Convergence
The conversations crypto needs to have in 2025 –– not the ones it wants to have.
Launching at DevConnect Buenos Aires 2025, marking OpenZeppelin's 10th anniversary. 21 industry leaders examining where security, privacy, institutional adoption, and interoperability converge.
The thesis
The biggest challenges in blockchain infrastructure don't exist in isolation. We're examining where critical areas intersect and depend on each other, not hosting four separate panels on disconnected topics:
- Institutions need privacy to access onchain liquidity
- Privacy only works with strong security foundations
- Interoperability expands both liquidity and attach surfaces
- Open standards ensure alignment and composability
What to expect
Industry leaders who are actually building the open standards infrastructure will tackle hard questions with honest answers.
- No platitudes, no "we're early" deflections
- Real blockers and practical timelines
- What genuinely needs to happen
Five Critical Conversations
Panels
Speakers
Recordings
Why Protocols Still Get Hacked in 2025: Is 100% Security Even Possible?
Despite a decade of security tooling, audits, and best practices, protocols continue to lose billions to exploits. This panel examines the uncomfortable truths about blockchain security, and explores whether "unhackable" crypto is actually possible, or if we need to fundamentally rethink our approach and design for inevitable failure.
Eric Zhong
Protocol Engineer at Uniswap Labs
Patrick Collins
Co-Founder & CEO at Cyfrin
Eloi Manuel
Security Lead of Linea (Consensys)
Matta
Security Knowmad at The Red Guild & SEAL
Jota Carpanelli
Head of Security Research at OpenZeppelin (Moderator)
Why Are We Still Talking About Crosschain Interoperability in 2025?
We are talking about interoperability and how to achieve seamless UX since the inception of Ethereum, and even before. Yet in 2025, we still have fragmented liquidity, sub-optimal UX, and all the issues that come from those. This panel confronts the uncomfortable question: why hasn't crosschain been solved yet? With new standards like the Open Intents Framework, ERC-7786, and more, we examine if things are actually different this time - and whether interop is even the right problem to solve.
Hart Lambur
Co-Founder at Across Protocol
Lorenzo Sicilia
Head of Technology at the Arbitrum Foundation
Josh Rudolf
Product at the Ethereum Foundation
Charles Lu
Co-Founder at Espresso Systems
Ernesto García
Lead Solidity Developer at OpenZeppelin (Moderator)
Open Source Isn't Optional: Why Crypto's Future Depends on Public Goods
From Ethereum's origins to its 10th year anniversary, open source has been foundational to blockchain’s credibility, security, and permissionless innovation. But today, venture capital, competitive pressure, and sustainability challenges are pushing projects toward closed systems. In this conversation, Vitalik Buterin and Demian Brener explore why crypto must remain radically open or risk becoming the centralized systems it was built to replace - and how we fund public goods without compromising core principles.
Vitalik Buterin
Co-Founder of Ethereum
Demian Brener
Founder & CEO at OpenZeppelin
Institutional Adoption: 2025, 2027, or 2030?
Everyone agrees institutional adoption is coming - but when? And what needs to happen between now and then? This panel brings together the teams enabling TradFi to move onchain - from stablecoin infrastructure to payment rails to enterprise platforms. No more "institutions are coming" platitudes. Honest timelines, real blockers, and what actually needs to be built or fixed for institutions to move meaningful volume onchain.
Anthony Kelani
Director, Ecosystem Growth & Strategy at Circle
Ash Nathan
Head of Strategic Projects at Chainlink Labs
Tomer Weller
Chief Product Officer at the Stellar Development Foundation
Amine Lahrichi
Head of Financial Institutions at OpenZeppelin (Moderator)
The Privacy Wars: FHE, ZK, MPC, TEEs — Who Wins or Do We Need Them All?
Public blockchains are transparent by default, but mainstream adoption demands privacy. From confidential payroll to compliant B2B payments, from private DeFi to encrypted healthcare records - the use cases are clear. But the technology landscape is fragmented: Fully Homomorphic Encryption, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, Multi-Party Computation, and Trusted Execution Environments each promise solutions. This panel maps privacy primitives to real-world applications and asks the fundamental question: what's the actual endgame for blockchain privacy?
Clément Danjou
Head of Blockchain at Zama
Dominik Schmid
Founder at Miden
N
Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation PSE
Rahul Kothari
Head of New Projects at Aztec
Jonathan Alexander
CTO at OpenZeppelin (Moderator)
Speakers
Vitalik Buterin
Co-Founder
Ethereum
Demian Brener
Founder & CEO
OpenZeppelin
Amine Lahrichi
Head of Financial Institutions
OpenZeppelin
Anthony Kelani
Director Ecosystem Growth & Strategy
Circle
Ash Nathan
Head of Strategic Projects
Chainlink Labs
Charles Lu
Co-Founder
Espresso Systems
Clément Danjou
Head of Blockchain
Zama
Dominik Schmid
Founder
Miden
Rahul Kothari
Head of New Projects
Aztec
Eloi Manuel
Security Lead
Linea (Consensys)
Ernesto García
Lead Solidity Developer
OpenZeppelin
Eric Zhong
Protocol Engineer
Uniswap Labs
Hart Lambur
Co-Founder
Across Protocol
Jonathan Alexander
CTO
OpenZeppelin
Josh Rudolf
Product
PSE/Ethereum Foundation
Jota Carpanelli
Head of Security Research
OpenZeppelin
Lorenzo Sicilia
Head of Technology
Arbitrum Foundation
Matta
Security Knowmad
The Red Guild & SEAL
N
Researcher
PSE/Ethereum Foundation
Patrick Collins
Co-Founder & CEO
Cyfrin
Tomer Weller
Chief Product Officer
Stellar Development Foundation
Recap '25
Convergence
By OpenZeppelin
Connect with industry leaders, explore critical blockchain challenges, and be part of the conversation shaping the future of decentralized infrastructure.