Buenos Aires punya nuansa yang unik. Kota ini adalah tempat kemewahan Eropa bertemu dengan intensitas Amerika Latin, di mana teori ekonomi bukanlah konsep abstrak di ruang akademis, melainkan perjuangan nyata dan harian untuk bertahan hidup. Karena itu, tidak mengherankan kalau kota metropolitan ini dipilih sebagai tuan rumah Devconnect 2025. Latar Argentina, negara yang identik dengan volatilitas moneter sekaligus adopsi aset kripto secara akar rumput, jadi panggung sempurna untuk industri yang akhirnya mulai dewasa.

Jika tahun-tahun sebelumnya di siklus kripto dipenuhi oleh hiruk-pikuk, kemewahan, dan hingar-bingar spekulasi seperti suasana kasino Las Vegas, Buenos Aires jelas menghadirkan suasana berbeda yang lebih realistis. Udara di sini tidak berbau “uang mudah” atau proyek kosong; namun, terasa aroma kopi kental dan kerja keras para engineer. Di sinilah narasi berubah. Kita tidak lagi membuat mainan untuk orang bosan dan kaya; kita sedang membangun infrastruktur untuk dunia yang sedang rapuh.

Untuk memahami perubahan besar ini, kami mengumpulkan wawasan dari para arsitek utama industri: Arthur Firstov (CBO Mercuryo), yang menyoroti mandat privasi; Vivien Lin (CPO BingX), yang merinci integrasi AI ke dalam ekosistem trading; dan Ivan Machena (CCO 8lends), yang memberikan penilaian penting tentang perkembangan adopsi layer-2.

Melalui banyak diskusi internal dengan para pemimpin ini, gambaran jelas pun terbentuk. Kita memasuki sebuah era baru. Inilah kisah tentang bagaimana privasi menjadi sebuah mandat, bagaimana Artificial Intelligence mulai menuntut peran besar di dunia keuangan, dan bagaimana keberagaman global akhirnya mematahkan mitos “pengguna ideal”.

Mandat Privasi, Dari Fitur Menjadi Fondasi

Pesan terkuat dari Buenos Aires bukan datang lewat kembang api atau dukungan selebritas. Pesan itu berbisik di tengah padatnya workshop teknis dan rumah hacker yang ramai. Pesannya sederhana: transparansi memang keunggulan, tapi keterbukaan total justru kelemahan.

Di Bangkok pada pertemuan sebelumnya, privasi hanya menjadi “track” sampingan, ruangan kecil yang dikunjungi cypherpunk dan idealis. Di Buenos Aires, privasi justru menjadi agenda utama. Industri bersama-sama menyadari bahwa tanpa privasi, tidak akan ada adopsi massal, yang ada hanya pengawasan massal.

Arthur Firstov, Chief Business Officer dari Mercuryo, menangkap perubahan paradigma ini dengan sangat tepat. Saat mengulas topik riset utama di acara ini, Firstov melihat perubahan suasana yang berbeda.

“Privacy was the defining theme,” terang Firstov, lalu menambahkan:

“Compared to Bangkok, where privacy was just one important track, Buenos Aires elevated it to the main stage.”

Pandangan ini sejalan dengan perasaan yang tersebar di setiap venue konferensi. Sebuah kalimat mulai beredar di ruang co-working dan kelas-kelas, bahkan menjadi motto tidak resmi Devconnect 2025:

“If your wallet is not privacy-preserving by design, it is legacy.”

Ini bukan tren teknologi sesaat, melainkan respons atas dunia yang semakin transparan di mana data keuangan bisa dipersenjatai. Firstov menyoroti, suasana ini sudah dibangun dari level atas, di mana Vitalik Buterin bahkan memberikan “penjelasan lengkap tentang privasi yang ia gunakan sendiri, mulai dari OS dan perangkat mobile hingga RPC privat.”

Tapi evolusi penting terletak pada cara teknologi ini kini dikemas. Privasi bukan lagi soal interface command-line untuk para elite; melainkan tentang membuatnya tidak terlihat.

