Sovereign Day 2025 Recap: Exploring Enterprise Adoption of Blockchain
Sovereign Day brought together policymakers, banks, enterprises, and crypto-native builders to explore the intersection of enterprise blockchain use cases and the demand for sovereign infrastructure. Watch the event stream here:
Across a full day of talks and panels, from Japan’s megabanks to LATAM regulators, from the UN to McKinsey, from Injective to PayPal, one message was unmistakable: the world is coming on-chain, and the next stage of adoption will be led by enterprises, banks, and governments.
Below is a full talk-by-talk recap highlighting some key discussions that occurred during the event.
Opening Keynote: Maghnus Mareneck (Co-CEO, Cosmos Labs)
In his first Sovereign Day keynote, Maghnus opened the conference with a framing that set the tone for the remainder of the talks and panels:
“Institutions and governments are building L1’s. They’re not building layer 2s and they’re not building smart contracts.”
He outlined how purpose-built L1s operated by nations, banks, and institutional consortiums are already being deployed across Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Europe. These sovereign chains support:
- National digital currencies
- Cross-border payments
- Interbank settlement
- Compliant stablecoin issuance
- Programmable regulatory frameworks
The Cosmos SDK is already seeing strong enterprise demand as the longest-lived institutional blockchain stack, with IBC as the essential infrastructure enabling these systems to interoperate like the early internet.
Panel: How Banks and Enterprises Adopt Web3
This Spanish-speaking panel, moderated by Nicolás Poggi (CMO, Cosmos Labs) brought together veterans from Argentina’s banking and fintech sectors including Juan Ignacio Podestá (CBO, LatamXO), Santiago Lacasia (Aconcagua Finance), César Matienzo (ex–CTO Banco Galicia & Mariva), Andrés Kim (Tether) to examine why institutional adoption of blockchain is accelerating now, after years of hesitation.
The group pointed to a shared turning point: technology was never the bottleneck, regulation and trust were.
Over the past year, three major shifts have changed institutional behavior:
- Regulatory clarity (e.g., the U.S. “Genius Act”) has transformed blockchain from a perceived risk into a compliant innovation zone.
- Cultural pressure from younger users, who already hold stablecoins and expect banks to support them, is pushing institutions forward.
- The normalization of stablecoins, particularly USDT in Latin America, has made digital dollars the first real bridge between banks and blockchain.
As Santiago Lacasia put it, the real change is psychological: “We’re finally leaving the fear of past failures behind.” The takeaway: institutional adoption is unfolding now, led by stablecoins, regulatory clarity, and real economic need.
Panel: RWAs & Stablecoins That Succeed in the Market
This panel, moderated by Candelaria Font at R3al Blocks and featuring Katie Wheeler of Ondo Finance, Mauro Pascuccio at Ardua, and Mateo Moragues from Twin, discussed how RWAs and stablecoins are the first institutional-scale product-market fit for blockchain.
RWAs are finding product market fit with enterprises and governments in the form of treasury-backed tokens (Ondo), LATAM remittance-optimized stablecoin flows (Twin), and novel Institutional onboarding pipelines (RealBlocks). The panel clarified that Institutions are not adopting blockchain rails for yield farming or NFTs, they’re looking for:
- Better settlement
- Better FX
- Better payment rails
- Better liquidity
Ondo’s Katie Wheeler highlighted how stablecoins are leading the way as the first RWA product to be adopted at scale by institutions, saying “stablecoins aren’t a new type of crypto they’re a better version of money.”
Keynote: Jacob Phillips (CEO, Lombard Finance)
Phillips argued that Bitcoin’s next chapter is not simply digital gold, but rather institutional liquidity. LBTC, Lombard’s fully backed representation of Bitcoin, and BTC.b, a multichain BTC deployment recently acquired from Avalanche, are becoming deeply integrated into L1 ecosystems like Cosmos and Hyperliquid, enabling:
- On-chain trading
- Collateralization
- High-quality liquidity
- Non-custodial settlement
Phillips emphasized that institutions increasingly want exposure to Bitcoin without the operational overhead, and LBTC meets that need. “Bitcoin can be sound money, but it can also be productive capital.”
