ETH Taipei 2026 introduced an institution day for the first time, with most sessions delivered in Chinese and focused on custody, real-world assets and use cases aimed at banks and other financial institutions. Opening day two, Taiwan Mobile President Jamie Lin spoke on “Taiwan’s Crypto Adoption Vision,” covering Ethereum’s positioning, the integration of blockchain with traditional finance and a broader idea he described as “Crypto Island Taiwan.”
From crypto trading to putting real-world assets on-chain
Lin said the crypto market is worth about $2 trillion, still small compared with the global stock market at roughly $150 trillion and the bond market at around $350 trillion. In his view, it would be a waste to use strong blockchain infrastructure only for trading crypto assets. The bigger task is to move broader categories of human assets on-chain.
He said institutional participation and regulatory compliance, including anti-money laundering controls and governance, are part of the industry’s path toward maturity. Lin also described regulation itself as a kind of “protocol” that can create trust among participants and support stable operation.
Internet, blockchain and AI as the basis of “Finance 2.0”
Lin said today’s technology triangle is shaped by three core forces: Internet, blockchain and AI. He argued that only a deep combination of those three can form what he called “Finance 2.0.”
He added that founders should move past siloed thinking and combine technologies to build the best possible user experience.
Why Lin believes Taiwan can become a crypto island
Lin said Taiwan was hit hard by the FTX collapse, but the local market did not turn away from crypto. Instead, he said, it showed resilience and kept pushing governance and legal-compliance frameworks.
He pointed to several conditions that he believes support the “Crypto Island” case. Taiwan has more than $600 billion in active foreign trade, which he linked to potential applications in supply chain finance and stablecoins. He also said Taiwan has more than 10 legally compliant virtual asset service providers, or VASPs, along with what he described as a first-tier global reserve of technology talent.
Taiwan Mobile says it wants to expand the market, not take existing share
Lin said active crypto users in Taiwan account for only about 5% of the market today, leaving substantial room for growth. He said that is one reason Taiwan Mobile decided to enter the sector.
According to Lin, the company is not trying to take business away from existing players. Its goal is to grow the market alongside them. Taiwan Mobile is targeting potential users around age 40 who have mid- to high-level assets but remain concerned about security. Lin said the company wants to use the trust associated with a leading telecom brand to help more people enter the market safely and to lift the active-user ratio from 5% to 10% to 20%.
A three-stage path for Crypto Island Taiwan
Lin laid out a three-stage roadmap for Crypto Island Taiwan:
- Digital asset reserves: encourage companies to include digital assets in value reserves alongside the New Taiwan dollar and the U.S. dollar;
- DeFi expansion: build an application ecosystem for decentralized finance;
- Financial infrastructure on-chain: integrate traditional financial infrastructure with blockchain across cross-border transfers and remittances, supply chain finance, asset tokenization and AI agent payments.
He said he hopes that before 2030, Taiwan can become not only a technology manufacturing center but also an important global hub for digital finance. His remarks opened the second day of ETH Taipei 2026.