Firstov menjelaskan:

“Builders focused on stealth addresses, smart AA [Account Abstraction] patterns, selective disclosures, and ‘creating better defaults so users do not even notice how much complexity is being handled beneath the surface.'”

“Tak terlihat” inilah tujuan utama. Pengguna tidak mau pusing soal zero-knowledge proof; mereka hanya ingin saldo di bank mereka tidak menjadi konsumsi publik.

Bersamaan dengan dorongan untuk privasi, Firstov juga melihat evolusi praktis di DeFi: munculnya “preconfirmation untuk pembayaran stablecoin yang terasa instan” serta peluang yield baru yang menawarkan pengalaman “gaya pasar uang sederhana tanpa harus berisiko tinggi.” Industri kini beranjak dari skema Ponzi APY 10.000% ke arah keuangan yang membosankan, bisa diandalkan, dan privat.

Kontroversi “Black Box”, Siapa yang Kita Percaya?

Tapi, tidak ada revolusi tanpa perbedaan di internal. Walau semua sepakat butuh privasi, cara mewujudkannya justru memancing debat teknis paling panas selama acara. Titik sentral perdebatan ada pada pemakaian Trusted Execution Environments (TEE), yaitu enclave hardware yang aman.

Apakah masa depan privasi bersumber dari matematika kriptografi atau dari pembuatan microchip?

Firstov menggambarkan perpecahan ini sebagai “debat teknis paling tak terduga atau paling kontroversial” di acara. Satu kubu pragmatis meyakini, jelasnya:

“One camp argued that TEEs are ‘practically necessary for high-throughput, low-latency, and private computation’, particularly for private settlement, derivatives strategies, and agent-based execution.”

Argumen ini memang masuk akal: bila kita ingin kecepatan ala Wall Street di blockchain, matematika saja mungkin terlalu lamban. Kita perlu akselerasi lewat hardware.

Tapi kelompok lawan pun bersuara keras, berprinsip, dan sangat skeptis. Firstov menyampaikan peringatan mereka: “If the trust model becomes ‘trust this black-box server in a data center,’ then crypto is not improving much over traditional finance.”

Kalau kita sekadar mengganti server bank dengan enclave SGX milik Intel, apa benar kita sudah mendesentralisasi apapun?

Diskusi ini lalu memunculkan pertanyaan yang belum terjawab dan kemungkinan besar akan menjadi fokus riset di sisa dekade ini:

“How much of the world’s stablecoin and payment rails are we comfortable running on opaque hardware… and what does ‘trust-minimized enough’ actually mean in that context?”

Kebangkitan Mesin: AI Jadi Arsitek Keuangan Baru

Saat para kriptografer beradu soal hardware, titan lain diam-diam mulai meresap ke dunia kripto: Artificial Intelligence. Devconnect 2025 tidak sekadar membahas ledger; tapi juga tentang pernikahan yang tak terelakkan antara database decentralized dan otak otonom.

Vivien Lin, Chief Product Officer sekaligus Kepala BingX Labs, membawa perspektif dari garis depan exchange terpusat (CEX) yang kini berkembang pesat dan makin kompleks. Menurutnya, tema utama tahun ini sudah jelas tak mungkin bisa diingkari.

Lin berpendapat:

“Tema utama bagi saya adalah integrasi AI ke dalam infrastruktur exchange dan kesadaran bahwa exchange berkembang menjadi ekosistem keuangan yang lengkap, bukan cuma aplikasi trading saja.”

Ia menggambarkan masa depan di mana AI akan menjadi penghubung utama di dunia keuangan.

“Para builder memikirkan bagaimana AI bisa menyatukan trading, kustodian, pembayaran, manajemen risiko, dan kecerdasan pengguna menjadi pengalaman ‘super app’ yang terintegrasi.”

Namun, mirip seperti perdebatan TEE di sektor privasi, integrasi AI membawa paradoks keamanannya sendiri. Bagaimana kamu bisa mempercayai AI dengan seluruh tabungan hidupmu? Lin menjelaskan, ada dorongan kuat menuju “sistem yang aman dan terverifikasi, termasuk komputasi pelindung privasi dan bukti on-chain, agar fitur AI tidak membahayakan data pengguna atau keamanan dana.”