Keynote: Michael Kirchner (Associate Partner, McKinsey)
McKinsey’s Michael Kirchner came to Sovereign Day armed with data supporting the top institutional use cases for blockchain today. McKinsey’s surveys show stablecoins are the top entry point for financial institutions, driven by faster cross-border settlement, lower operational costs, and 24/7 availability.
According to Kirchner, the top 3 priorities over the next 12 months for enterprises entering the blockchain space are:
- Real-time B2B Payments
- Better cross-border settlement
- Digital wallets
Despite feeling relative clarity on the overall direction for the next 12 months, readiness remains low. Most financial institutions scored themselves 1 out of 5 in preparedness for digital-asset initiatives in McKinsey’s surveys, underscoring the strong need for better digital asset education amongst enterprises.
Panel: Data, Risk & Legal: Making Compliance in Web3 Simple
Another Spanish-speaking panel, moderated by Juan Manuel Campos (Partner,SYLS) brought together three of Argentina’s top compliance leaders including Delfina Calabró, (Regional Legal Manager, Pomelo) Lucrecia Caride, (Corporate Lead, Ripio), Magdalena Maia, (Regulatory & Legal Risk, Lemon) to unpack the operational forces shaping Web3 adoption in Latin America: regulation, fragmentation, and legal risk.
Across Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and beyond, the regulatory landscape for digital assets remains deeply uneven. As Pomelo’s Delfina Calabró noted, “What works in one country can be outright prohibited in another.”
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LatAm’s regulatory fragmentation requires “compliance-first” design. Fintechs and crypto companies must build infrastructure that adapts to drastically different rules on payments, data privacy, and licensing. Pomelo approaches this by treating regulation as its product roadmap, not an afterthought.
Panel: Government & Regulator Playbooks: From LatAm to the World
This panel highlighted the gap between blockchain teams and policymakers in emerging markets. The core insight that emerged during the panel: regulation is not a technology problem, it’s a literacy problem.
Examples of regulator illiteracy that were discussed included:
- Government officials misunderstanding wallet custody
- Regulators assuming blockchain transactions are less traceable
- Fragmented stablecoin and payments frameworks across provinces and ministries
One panelist shared an anecdote about Argentine officials linking crypto to drug cartels, without realizing blockchain transactions are fully auditable and more traceable than cash:
“They thought crypto made crimes invisible. It’s the opposite.”
Panel: Mythbusting Blockchain for Institutions
This panel brought together a diverse group of voices to discuss common myths around institutional blockchain adoption: Interchain Foundation (Josh Cincinnati), Globant (Martín Deos), PayPal (Nick Mauro.), UNDP (Lorena Moskovich), EEA (Redwan Meslem.), Nicolas Pechersky (Camara Fintech)
What emerged was a frank assessment of what institutions actually need from blockchain, and what raises concerns or causes misconceptions:
- Institutions are focusing on the benefits over the technology: Martin Deos noted that enterprise adoption hinges on lower costs, regulatory alignment, and faster settlement.
- Regulators still lack foundational understanding: Panelists described repeatedly having to explain basics like wallet custody and blockchain traceability.
- Privacy is the new frontier. PayPal highlighted that institutions need traceability for compliance, but privacy for operations.
Keynote: Markus Waas (Core Engineer Lead, Injective Labs)
Injective Labs’ Markus Waas outlined how purpose-built financial infrastructure is finally meeting institutional requirements for tokenization. Institutions are demanding rails designed for enterprise-grade financial instruments.
Waas walked through Injective’s design philosophy as “the first blockchain built specifically for finance,” emphasizing performance, compliance, and interoperability. Injective is built with these needs in mind, supporting:
- Native financial primitives, including an on-chain orderbook
- Permissioned token standards with customizable compliance rules
- Dual-liquidity models enabling both permissioned and public markets
- IBC connectivity to 100+ chains for global asset movement
These features support tokenization at institutional scale, especially for commodities, treasuries, FX, and structured financial products.
