IEEE Canada Blockchain Forum 2026 (4th edition)

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The IEEE Blockchain Forum is returning for the fourth time as part of Toronto Tech Week. The goal of this compact one-day event is to congregate BUIDLers, researchers, academics, and engineers building blockchain protocols, infrastructure, and decentralized software applications.

Expect deep thought leadership, executive talks and panels, and academic presentations. We're talking about long-term engineering trends and innovation. You won't find marketing narratives, token launches, or promotions.

Note: The 2025 edition of the forum counted with 200 participants and speakers from JP Morgan, the Bank of Canada, Mastercard, the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, EY, Starknet, among others. 

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First wave of speaker announcement

Room 1: Seminar Room - for the Thought Leaders

On the wake of Bill C-15 and the rapid digitisation of Canada's financial system, Canadian innovation leaders will give us a glimpse of what's to come this year and next.

9 am – Registration

9:30 am - Welcome and introduction - Conference Chair Marc Lijour, Secretary of the IEEE Blockchain Technical Community

9:40 am - Opening Keynote by Alex McDougall, CEO of The FUTR Corporation: The Missing Layer: Why Agentic Commerce Needs a Consumer Data Protocol

10 am - Short Keynote by Sheereen Khan, Founder and CEO of Regulativity: An update on the Canadian regulatory landscape

10:10 am - Panel #1 - Stablecoins: A New Era of Payments in Canada

• Felipe Priuli, Program Director for CAD Digital (CADD) 
• Kesem Frank, CEO of Canada Stablecorp (QCAD)
• Kevin Zhang, Founder and CEO of LOON 

11 am - Short Keynote by Hilary Carter, SVP Research at The Linux Foundation: What's the Role of Open Source for Canadian Sovereignty?

11:10 am - Panel #2 - Sovereignty by Design 

• Ali Abou Daya, CEO of Transactix Financial Inc.
• Thomas You, Associate Partner at Maverix Private Equity
• Gaëlle Martin-Cocher, IEEE Canada

=== NOON: LUNCH BREAK (food will be served in the Boardroom) ===

1 pm - Short Keynote by Christopher Chen, Head of InvestHK Canada: Opportunities within the Hong Kong Fintech/Web3 eco-system

1:10 pm - Panel #3 - How does Canada compete on the global stage?

• Rajeev Bamra, Global Head of Strategy, Digital Economy at Moody's Ratings
• Stuart Davis, President of Surpass Insights Inc.
• Torstein Braaten, Chief Compliance at Stablecorp

2 pm - Short Keynote by Bernice Cheung, VP, Financial Services & Cultural Markets Research at Environics Research Group: The State of FinTech Adoption and the rise of Self-Driving Money

2:10 pm - Panel #4 - Gaining Momentum from Innovation to Adoption

• Nisrine, Innovation Lead at Interac
• Eric Richmond, General Counsel & Head of Business Development at Shakepay
• Adam Cai, CEO at Virgo Group

== SNACK BREAK ==

3:30 pm - Short Keynote by Eyal Sivan, Principal Consultant / Podcast Host at Mr. Open Banking: Open Banking and AI - A Perfect Match

3:40 pm - Panel #5 - The New Frontier of Trust in Agentic AI & Blockchain

• Michelle Beyo, CEO of FINAVATOR
• Carlos Andres Delgado, Fintech, AI & Banking Expert
• Diana Oreto, Blockchain & Digital Assets Expert

4:30 pm - Neworking

 

Room 2: Main Theatre - for The Engineers

Building the next generation of payments and Agentic AI

Anil Nadiminti - When AI Agents Pay: Building x402 Apps for Agentic AI on AWS

James Holler - Compliance by Design: Why Blockchain Systems Must Integrate Regulatory Frameworks from Day One

Ken Timsit - Agentic Commerce and Payments

Lawrence Ley - Agentic AI & Blockchain: The Autonomous Future of Decentralized Intelligence

Rayan Sekhraoui - Sovereign Infrastructure for Web3 — Why Decentralized Apps Need Independent Cloud

Simon Kubbinga - Solana, Superteam, and Agentic Commerce

Vikas Malhotra - Building safer environments with control, decentralization and distribution

=== 12:30 pm LUNCH BREAK (food will be served in the Boardroom) ===

Academic Talks

Federico Gatta - Deviations from Tradition: Stylized Facts in the Era of DeFi

Ignacy Nieweglowski - PoliFi Tokens and the Trump Effect

Dr. Jia Kan -  Stop Building Faster Chains: Start Building Blockchain Operating Systems

Dr. Marina Flat - AI Governance in Distributed Ecosystems: Accountability by Design

Ngozi Nora Agwu - Beyond Hype: Governance Barriers to Blockchain-Enabled Infrastructure

Revanth Reddy Airre - From Reasoning to Settlement: A Five-Layer Architecture for Agent Payments on the Decentralized Network 

Srisht Fateh Singh - Modeling Loss-Versus-Rebalancing in Automated Market Makers via Continuous-Installment Options

Emerging Ventures

Shashank Motepalli, Founder of Ekai Labs: Auditable Context Handoff in the Agent-to-Agent Economy

Tity Lyngdoh, Founder of Dolphinze: From Global Workforce to Global Payment Rails: Rebuilding Contractor Payments Infrastructure 

Vedant Harlalka, CEO and Co-Founder of Auditorium AI: Building Early Stage Startups in Canada - Blockchain, Data and Crypto

 

More speakers to be announced soon. Stay tuned!

Many thanks to our sponsors: the Government of Ontario (sponsoring the location), as well as

 Invest Hong Kong (Canada), Moody's Ratings, Compass360 Consulting and Tetra Digital Group!

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IEEE is the largest tech non-profit organisation in the world with 500,000 members in 190 countries. The IEEE Blockchain Technical Community counts with 15,000 members and 80+ local groups on every continent. Our community of academics, engineers, and industry leaders is organising events, publishing tech briefs (and a journal soon!), and advancing the applications of blockchain for the benefit of humanity.

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