context with out sacrificing belief.” However essentially the most fascinating friction level, in response to Lin, wasn’t about functionality, it was about autonomy.
“The main friction level was how a lot autonomy AI brokers ought to have in buying and selling environments,” Lin explains. The talk cut up the room.
She provides:
“Some builders argued that brokers ought to handle liquidity, rebalance portfolios, or place orders with out human oversight. Others warned that giving AI unrestricted entry to execution layers might create systemic danger.”
The core disagreement touches on the very nature of human company in markets: “Ought to AI be a co-pilot for merchants or a totally autonomous participant in market construction?” In Buenos Aires, the consensus appeared to be shifting towards autonomy, supplied the guardrails of cryptography are sturdy sufficient to carry it.
Geography is Future, Classes from the World South
Maybe essentially the most transformative side of Devconnect 2025 was the situation itself. Internet hosting this occasion in Argentina pressured the worldwide developer neighborhood to the touch grass. Whereas Silicon Valley builders obsess over optimizing code for milliseconds, the folks of Buenos Aires obsess over preserving the worth of their labor towards inflation.
Arthur Firstov noticed how this radical range shifted the dialog from theoretical scaling to survival instruments. “Devconnect introduced radically completely different person priorities into the identical room,” he says.
“Latin American groups highlighted on a regular basis use instances corresponding to ‘wallets on low-cost smartphones’ and hire or payroll paid in stablecoins,” Firstov notes, additional including:
“Distinction this with the Asian and US infrastructure groups, who remained targeted on “perpetual futures, routing, MEV, and latency.”
This collision of worlds pressured a synthesis. The dialog moved away from easy “Transactions Per Second” (TPS) bragging rights towards UX and sensible deployment. Firstov lists the questions that truly matter now:
“How can sensible wallets cover complexity so customers really feel like they’re utilizing a standard fintech app? How can we help each ‘high-frequency buying and selling flows and month-to-month wage funds’ with out compromising belief or safety?”
The most important realization? “There isn’t a single archetypal person in crypto.”
Vivien Lin echoes this sentiment, noting how the Argentine presence grounded the high-flying technical debates.
“The range of builders, particularly sturdy illustration from Argentina, shifted the dialogue towards actual adoption challenges on the bottom, not simply theoretical scaling.”
Argentine builders didn’t wish to discuss in regards to the philosophy of cash; they needed to resolve speedy issues.
Lin explains:
“Argentine builders raised points round inflation, capital controls, and the necessity for quick settlement rails that work reliably in risky economies.”
This expanded the scope of what an trade needs to be, pushing for “AI-powered ecosystems that handle each native constraints and broader challenges corresponding to compliance fragmentation, cross-border liquidity, and mobile-first onboarding.”
What’s Truly Being Constructed? Infrastructure Over Hype
Stepping away from the philosophical and geographical, we should ask: the place are the builders truly deploying code?
Ivan Machena, Chief Communication Officer at 8lends, supplies a sober have a look at the panorama. The period of “ghost chains”, blockchains with excessive valuations however no customers, is ending. The main target is now on ecosystems that help actual merchandise.
“Wanting on the broader business conversations taking place round Devconnect,” Machena observes, “a number of layer-2 and application-layer tasks proceed to draw sturdy builder curiosity.”
On the buyer entrance, Machena highlights Base. It’s regularly cited for its “fast development and easy onboarding infrastructure,” successfully turning into the gateway for the retail person. Within the DeFi phase, Arbitrum retains its crown because the “most well-liked alternative due to its mature ecosystem and composability,” whereas Polygon stays a staple for groups looking for stability.
Nonetheless, Machena notes a migration towards the technically superior.
“There may be additionally growing consideration towards zk-based options corresponding to zkSync and StarkNet, particularly from groups constructing extra technically demanding or long-term merchandise. The pattern is evident: Discussions round Devconnect factors towards L2s that already help actual merchandise, not simply experimental ideas.”
Arthur Firstov provides one other layer to this adoption map, pointing towards the privateness and “agent-native” sectors. He identifies Aztec as drawing “severe consideration as a privacy-first surroundings the place merchandise could be ‘personal by default, selectively clear the place obligatory’.”
Crucially, Firstov highlights Privateness Swimming pools because the bridge between the cypherpunk ethos and institutional actuality. It emerged as a “compliance-aware answer… a ‘sensible reply to what privateness seems to be like when regulators and severe capital should be comfy with it’.”
Moreover, the bodily world is coming on-chain. Firstov notes a pattern of groups constructing DePIN (Decentralized Bodily Infrastructure Networks) fashion storage and compute providers, paid for in stablecoins, “aiming to make crypto really feel like conventional cloud APIs.”
Outlook 2026: From On line casino to Cathedral
Because the attendees of Devconnect 2025 disperse from Buenos Aires, returning to their respective corners of the globe, the temper is undeniably completely different. The business is maturing. The cultural ethos of the occasion, small, technical, community-led classes reasonably than large advertising spectacles is shaping the narrative for the approaching yr.
Arthur Firstov predicts a basic pivot in how we inform the story of crypto:
“Anticipate 2026 narratives to replicate that shift, ‘infrastructure story as an alternative of on line casino story,’ ‘stablecoins because the entrance finish of crypto,’ and privateness as desk stakes.”
This can be a imaginative and prescient of a world the place crypto ceases to be a synonym for playing and turns into the invisible, strong plumbing of the worldwide monetary system. The questions are not about token costs. As Firstov places it, the rising query is: “Which Web2–Web3 integrations will truly ship and transfer the needle on actual customers?”
Vivien Lin agrees, seeing the long run in interconnected ecosystems reasonably than walled gardens.
“It strengthened the view that the way forward for crypto buying and selling will likely be ecosystem-first. This ethos pushes the business towards interoperable, AI-powered buying and selling ecosystems the place liquidity, id, execution, and technique automation develop into more and more unified as we transfer into 2026.”
Buenos Aires was a stress take a look at for the soul of crypto. The business handed, not by providing simple solutions, however by lastly asking the appropriate, troublesome questions. We depart with fewer illusions, however with higher instruments. The “On line casino Story” is lifeless; the “Infrastructure Story” has begun. And for the primary time in a very long time, it seems like we’re constructing one thing that may final.