Tujuannya adalah menciptakan ekosistem yang “cerdas dan sangat aman, sehingga pengguna mendapat otomatisasi dan konteks lebih banyak tanpa harus mengorbankan kepercayaan.” Tapi, menurut Lin, titik gesekan paling menarik bukanlah soal kemampuan, tapi soal otonomi.

“Titik friksi terbesar adalah seberapa banyak otonomi yang seharusnya dimiliki agen AI di lingkungan trading,” terang Lin. Perdebatan itu pun membelah ruangan.

Ia menambahkan:

“Beberapa pengembang berargumen bahwa agen seharusnya bisa mengelola likuiditas, menyeimbangkan portofolio, atau melakukan order tanpa pengawasan manusia. Tapi yang lain memperingatkan bahwa memberikan AI akses tak terbatas ke layer eksekusi bisa menimbulkan risiko sistemik.”

Perdebatan intinya soal peran manusia di pasar: “Apakah AI seharusnya menjadi co-pilot bagi para trader, atau justru pemain mandiri sepenuhnya di dalam struktur pasar?” Di Buenos Aires, konsensusnya sepertinya mulai bergeser ke arah otonomi, asalkan keamanan kriptografi cukup kuat menahannya.

Geografi adalah Takdir, Pelajaran dari Global South

Mungkin, hal paling transformatif dari Devconnect 2025 adalah lokasinya sendiri. Acara di Argentina ini membuat komunitas pengembang global benar-benar membumi. Sementara para pengembang di Silicon Valley sibuk mengoptimalkan kode sedetik lebih cepat, masyarakat Buenos Aires justru berjuang menjaga nilai hasil kerja mereka dari inflasi.

Arthur Firstov memperhatikan bagaimana keberagaman ekstrem ini mengubah diskusi dari soal scaling teoritis menjadi alat-alat untuk bertahan hidup. “Devconnect mempertemukan prioritas pengguna yang sangat berbeda dalam satu ruangan,” ujarnya.

“Tim-tim Amerika Latin menonjolkan contoh pemakaian sehari-hari seperti ‘wallet di smartphone murah’ hingga pembayaran sewa atau gaji yang dilakukan pakai stablecoin,” tutur Firstov, sembari menambahkan:

“Bandingkan dengan tim infrastruktur dari Asia dan AS, yang tetap fokus pada ‘perpetual futures, routing, MEV, dan latency.'”

Tabrakan dua dunia ini menghasilkan sintesis baru. Pembicaraan bergeser dari sekadar “Transactions Per Second” (TPS) ke soal UX dan penerapan nyata. Firstov mencantumkan pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang kini lebih penting:

“Bagaimana smart wallet bisa menyembunyikan kerumitan sehingga pengguna merasa mereka memakai aplikasi fintech biasa? Bagaimana mendukung ‘arus trading frekuensi tinggi dan pembayaran gaji bulanan’ tanpa mengorbankan kepercayaan dan keamanan?”

Kesadaran terbesarnya? “Tidak ada satu tipe pengguna saja di dunia kripto ini.”

Vivien Lin pun menyetujui hal ini, menyoroti bagaimana kehadiran orang Argentina membuat perdebatan teknis yang tinggi jadi lebih membumi.

“Keragaman pengembang, apalagi dari Argentina, menggeser diskusi ke tantangan adopsi nyata di lapangan, bukan cuma masalah scaling teoritis,”

Para builder Argentina tidak tertarik bicara filosofi uang; mereka ingin menyelesaikan masalah yang mereka hadapi setiap hari.

Lin memaparkan:

“Para builder Argentina mengangkat isu tentang inflasi, kontrol modal, sampai butuh sistem settlement yang cepat dan selalu bisa diandalkan di ekonomi yang volatile.”

Diskusi ini memperluas peran exchange seharusnya, mendorong terciptanya “ekosistem AI yang bisa menjawab keterbatasan lokal maupun tantangan besar, seperti fragmentasi compliance, likuiditas lintas negara, dan onboarding mobile-first.”

