We were glad to be at Fireblocks’ Meet the CEO event at The Ritz-Carlton Tokyo, now in its third year. Fireblocks isn’t a client of ours, so this was a different kind of room than we’re usually in, but a valuable one to be part of.
CEO Michael Shaulov laid out the market in three waves: crypto building the base layer for global liquidity, stablecoins moving payments onchain and cutting cost and friction, and now RWA tokenization extending that infrastructure into securities, treasuries, and funds. The numbers he shared were notable: stablecoin volumes grew from $150B to $310B over 12 months, monthly transaction volume rose from $1.2T to $2.5T, and Japan’s onchain value received climbed 120% year over year, among the fastest growth rates in the region.
Our own Una Softic moderated the second panel of the evening, on blockchain monetization in Japan and globally, alongside speakers from AltX Research, the Solana Foundation, and Fireblocks itself. The first panel covered onchain finance and real-world asset tokenization in practice, with representatives from SMBC Group and Mitsui & Co.
Thank you to Fireblocks and everyone who made the evening possible. Good to spend time in a room full of people working on this from a different angle than we usually do.