VANIKO  (Ivan)

Last weekend I had the pleasure of representing @Aster_DEX at DGFI 2026 (@dgfi_conference) in Tbilisi, Georgia! 🇬🇪 The panel was great, but some of the most interesting conversations happened offstage, especially around Aster's potential in Georgia. The event brought together people from traditional finance, regulators, fintech and Web3 to discuss the future of finance. The conference was opened by Nino Jeladze, Vice Governor of the National Bank of Georgia. Great to see this level of engagement as the country continues to develop its digital finance ecosystem. I joined the panel “Building the Infrastructure of the New Financial System” alongside Jurgen Thoelen from PactSwap Labs and Marcello Mari, moderated by David Kakauridze from Mastercard Data & Services. We had some really interesting discussions around interoperability, liquidity, market fragmentation and the future of blockchain infrastructure. We actually didn't manage to cover everything on the agenda because some of the discussions went quite deep! One thing I strongly believe is that we don't necessarily need fewer blockchains. Different networks serve different purposes and reach different communities. What matters is making sure they can work together, bringing more users and liquidity into the ecosystem while making everything easier to use. Beyond the panel, we also had some promising discussions with local partners about potential collaborations and expanding Aster's presence in Georgia. I see a lot of opportunity here, particularly in bringing traditional finance and Web3 closer together. The possibilities for closer collaboration with Georgia's banking and fintech ecosystem are especially interesting. These are still early conversations, but I'm looking forward to building on them and seeing where they lead. 👀 Big thanks to the DGFI team, my fellow panelists and everyone I had the chance to meet in Tbilisi. Hope to be back soon! 🇬🇪