Apa yang Sebenarnya Sedang Dibangun? Infrastruktur Lebih Penting dari Hype

Meninggalkan soal filosofi dan geografi, kita harus bertanya: di mana para builder betul-betul melakukan deploy kode?

Ivan Machena, Chief Communication Officer di 8lends, memberikan gambaran realistis. Era “ghost chains”, blockchain yang memiliki valuasi tinggi tapi tanpa pengguna, sudah berakhir. Sekarang, fokusnya beralih ke ekosistem yang benar-benar menopang produk nyata.

“Kalau melihat percakapan industri yang berkembang sekitar Devconnect,” papar Machena, “ada beberapa proyek layer-2 dan application-layer yang tetap menarik minat builder.”

Dari sisi konsumen, Machena menyoroti Base. Ia sering disebut berkat “pertumbuhan pesat dan infrastruktur onboarding yang lancar,” sehingga kini menjadi gerbang utama untuk pengguna ritel. Untuk segmen DeFi, Arbitrum masih menjadi “pilihan utama karena ekosistemnya matang dan komposisinya mudah,” sedangkan Polygon tetap andalan tim-tim yang mencari keseimbangan.

namun, Machena melihat ada perpindahan menuju teknologi yang lebih maju.

Arthur Firstov menambahkan satu sisi lagi dalam peta adopsi ini dengan mengarahkan perhatian ke sektor privasi dan “agent-native”. Ia mengidentifikasi Aztec sebagai ekosistem yang “sangat diperhatikan karena mengutamakan privasi, di mana produk bisa ‘privat secara default, namun transparan secara selektif sesuai kebutuhan'”.

Yang terpenting, Firstov menyoroti Privacy Pools sebagai jembatan antara semangat cypherpunk dan realitas institusi. Proyek ini muncul sebagai “solusi yang paham compliance… ‘jawaban praktis tentang bagaimana privasi harus berjalan agar regulator dan investor besar bisa nyaman'”.

Lebih jauh lagi, dunia fisik kini mulai masuk ke dalam chain. Firstov mencatat tren tim-tim yang membangun layanan storage dan compute ala DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks), dibayar pakai stablecoin, “bertujuan supaya kripto terasa layaknya API cloud tradisional.”

Outlook 2026: Dari Kasino ke Katedral

Setelah para peserta Devconnect 2025 bubar dari Buenos Aires dan kembali ke berbagai penjuru dunia, suasana terasa jelas berbeda. Industri ini makin dewasa. Budaya acara ini yang berupa sesi kecil, teknis, dan dipimpin komunitas, bukan acara besar yang penuh promosi, mulai membentuk narasi untuk tahun depan.

Arthur Firstov memperkirakan bakal ada perubahan mendasar dalam cara kita menceritakan perkembangan industri aset kripto:

“Nantikan narasi tahun 2026 yang menggambarkan pergeseran ini, seperti ‘cerita infrastruktur, bukan cerita kasino’, ‘stablecoin sebagai antarmuka utama dunia kripto’, dan privasi sebagai kebutuhan dasar.”

Ini adalah gambaran dunia di mana kripto tidak lagi identik dengan judi, melainkan menjadi sistem infrastruktur kuat yang mendukung keuangan global secara diam-diam. Pertanyaannya sekarang bukan lagi soal harga token. Seperti yang disampaikan Firstov, pertanyaan penting yang muncul adalah: “Integrasi Web2–Web3 mana yang benar-benar akan jadi kenyataan dan membawa dampak untuk pengguna sungguhan?”

Vivien Lin juga sependapat, dan melihat masa depan akan berada pada ekosistem yang saling terhubung, bukan di taman tertutup.

“Hal itu memperkuat pandangan bahwa masa depan trading kripto akan fokus pada ekosistem terlebih dulu. Prinsip ini mendorong industri menuju ekosistem trading yang interoperable dan didukung AI, di mana likuiditas, identitas, eksekusi, dan automasi strategi akan makin terintegrasi saat kita bergerak menuju 2026.”

