Welcome and Introduction | Kartik Talwar at Pragma Lisbon 2026

Good morning everyone. My name is Kartik, I am one of the co-founders of ETHGlobal, and I want to welcome you all to Pragma Lisbon. Thank you. This is a conference. This is our second Pragma event this year, hosted by ETHGlobal in parallel with the ETHGlobal Lisbon hackathon.

And for those who are joining us for the first time: ETHGlobal does two things. We host hackathons and summits both in person and online. And this is one of our versions of an in- person summit where we talk about what's happening in this ecosystem, what topics to expect, and anything else that will help you get a sense of what the next few years will look like. Every Solidity developer knows that a smart knows that a smart contract begins with the word Pragma. For developers and engineers, this is not the beginning of their journey, but for us it is a call to pragmatism.

And what makes this event unique is our belief in several things. We want to make this event accessible to everyone, so you don't have to be a developer or know what's going on in this area. And we do this by adhering to several principles. This event is a principles. This event is a one-day, single-lane event, meaning there is no second stage.

You won't have to choose between multiple performances. Everything has been specially selected has been specially selected , and everything will take place in this hall. Everyone who will be speaking is a leader—they are responsible for everything from a product line to the company as a whole, and they will tell you how they see the future of their products and their industry. And the main focus will be on the future. We have learned a lot in the past.

We see this field developing more this year than in the last 10 years. We will talk about the topics that everyone is thinking about everyone is thinking about and how we can offer good solutions, seize opportunities, and apply the lessons of the past to create a more productive future. And since this event is for everyone, the presentations will be mostly non-technical, meaning you don't have to worry about knowing very specific things. There will be a few points that will require some prior knowledge of what’s going on in the industry, or you may need an understanding of how Solidity works, but we’ll provide the necessary context; The event is designed for everyone, without the need for in-depth preparation. We have 14 performances today.

We have three fireside chats and 11 presentations by our speakers scheduled. I'll give you a quick rundown of what to expect in the next few hours the next few hours , and then we'll get right down to business and start with the first presentation. So, everything I'm going to talk about is on the wonderful flyer you received when you signed up. You can see the schedule. Everything is also available on the website: ethglobal.

com/pragma. Today we have a really busy day. It's almost the same as a hackathon, only a little shorter. We have 330 participants here from 34 different countries who came just for the presentations. I also want to thank our nine incredible partners who made this possible.

Please join me in giving a big round of applause to 1inch, Archive, ENS, The Graph, Lido Foundation, World, Nosis and Ocean for being here. They are all below. You can chat with them in the lounge and snack area to find out what they do. So let's quickly go through the schedule and start with our first session. We'll start today with Marius' talk on how to keep Ethereum the mainstay for all institutional finance.

Marius is the finance. Marius is the co-founder of Institutional. You may have seen them on the news just a week ago. This is a pretty important part of the new strategy for how to make Ethereum more finance-friendly. Our second conversation today conversation today is a fireside chat with Julian.

We will talk about the evolution of DeFi, the opportunities in this area now, and compare it to how DeFi began. Alex will then share his vision for how tokenized assets will enter the new world will enter the new world , and talk about their approach to risk management and the overall security of these assets. Joel will talk about how to rethink banking to make it more blockchain-friendly, and how to understand the difference between what is a " between what is a " wrapper" and what can and should actually be native. After that, Angelo will share his vision for how to make network data truly high-quality. To work with anything from real assets to computation and accounting, you need to make sure that the data across all networks, hundreds of L2 solutions, and all synchronization issues between different contract types are correct and error-free.

So we will learn what exactly is needed to obtain quality data for accounting. We are going on a lunch break. We will begin the afternoon performances with a fireside chat with Thiago. We will talk about Thiago's perspective on investing, the opportunities for starting companies in this area, and how it can grow, especially given Thiago and Anchorage's many years of experience in this industry. Philip will then talk about the Ethereum Economic Zone.

They've been working on this for a long time and have implemented some really cool technical innovations to make Ethereum the main platform for all on-chain for all on-chain activity. Next, Holly will talk about Wanxiang Aqua and how we can simplify liquidity between networks and make it more efficient. Mark from Pyth will talk about their vision of how to improve oracles, how to make pricing accessible to everyone and as close to real-time as possible. Makoto from ENS will share new insights into the coordination and work needed to make identification a more native part of Ethereum and the on-chain Ethereum and the on-chain environment. We will take a short break, followed by a final session where Pedro will talk about WalletConnect transactions and payments, and how they make payments more accessible and native.

Felipe will then talk about the new programming language Plank, which helps write more secure smart secure smart contracts, about innovations based on lessons learned from hacker attacks and flaws in Solidity or Vyper, and about how to create better and more secure contracts secure contracts . Marcelo will share his vision of how AI agents interact on-chain, lessons learned from processing nearly half a million transactions, and the future of payments at Aztec. And the last event will be a recording of the Human Protocol podcast, where Simona and I will have a pleasant conversation. Here's what our agenda looks like today . You can leave this room, go downstairs, chat with our sponsors and other speakers.

They will be here because we want to create the most friendly atmosphere possible. That's all I'm saying, all the information is on the website information is on the website . We begin our first report, and without further ado, we would like to welcome Marius from Ethereum Institutional.