Buenos Aires has a distinctly different frequency. It is a city where European grandeur clashes with Latin American intensity, a place where economic theory is not an abstract concept discussed in ivory towers, but a visceral and daily battle for survival. It is therefore no coincidence that this metropolis was chosen to host Devconnect 2025. The backdrop of Argentina – a country synonymous with both monetary volatility and grassroots crypto adoption – has provided the perfect stage for a sector that is finally maturing.
If the previous years of the crypto cycle were defined by noise, spectacle, and the dazzling lights of speculative mania, almost like a Las Vegas casino floor plan, Buenos Aires offered a stark and sober contrast. In the air, there was no scent of “easy money” and substance-less projects; instead, there was the aroma of strong coffee and serious engineering. Here the narrative has changed. We are no longer building toys for bored rich people: we are building infrastructure for a world that is crumbling.
To navigate this profound change, we have gathered insights from key industry figures: Arthur Firstov (CBO of Mercuryo), who focused on the privacy mandate; Vivien Lin (CPO of BingX), who detailed the integration of AI in trading ecosystems; and Ivan Machena (CCO of 8lends), who offered a crucial assessment of the adoption landscape for layer-2 solutions.
From our extensive private discussions with these leaders, a clear picture emerges. We are entering a new era. This is the story of how privacy has become a mandate, of how Artificial Intelligence demands more space in the world of finance, and of how global diversity has finally broken the myth of the “archetypical user.”
The privacy mandate, from mere functionality to foundation
The most powerful message from Buenos Aires was not conveyed through fireworks or celebrity sponsorships. It was whispered into the dense fabric of technical workshops and crowded hacker houses. The message is simple: transparency is a feature, but total exposure is a flaw.
In Bangkok, at previous meetings, privacy was just a “track,” a side room frequented by cypherpunks and idealists. In Buenos Aires, it became the main event. The industry collectively understood that without privacy there will be no mass adoption, only mass surveillance.
Arthur Firstov, Chief Business Officer of Mercuryo, perfectly synthesized this paradigm shift. Reflecting on the main research areas of the event, Firstov noted a clear change in climate.
“Privacy has been the central theme,” says Firstov, before continuing:
“Compared to Bangkok, where privacy was just one of the most important tracks, Buenos Aires brought it to the main stage.”
His observation coincides with a sentiment that has permeated every space of the conference. A phrase began circulating among co-working spaces and classrooms: it has become the unofficial motto of Devconnect 2025:
“If your wallet does not preserve privacy by definition, it is already obsolete.”
This is not a technological fad, but a response to an increasingly transparent world, where financial data is used as a weapon. Firstov emphasizes that the line has been drawn from above, with Vitalik Buterin offering a “full tour of his personal privacy stack, from the operating system to mobile devices to private RPCs.”
But the real evolution lies in how this technology is now being presented. It is no longer about command-line interfaces for a few experts, but about invisibility.
Firstov explains:
“Builders have focused on stealth addresses, new smart AA [Account Abstraction] schemes, selective disclosure, and ‘on creating better defaults, so that users aren’t even aware of how much complexity is being managed under the hood.’”
This “invisibility” is the holy grail. The user does not want to understand what a zero-knowledge proof is; they just want to know that their account balance is not public knowledge.
Alongside this push for privacy, Firstov has also identified a pragmatic evolution in DeFi: the rise of “pre-approvals for instant payments in stablecoins” and new yield solutions that offer “simple, money-market-style experiences without going to the extreme of degen.” The sector is moving away from Ponzi schemes with 10,000% APY towards boring, reliable, and private finance.
The ‘black box’ controversy, who can we trust?
Yet, no revolution is without internal fractures. While the consensus on the need for privacy was total, the means to achieve it ignited the most heated technical debates of the week. The epicenter was the recourse to Trusted Execution Environments (TEE), secure hardware enclaves.
Does the future of privacy lie in cryptographic math or in silicon chip manufacturing?
