Layer One: The Avalanche Summit 2026 is coming to NYC

Welcome to Layer One: the newsletter and podcast on the intersection of crypto and the real world. Hosted by The Block's Kelvin Sparks and John Wu, President of Ava Labs, Layer One brings you inside the institutional conversations driving blockchain forward.

In our latest episode, we were joined by Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave Labs, to discuss institutional DeFi, the Aave V4 launch, and his vision for the future of onchain lending.

In this week's newsletter, we’re taking a look at the Avalanche Summit 2026 and some of the major players attending across crypto, enterprise, and traditional finance.

The Avalanche Summit is coming to NYC, with institutional and enterprise adoption at the forefront

It’s now just under six weeks until the Avalanche Summit lands in New York City. The two-day event, scheduled for September 16 and 17 at Chelsea Industrial in Manhattan, will bring together investors, builders, and business leaders from across the Avalanche ecosystem to explore how the blockchain is driving real-world commercial and financial outcomes.

Across keynote speeches, panels, workshops, and fireside chats, speakers will reflect on a year of rapid growth that has seen some of the world’s largest institutions and consumer brands deploy on the network. For attendees, it's a rare opportunity to interact directly with the individuals shaping the future of crypto.

Previous Avalanche Summits have featured extensive community-run side events and entertainment. They’ve also hosted unveilings of new ecosystem initiatives, protocol upgrades, and collaborations. While this year's announcements remain under wraps, the speaker lineup suggests institutional adoption and real-world applications will dominate the agenda.

"I've been to past Avalanche Summits and it always has a really strong atmosphere," Aave Labs founder Stani Kulechov recently told Layer One. "You have a lot of the community members but also a really strong institutional presence. And I think in New York this will compound quite a lot — it's gonna be really institution heavy." Kulechov is one of dozens of high-profile founders and executives scheduled to speak at the event, part of a broad lineup that reflects the growing convergence of traditional finance and crypto.

That TradFi focus is no coincidence. Strong institutional RWA inflows throughout the past year have placed Avalanche among the top chains for tokenized assets, with over $1.9 billion in distributed value.

With the Summit taking place, fittingly, just 20 minutes from Wall Street, this tokenization trend is expected to be one of the defining themes. Representatives from BlackRock and Franklin Templeton — whose BUIDL and BENJI funds account for a combined $665 million in RWA value on the Avalanche network — are scheduled to appear. They’ll also be joined by executives from the institutional arms of Kraken, Bitwise, Coinbase, and a host of other crypto-native companies.

However, the convergence of crypto and traditional finance is just one part of the story. The Avalanche Summit 2026 lineup also showcases how the network has expanded its reach across consumer applications, enterprise infrastructure, DeFi, and AI. Many of the firms and founders featured have also appeared on Layer One in past episodes.

Lynq CEO Jerald David will appear for a discussion on institutional payment infrastructure; Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly, will represent venture capital alongside a16z’s Christian Crowley; Kite AI CEO Chi Zhang will present on the rise of the agentic economy; and FIFA Collect CEO Francesco Abbate will discuss how Avalanche powered real-world commercial use cases during this year’s World Cup. This is just a small snapshot of the full lineup.

Almost every corner of crypto is touched by the Summit, providing a unique look at the many different paths along which the industry is evolving. For those keen to understand where blockchain is finding real traction, Avalanche’s New York homecoming is shaping up to be one of the most important events of the year.

Podcast Recap: Stani Kulechov on Aave V4, Avalanche, and why RWAs hit $100B this year

In the Headlines: The stories driving the conversation this week

• Dinari began offering its lineup of 724 tokenized stocks and ETFs to U.S. users this week, including the entire S&P 500. The tokenization platform backs each of its onchain equities 1:1, meaning they retain all the same rights as the underlying assets. Retail users can purchase Dinari’s dShares from their self-custody wallets using USDC, while institutions and fintechs can integrate these tokenized assets into their own platforms via API. The U.S. rollout is just the latest step for the tokenized asset firm, which already serves users across 85 other jurisdictions.
• Circle has named BlackRock as a founding validator for its upcoming Arc blockchain. The EVM-compatible L1, which uses USDC as its native gas token, has been in a private testnet phase since October last year. When the mainnet goes live on September 16, Mastercard, Visa, Standard Chartered, and Galaxy will also be among the 11 validators in the founding cohort. Major DeFi protocols including Aave are also expected to go live on the network at launch.
• Senate insiders have warned that Clarity Act progress is at a standstill, with just a few days left before Congress’ August recess. Debates over ethics and anti-money laundering provisions continue to stymie the bill, with analysts at TD Cowen predicting it could be as many as ten votes short of the 60 needed to progress. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan called for calm earlier this week, saying that crypto will "find a way forward" even without progress in Congress, suggesting that new SEC rules could pick up the slack.

Top of the Charts: Avalanche’s RWA composition is diverse, with fast growth in U.S. treasuries, stablecoins, and tokenized stocks

Keep up with the latest in tokenization, DeFi, and institutional adoption by subscribing to Layer One's weekly market insights.

Layer One is brought to you in collaboration with Avalanche.