Cointelegraph’s CONNECT event in Seoul brought together bankers, asset managers and crypto veterans to talk about the future of money. The panels ranged from traditional finance’s shift onto blockchains to stablecoins and corporate crypto treasuries.
Hayes on China and Europe
Arthur Hayes opened the conversation with a warning about central banks printing money. He said China may shift from what he called an “austerity lite” policy to substantial monetary stimulus, which he predicted could revive demand for scarce assets. In Europe, he pointed to financial stress in France, tracking credit-default swaps tied to BNP Paribas and French government bond spreads.
He expressed his position without beating around the bush: “I think the money printing will essentially happen at some point, but that’s sort of a slow motion train wreck happening underneath the surface.”
Banks vs. New Companies
Catrina Wang, a general partner at Portal Ventures, made the case that traditional financial institutions hold an edge over newer crypto firms. She pointed to tech analyst Ben Thompson’s aggregation theory to argue that whoever owns the customer relationship ends up owning the economics.
Todd McDonald, who co-founded R3, concurred that public blockchains allow financial firms to access customers beyond their own networks. The company initially constructed its business around private financial networks using its Corda platform. Then, in May 2025, it announced a partnership to link institutions and their assets to Solana’s public chain.
Middlemen Keep Getting Hired
Justin Kugel, executive vice president of growth at World Liberty Financial, noted that crypto’s original promise — cutting out middlemen — keeps failing. “Maybe there’s a reason why there are so many middlemen in TradFi,” he said.
He noted that many users would rather leave management of their assets and assessment of every investment to others than handle it themselves. Instead, they prefer the feeling of security that centralized exchanges provide.
Franklin Templeton’s Token Plan
Franklin Templeton’s Chetan Karkhanis, who serves as senior vice president of digital asset client engagement, says the firm is not planning to launch its own stablecoin. He argues that tokenized money market funds should be used instead, pairing investment income with payment tokens.
“Let us be the yield layer,” he said.
Fiat currency is what Franklin Templeton’s fund subscriptions and redemptions usually need, though a few conversions tied to stablecoins are already possible. In June, the firm said it had formed an arrangement with MoonPay, which permits qualified institutional investors to switch between approved stablecoins and its tokenized money market funds via onchain moves.
Trade Routes and Treasury Cash
Codex’s co-founder and CEO, Haonan Li, has pointed to a rise in demand for stablecoin payments along the trade routes linking Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa with Asia. He described the flow: buyers send money to cover purchases of manufactured goods heading in the opposite direction.
“The manufactured goods flow from east to west and funds flow from west to east,” Li said.
According to Ilya Podoynitsyn, co-founder and CEO of FinHarbor, a partner of CONNECT, businesses require funds they can dedicate over an extended period without disturbing daily operations. “If you don’t have that excess liquidity for doing that, you need to think very carefully before entering the market,” he explained.
The warning was issued over copying another company’s strategy without factoring in differences between balance sheets, liquidity needs and risk tolerance. He pointed out that even seasoned finance teams can fall short when it comes to onchain liquidity and transaction approvals.
Buying Back Shares or Buying Crypto
The discussion centered on what a listed treasury company with extra money should do with it: buy more crypto or buy back its own stock when it trades below net asset value. Michael Camarda, who runs development for SharpLink, an Ethereum treasury company, argued that either path adds to ETH holdings.
Camarda explained that using cash to repurchase shares spreads existing Ether holdings across fewer shares, while buying more Ether increases the company’s holdings. He said SharpLink’s institutional investors focused on ETH holdings per share, making buybacks better suited to them, while retail investors were drawn to announcements of large Ether purchases.
“They love headlines. They love numbers,” Camarda said of retail investors.
Camarda said SharpLink purchased both Ether and its own shares in order to win over two distinct groups of investors.
Key Facts Box
- Event: Cointelegraph CONNECT in Seoul
- Date: Panels covered recent developments
- Stablecoin partnership: Franklin Templeton with MoonPay, June
- Corda-Solana collaboration: Announced May 2025
- Speaker: Arthur Hayes
What stands out from Seoul is that the established players in finance are not being left behind as the industry moves toward a more decentralized approach. Instead, they are adapting by learning how to use the new tools and methods themselves.
Source material: “CONNECT recap: Arthur Hayes on money printing, Wall Street moves onchain,” Cointelegraph.
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