Firstov defines this division as the “most surprising or controversial technical debate” of the event. On one side were the pragmatists. He observes:
“One faction argued that TEEs are ‘practically essential for high-throughput private computation and low latency,’ especially for private settlement, derivatives strategies, and agent-based execution.”
The argument is compelling: if we want to reach Wall Street speeds in blockchain, mere math might be too slow. Hardware acceleration is needed.
But the opposition has been loud, consistent, and deeply skeptical. Firstov reports their warning: “If the trust model becomes ‘trust this black-box server in a data center,’ then crypto isn’t improving much over traditional finance.”
If we only replace a bank's server with Intel's SGX enclave, have we really decentralized anything?
From this arises a meta-question that remains unanswered, which will likely define research priorities for the rest of the decade:
“How far are we willing to run global stablecoin and payment infrastructures on opaque hardware… and what does it really mean to be ‘sufficiently trust-minimized’ in this context?”
The rise of machines, AI as the new architect of finance
As cryptographers clashed over the issue of trust in hardware, another giant was quietly inserting itself into the crypto stack: Artificial Intelligence. Devconnect 2025 was not just a ledger appointment, but about the inevitable conjunction between decentralized databases and autonomous brains.
Vivien Lin, Chief Product Officer and head of BingX Labs, brought the direct perspective from the trenches of CEXs, which are rapidly evolving into something much more complex. For her, the main theme was undeniable.
Lin states:
“The main theme for me has been the integration of AI into exchange infrastructures and the awareness that exchanges are evolving into true financial ecosystems, not just trading applications.”
She describes a future where AI acts as the connective tissue of finance.
“Builders were focused on how AI can unify trading, custody, payments, risk management, and user intelligence within a single ‘super app’ experience.”
However, just like in the TEE debate in the privacy sector, the integration of AI also brings its own security paradox. How can one trust an AI with a lifetime of savings? Lin notes a strong push towards “secure and verifiable systems, including privacy-preserving computation and on-chain proofs, which ensure that AI-driven functionalities do not compromise data or user fund security.”
The goal is to create ecosystems that are “both smart and deeply secure, offering users more automation and context without sacrificing trust.” But the point of greatest friction, according to Lin, was not capacity, but autonomy.
“The biggest point of friction was how much autonomy AI agents should have in trading environments,” Lin explains. The debate divided attendees.
Adds:
“Some developers argued that agents should manage liquidity, rebalance portfolios, or place orders without human supervision. Others warned that giving AI unlimited access to execution layers could create systemic risks.”
The central question touches on the true nature of human agency in markets: “Should AI be a co-pilot for traders or a fully autonomous participant in market structures?” In Buenos Aires, consensus seemed to shift towards autonomy, as long as the rails of cryptography are solid enough to support it.
Geography is destiny, lessons from the Global South
Perhaps the most transformative aspect of Devconnect 2025 was the location. Hosting the event in Argentina forced the global developer community to “get a feel” for reality. While Silicon Valley developers obsess over optimizing code to save milliseconds, the people of Buenos Aires are concerned with preserving the value of their work against inflation.
Arthur Firstov observed how this radical diversity has shifted the conversation from theoretical scalability to survival tools. “Devconnect has brought radically different user priorities into the same room,” he says.
“Latin American teams have highlighted everyday use cases such as ‘wallets on cheap smartphones’ and rents or salaries paid in stablecoin,” notes Firstov, adding:
“Confront this with the Asian and American infrastructure teams, who have remained focused on ‘perpetual futures, routing, MEV, and latency.’”
This clash of worlds has imposed a synthesis. The dialogue has shifted from sterile talk about “Transactions Per Second” (TPS) towards user experience and practical application. Firstov lists the questions that now truly matter:
“How can smart wallets hide complexity so that users feel like they are using a regular fintech app? How do we support both ‘high-frequency trading flows and monthly salary payments’ without compromising trust or security?”
The most important finding? “There is no single archetypical user in crypto.”