Buenos Aires menjadi ujian batin untuk dunia aset kripto. Industri ini berhasil melewati ujian, bukan dengan memberi jawaban yang mudah, melainkan akhirnya mengajukan pertanyaan-pertanyaan sulit yang tepat. Kita pulang dengan lebih sedikit ilusi, tapi punya alat yang lebih baik. “Cerita Kasino” sudah berakhir; “Cerita Infrastruktur” baru saja dimulai. Dan untuk pertama kalinya setelah sekian lama, terasa seperti kita sedang membangun sesuatu yang benar-benar bertahan lama.

Buenos Aires has a distinct frequency. It is a city where European grandeur collides with Latin American intensity, a place where economic theory is not an abstract concept discussed in ivory towers, but a visceral, daily struggle for preservation. It is, therefore, no accident that this metropolis was chosen to host Devconnect 2025. The backdrop of Argentina, a country synonymous with both monetary volatility and grassroots crypto adoption, provided the perfect stage for an industry that is finally growing up.

If previous years in the crypto cycle were defined by noise, spectacle, and the blinding lights of speculative mania, reminiscent of a Las Vegas casino floor, Buenos Aires offered a stark, sobering contrast. The air didn’t smell of “easy money” and vaporware; it smelled of strong coffee and serious engineering. Here, the narrative shifted. We are no longer building toys for the bored and wealthy; we are building infrastructure for a world that is cracking at the seams.

To navigate this profound shift, we enlisted the insights of key industry architects: Arthur Firstov (Mercuryo CBO), who focused on the privacy mandate; Vivien Lin (BingX CPO), who detailed the integration of AI into trading ecosystems; and Ivan Machena (8lends CCO), who provided a vital assessment of the layer-2 adoption landscape.

Through extensive back-channel conversations with these leaders, a clear picture emerges. We are entering a new epoch. This is the story of how privacy became a mandate, how Artificial Intelligence is demanding a seat at the financial table, and how global diversity finally shattered the myth of the “archetypal user.”

The Privacy Mandate, From Feature to Foundation

The most potent message from Buenos Aires was not broadcast via fireworks or celebrity endorsements. It was whispered in the dense fabric of technical workshops and crowded hacker houses. The message is simple: transparency is a feature, but total exposure is a flaw.

In Bangkok, at previous gatherings, privacy was merely a “track”, a side room visited by cypherpunks and idealists. In Buenos Aires, it was the main event. The industry has collectively realized that without privacy, there is no mass adoption, only mass surveillance.

Arthur Firstov, the Chief Business Officer of Mercuryo, captured this paradigm shift perfectly. Reflecting on the dominant research areas of the event, Firstov noted a distinct change in temperature.

“Privacy was the defining theme,” Firstov asserts, before continuing:

“Compared to Bangkok, where privacy was just one important track, Buenos Aires elevated it to the main stage.”

His observation aligns with a sentiment that permeated every venue of the conference. A phrase began circulating around the co-working spaces and lecture halls, becoming the unofficial motto of Devconnect 2025:

“If your wallet is not privacy-preserving by design, it is legacy.”

This is not a technological fad, it is a response to an increasingly transparent world where financial data is weaponized. Firstov highlights that the tone was set from the top, with Vitalik Buterin offering a “full walkthrough of his personal privacy stack, from OS and mobile devices to private RPC.”

But the crucial evolution lies in how this technology is now being packaged. It is no longer about command-line interfaces for the elite; it is about invisibility.

Firstov explains:

“Builders focused on stealth addresses, smart AA [Account Abstraction] patterns, selective disclosures, and ‘creating better defaults so users do not even notice how much complexity is being handled beneath the surface.”

This “invisibility” is the holy grail. The user does not want to understand zero-knowledge proofs; they simply want to know their bank balance isn’t public property.

Alongside this push for privacy, Firstov identified a pragmatic evolution in DeFi: the rise of “preconfirmations for instant-feeling stablecoin payments” and new yield surfaces that offer “simple, ‘money-market style’ experiences without going full degen.” The industry is moving away from 10,000% APY Ponzi schemes toward boring, reliable, private finance.