Keynote: Andy Hung (Head of Alliance, Pacific Meta)
Pacific Meta’s Andy Hung explained how Japan is quietly becoming the world’s most advanced regulatory environment for blockchain and why that structure is now accelerating institutional adoption. Hung’s talk painted a picture of a country that has chosen a counterintuitive strategy: move slowly, regulate early, and win trust first.
That strategy is now paying off. Japan’s strict, early regulatory framework is now its superpower. After the collapse of Mt. Gox in 2014, Japan became the first major country to build a full regulatory regime for crypto exchanges and custody. As Hung put it: “When FTX collapsed globally, Japanese users didn’t lose access to a single yen.”
Hung also highlighted a milestone that many outside the region missed: Japan approved its first fully regulated yen-backed stablecoin this year, the first G7 nation to do so. This has jump-started licensed stablecoin issuance, among other large-scale pilots.
Because of this approach, Mega-banks (MUFG, SMBC, Mizuho), telcos, manufacturers, and entertainment giants are all comfortable building Web3 strategies. As Hung shared: “Japan won’t win Web3 by being fast. It will win by being trusted.”
Keynote: Motoki Yoshida (Head of Marketing, Toki Finance)
Toki Finance’s Motoki Yoshida built on Andy Hung’s talk by focusing on the role of interoperability in Japan. As he put it: IBC is no longer experimental for Japan’s financial sector, “it is becoming essential infrastructure.”
Drawing from years of collaboration with Japan’s largest banks and regulators, Yoshida explained why major financial institutions are turning to IBC to replace fragmented, vendor-controlled cross-chain systems with sovereign, audit-ready infrastructure.
These systems are being built across multiple blockchains, which makes a secure and fast interoperability solution table stakes. As a result, Japan’s biggest financial institutions are choosing IBC for real production use cases. Yoshida highlighted three marquee initiatives:
- Project Pax: A global first. SWIFT infrastructure combined with IBC for bank-to-bank settlement.
- Project Trinity: SMBC-led DvP settlement for security tokens + stablecoins, enabled by IBC-native atomic swaps, designed for regulated financial markets.
- Progmat’s national stablecoin platform: Backed by MUFG, SMBC, Mizuho, with IBC as its core interoperability layer, functioning like a more secure, sovereign version of CCTP.
These are some of the largest institutional blockchain pilots happening anywhere in the world.
Fireside Chat: Ferran Prat & Mariana Kotik
The fireside chat between Mariana Kotik, Chief Commercial Officer at Lnet, and Ferran Prat, CEO of Peersyst, centered on the rise of national digital currency networks built on sovereign blockchains.
CBDCs are no longer a matter of theory; countries are actively piloting them now, and they’re piloting them on Cosmos chains. Sovereign blockchains give governments the control they lack on public networks.National digital currencies require:
- Predictable governance
- Regulatory control
- National data sovereignty
- State-level auditability
These requirements necessitate a sovereign chain. As Ferran Prat summarized: “You can’t run a country’s monetary system on infrastructure you don’t control.” This highlights a key differentiation between Cosmos and other enterprise blockchain architectures: sovereignty is becoming the primary design requirement for national digital infrastructure.
Closing Keynote: Maghnus Mareneck (Co-CEO, Cosmos Labs)
Maghnus closed Sovereign Day with the overarching thesis that tied the entire event together: Blockchain’s next phase of growth will not be defined by crypto apps, but rather by sovereign, interconnected financial systems.
Throughout the day, panels highlighted the rise of national stablecoins, regulated tokenization systems, banking pilots, and cross-border payments. The closing keynote connected these threads:
- Countries want digital currencies they can control
- Banks want settlement rails that are programmable
- Institutions want infrastructure that is neutral and sovereign
- Interoperability must be standardized and guaranteed
Cosmos is uniquely constructed to serve all of these needs. Maghnus described how Cosmos Labs is already building fully sovereign financial networks and CBDCs in Latin America intended to run domestic settlement, FX infrastructure, interbank operations, and national identity layers.
Each chain is independent, complies with local regulations, and is optimized for the country’s financial system, unlike L2s or monolithic global chains.
To close the event, Mareneck looked to the future of Cosmos, stating: “We’re building the financial operating system of the world.”
