Solana Accelerate APAC in Hong Kong on February 11, 2026 showcased a clear shift toward traditional finance infrastructure, with talks emphasizing payments, tokenization, and the systems needed to onboard institutions. Discussions ranged from SOL staking ETFs and digital asset trusts to stablecoin rails, tokenized securities, and regulated exchange-traded products, featuring asset managers such as Mirae Asset and ChinaAMC alongside infrastructure players like CME Group, Fireblocks, and Cumberland. Speakers stressed real-world adoption over hype and focused on the practical plumbing that enables 24/7 internet capital markets.
The event highlighted growing overlaps between blockchain settlement layers and AI-driven applications, reinforcing Solana’s speed and scalability. The mood in Hong Kong was resolute: build, even amid a market downturn, with questions about how stablecoins work at scale, how to onboard institutions without breaking compliance, and what metrics actually matter when selling on-chain rails to asset managers and banks. Panels also probed how to make wallets feel less like science projects and how to develop tokenization infrastructure that can survive a regulator’s first serious audit.
Consensus Hong Kong 2026 featured the EasyA x Consensus hackathon, where nearly 1,000 developers shifted focus from back-end infrastructure to user-facing applications, underscoring the industry’s push toward the “Year of the Application Layer.” Winning projects like FoundrAI, SentinelFi, and PumpStop demonstrated automation, security, and non-custodial, risk-focused trading layers driven by AI-powered solutions. The hackathon’s prominence on the main show floor and the emphasis on seamless UX and passkey logins reflected a broader drive to attract retail users despite a weak macro environment. AI-powered agents dominated the event.
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