The “Black Box” Controversy, Who Do We Trust?

However, no revolution is without its internal schisms. While the consensus on the need for privacy was absolute, the method of achieving it sparked the most heated technical debates of the week. The eye of the storm was the reliance on Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), hardware-based secure enclaves.

Is the future of privacy found in cryptographic math or in silicon manufacturing?

Firstov describes this division as the “most unexpected or controversial technical debate” of the event. On one side stood the pragmatists. He notes:

“One camp argued that TEEs are ‘practically necessary for high-throughput, low-latency, and private computation’, particularly for private settlement, derivatives strategies, and agent-based execution.”

The argument is compelling: if we want Wall Street speeds on the blockchain, math alone might be too slow. We need hardware acceleration.

But the opposition was loud, principled, and deeply skeptical. Firstov relays their warning: “If the trust model becomes ‘trust this black-box server in a data center,’ then crypto is not improving much over traditional finance.”

If we simply replace a bank’s server with Intel’s SGX enclave, have we actually decentralized anything?

This led to an unresolved meta-question that will likely define research priorities for the rest of the decade:

“How much of the world’s stablecoin and payment rails are we comfortable running on opaque hardware… and what does ‘trust-minimized enough’ actually mean in that context?”

The Rise of the Machines: AI as the New Financial Architect

While cryptographers sparred over hardware trust, another titan was quietly integrating itself into the crypto stack: Artificial Intelligence. Devconnect 2025 wasn’t just about the ledger; it was about the inevitable marriage of the decentralized database and the autonomous brain.

Vivien Lin, Chief Product Officer and Head of BingX Labs, brought a perspective from the front lines of centralized exchanges (CEXs), which are rapidly morphing into something far more complex. For her, the primary theme was undeniable.

Lin says:

“The primary theme for me was the integration of AI into exchange infrastructure and the realization that exchanges are evolving into full financial ecosystems, not just trading applications.”

She paints a picture of a future where AI acts as the connective tissue of finance.

“Builders were focused on how AI can unify trading, custody, payments, risk management, and user intelligence into a single ‘super app’ experience.”

However, much like the TEE debate in the privacy sector, the integration of AI brings its own security paradox. How do you trust an AI with your life savings? Lin notes a strong push toward “secure, verifiable systems, including privacy-preserving compute and on-chain proofs, that ensure AI-driven features don’t compromise user data or fund safety.”

The goal is to create ecosystems that are “both intelligent and deeply secure, giving users more automation and context without sacrificing trust.” But the most fascinating friction point, according to Lin, wasn’t about capability, it was about autonomy.

“The major friction point was how much autonomy AI agents should have in trading environments,” Lin explains. The debate split the room.

She adds:

“Some developers argued that agents should manage liquidity, rebalance portfolios, or place orders without human oversight. Others warned that giving AI unrestricted access to execution layers could create systemic risk.”

The core disagreement touches on the very nature of human agency in markets: “Should AI be a co-pilot for traders or a fully autonomous participant in market structure?” In Buenos Aires, the consensus seemed to be shifting toward autonomy, provided the guardrails of cryptography are strong enough to hold it.

Geography is Destiny, Lessons from the Global South

Perhaps the most transformative aspect of Devconnect 2025 was the location itself. Hosting this event in Argentina forced the global developer community to touch grass. While Silicon Valley developers obsess over optimizing code for milliseconds, the people of Buenos Aires obsess over preserving the value of their labor against inflation.

Arthur Firstov observed how this radical diversity shifted the conversation from theoretical scaling to survival tools. “Devconnect brought radically different user priorities into the same room,” he says.

“Latin American teams highlighted everyday use cases such as ‘wallets on low-cost smartphones’ and rent or payroll paid in stablecoins,” Firstov notes, further adding:

“Contrast this with the Asian and US infrastructure teams, who remained focused on “perpetual futures, routing, MEV, and latency.”