Vivien Lin echoes this sentiment, emphasizing how the Argentine presence has grounded abstract technical debates.
“The diversity of developers, particularly the strong Argentine representation, has shifted the discussion towards the real challenges of on-the-ground adoption, not just theoretical scalability.”
Argentine builders did not want to talk about the philosophy of money; they wanted to solve immediate problems.
Lin explains in detail:
“Argentine builders raised issues such as inflation, capital controls, and the need for rapid and reliable settlement systems that work in volatile economies.”
This has broadened the idea of what an exchange should be, pushing towards “AI-powered ecosystems that address both local constraints and broader challenges such as regulatory fragmentation, cross-border liquidity, and mobile-first onboarding.”
What is really being built? Infrastructure beyond the hype
Putting aside philosophy and geography, the question is: where are builders actually deploying code?
Ivan Machena, Chief Communication Officer of 8lends, provides a realistic overview of the current landscape. The era of “ghost chains,” blockchains with high valuations but no users, is ending. The focus now is on ecosystems that support real products.
“Looking at the broader discussions taking place around Devconnect,” observes Machena, “various layer-2 and application-layer projects continue to attract strong interest from builders.”
On the consumer side, Machena highlights Base. It is often cited for its “rapid growth and smooth onboarding infrastructure,” effectively becoming the gateway for retail users. In the DeFi segment, Arbitrum maintains its position as “the preferred choice due to a mature ecosystem and composability,” while Polygon remains a standard for teams seeking equilibrium.
However, Machena notes a migration towards technically superior solutions.
“There is also growing attention towards zk-based solutions like zkSync and StarkNet, especially from teams developing more technical products or with a long-term horizon. The trend is clear: discussions at Devconnect point towards L2s that already support real products, not just experimental concepts.”
Arthur Firstov adds another layer to this adoption map, pointing to the sectors of privacy and “agent-native.” He mentions Aztec as an object of “serious interest as an environment where privacy comes first, where products can be ‘private by default, selectively transparent when necessary.’”
Crucially, Firstov emphasizes Privacy Pools as the bridge between cypherpunk ethics and institutional reality. It has emerged as a “compliance-aware solution… a ‘practical response to what privacy means when regulators and large capital need to feel comfortable with it.’”
Moreover, the physical world is also coming on-chain. Firstov notes the trend of teams building storage and computing services in DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) style, paid in stablecoin, “with the aim of making crypto look like traditional cloud APIs.”
Outlook 2026, from casino to cathedral
As the participants of Devconnect 2025 disperse from Buenos Aires, returning to their respective corners of the world, the atmosphere is undoubtedly different. The industry is maturing. The cultural ethos of the event – small, technical, community-driven sessions instead of huge marketing spectacles – is shaping the narrative for the coming year.
Arthur Firstov predicts a fundamental shift in how we tell the story of crypto:
“Expect the narratives of 2026 to reflect this shift: ‘infrastructure story instead of casino story,’ ‘stablecoins as the front end of crypto’ and privacy as a minimum requirement.”
This is a vision of a world where crypto stops being synonymous with gambling and becomes the invisible and solid infrastructure of global finance. The questions are no longer about token prices. As Firstov observes, the growing question is: “What integrations between Web2 and Web3 will actually be launched and truly make a difference for real users?”
Even Vivien Lin agrees, seeing the future in interconnected ecosystems rather than walled gardens.
“It has reinforced the idea that the future of crypto trading will be primarily ecosystem-based. This vision is pushing the industry towards interoperable trading ecosystems powered by artificial intelligence, where liquidity, identity, execution, and strategy automation become increasingly integrated as we enter 2026.”
Buenos Aires has been a stress test for the soul of crypto. The industry has passed the test, not offering easy answers, but finally asking the right and difficult questions. We start again with fewer illusions, but with better tools. The “casino story” is over; the “infrastructure story” has begun. And for the first time in a long time, it really feels like we are building something that will last.
