The 12th Global Blockchain Summit, hosted by Wanxiang Blockchain Labs, will be held on Sept. 23, 2026, at the Grand Hyatt Shanghai on the Bund. The theme for this year’s event is 「Blockchain New Economy · Intelligent Chain Symbiosis」. The organizer said the summit has been running alongside the industry for 12 consecutive years since its first edition in 2015.
Agenda centers on regulation, payments, tokenization and AI
According to the event introduction, this year’s summit will take on a set of issues that are shaping the direction of the industry. Those topics include the continued evolution of global regulatory frameworks for digital assets, as well as deeper blockchain use in payments, settlement and asset transfers.
The organizer also said tokenization is moving from concept to implementation, with tokenized deposits and onchain U.S. equities drawing growing attention. At the same time, the rapid pace of AI development has pushed privacy, trust and data security into sharper focus, while advances in quantum computing are creating new tests for cryptographic security.
Questions set to be discussed at the summit include what new signals may come from global policy, how payment and settlement systems may evolve, what underlying logic and regulatory structure support tokenization, and what role blockchain and privacy technologies may hold in a future technology stack shaped by AI.
First batch of speakers announced
The organizer said the speaker lineup continues to expand in step with the industry topics drawing attention. The first group already announced spans policymakers, financial institutions, asset managers, technology researchers, blockchain founders and industry practitioners.
The current speaker list includes Xiao Feng, chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain and chairman and CEO of HashKey Group; Duncan Chiu, member of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region representing the Technology and Innovation constituency; John Riggins, CEO of Moon Inc; Lee Kuo Chuen, dean of the Global FinTech Institute; Fan Wenzhong, executive council member of the China Society for Finance and Banking and former chairman of Beijing Financial Holdings Group; Ba Qing, chief economist of HashKey Group and general manager of the group strategy department; Zhao Yao, specially appointed senior researcher at the National Institution for Finance and Development; Zhao Ying, partner at King & Wood Mallesons; Chen Long, secretary-general of Luohan Academy; Miguel Palencia, co-founder of Qtum; Du Yu, head of Wanxiang Blockchain Labs; Xu Ping, head of fintech for Asia and head of China financial institutions at JPMorgan; Rita Liu, CEO of RD Technologies; Anna Liu, CEO of HashKey RWA; Min Lin, managing director of global business development at Ondo Finance; Thomas Chou, Asia-Pacific lead at the Canton Foundation; Abdelhamid Bizid, head of active and alternative investment product development for Asia-Pacific and China product head at BlackRock Global Product Solutions (GPS); Yu Yu, professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and dean of the School of Cryptology at East China Normal University; Leo Lin, co-founder of Arkreen; Xia Fubiao, co-founder of Primus; MOMO, chief security officer at KUN Global; and Zhu Xiaoxiao, R&D director of the edge computing business unit at StarFive. The organizer noted that speaking order has not been arranged by priority.
More speakers and full schedule to follow
According to the event notice, more high-profile guests and the full summit agenda will be released in the near term.
The organizer added that on Sept. 23 it expects to meet industry participants from around the world again in Shanghai to exchange views and judgments at a time of change in the sector.
Sponsors and partners named
The 12th Global Blockchain Summit has support from diamond sponsor Qtum; strategic partner Wanxiang Innocity; gold sponsors Frontier Technology Institute (FTI), RD Technologies, Arkreen and Bianjie.AI; and exclusive dinner sponsor Sui Foundation.