This collision of worlds forced a synthesis. The conversation moved away from simple “Transactions Per Second” (TPS) bragging rights toward UX and practical deployment. Firstov lists the questions that actually matter now:

“How can smart wallets hide complexity so users feel like they are using a normal fintech app? How do we support both ‘high-frequency trading flows and monthly salary payments’ without compromising trust or security?”

The biggest realization? “There is no single archetypal user in crypto.”

Vivien Lin echoes this sentiment, noting how the Argentine presence grounded the high-flying technical debates.

“The diversity of developers, especially strong representation from Argentina, shifted the discussion toward real adoption challenges on the ground, not just theoretical scaling.”

Argentine builders didn’t want to talk about the philosophy of money; they wanted to solve immediate problems.

Lin explains:

“Argentine builders raised issues around inflation, capital controls, and the need for fast settlement rails that work reliably in volatile economies.”

This expanded the scope of what an exchange should be, pushing for “AI-powered ecosystems that address both local constraints and broader challenges such as compliance fragmentation, cross-border liquidity, and mobile-first onboarding.”

What is Actually Being Built? Infrastructure Over Hype

Stepping away from the philosophical and geographical, we must ask: where are the builders actually deploying code?

Ivan Machena, Chief Communication Officer at 8lends, provides a sober look at the landscape. The era of “ghost chains”, blockchains with high valuations but no users, is ending. The focus is now on ecosystems that support real products.

“Looking at the broader industry conversations happening around Devconnect,” Machena observes, “several layer-2 and application-layer projects continue to attract strong builder interest.”

On the consumer front, Machena highlights Base. It is frequently cited for its “rapid growth and smooth onboarding infrastructure,” effectively becoming the gateway for the retail user. In the DeFi segment, Arbitrum retains its crown as the “preferred choice thanks to its mature ecosystem and composability,” while Polygon remains a staple for teams seeking balance.

However, Machena notes a migration toward the technically superior.

Arthur Firstov adds another layer to this adoption map, pointing toward the privacy and “agent-native” sectors. He identifies Aztec as drawing “serious attention as a privacy-first environment where products can be ‘private by default, selectively transparent where necessary’.”

Crucially, Firstov highlights Privacy Pools as the bridge between the cypherpunk ethos and institutional reality. It emerged as a “compliance-aware solution… a ‘practical answer to what privacy looks like when regulators and serious capital must be comfortable with it’.”

Furthermore, the physical world is coming on-chain. Firstov notes a trend of teams building DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) style storage and compute services, paid for in stablecoins, “aiming to make crypto feel like traditional cloud APIs.”

Outlook 2026: From Casino to Cathedral

As the attendees of Devconnect 2025 disperse from Buenos Aires, returning to their respective corners of the globe, the mood is undeniably different. The industry is maturing. The cultural ethos of the event, small, technical, community-led sessions rather than massive marketing spectacles is shaping the narrative for the coming year.

Arthur Firstov predicts a fundamental pivot in how we tell the story of crypto:

“Expect 2026 narratives to reflect that shift,  ‘infrastructure story instead of casino story,’ ‘stablecoins as the front end of crypto,’ and privacy as table stakes.”

This is a vision of a world where crypto ceases to be a synonym for gambling and becomes the invisible, robust plumbing of the global financial system. The questions are no longer about token prices. As Firstov puts it, the growing question is: “Which Web2–Web3 integrations will actually ship and move the needle on real users?”

Vivien Lin agrees, seeing the future in interconnected ecosystems rather than walled gardens.

“It reinforced the view that the future of crypto trading will be ecosystem-first. This ethos pushes the industry toward interoperable, AI-powered trading ecosystems where liquidity, identity, execution, and strategy automation become increasingly unified as we move into 2026.”

Buenos Aires was a stress test for the soul of crypto. The industry passed, not by offering easy answers, but by finally asking the right, difficult questions. We leave with fewer illusions, but with better tools. The “Casino Story” is dead; the “Infrastructure Story” has begun. And for the first time in a long time, it feels like we are building something that will last.

The post Devconnect 2025: Privacy, Stablecoins, and the Next Wave of Infrastructure appeared first on BeInCrypto.