A blockchain adoption conference will convene more than 1,000 attendees and 30 industry speakers in Buenos Aires on Nov. 19 to address the gap between Web3's technological capabilities and mainstream usage. Yellow Media has joined as a media partner for AdoptionCon Buenos Aires, scheduled at HIT Polo, where participants will discuss institutional adoption barriers, consumer onboarding challenges and the infrastructure needed for stablecoins, tokenization and decentralized finance applications.
What to Know:
AdoptionCon Buenos Aires will feature 30 speakers from companies including Visa, MetaMask, Ethereum Foundation, and Celo, addressing both consumer-facing and institutional blockchain adoption The conference runs parallel to the Rayls Hackathon on Nov. 18-19, offering up to $100,000 in prizes for projects focused on AI-driven DeFi, yield-bearing vaults, and traditional finance-DeFi integration Event partners include Status Network, Brevis, Taiko, and Routescan, with media coverage from Yellow Media, crypto.news, SEED Latam, and DiarioBitcoin
The conference addresses what organizers identify as Web3's primary challenge: technological maturity without corresponding adoption rates. Institutions face regulatory uncertainty and lack credible infrastructure for capital markets. Consumers encounter complicated onboarding processes, fragmented wallet systems and transaction friction that hinders mainstream use.
Programming divides into two tracks targeting different audiences.
The Builders & Users Track covers scalable infrastructure for consumer applications, DeFi superapps, Web3 neobanks, payment rails, chain abstraction, wallet user experience and embedded DeFi tools.
The Institutional Track examines stablecoins, yield-bearing assets, institutional-grade DeFi platforms, permissioned enterprise chains, real-world asset tokenization standards, tokenized treasuries and on-chain capital markets.
The speaker roster includes Noah Levine from Visa's strategy and business development team, Francesco Andreoli serving as director of developer relations at MetaMask, and David Walsh from the Ethereum Foundation's enterprise operations. Marek Olszewski, co-founder of Celo, will participate alongside Steven Goldfelder, co-founder and CEO of Offchain Labs, and Grigore Rosu, founder and CEO of Pi Squared. Additional speakers include Mike Silagadze from ether.fi, Giacomo "Jaack" Barbieri from Routescan, Joaquin Mendes representing Taiko, and Itamar Lesuisse, CEO and co-founder of Ready.
General partners supporting the event include Status Network, described as the first natively gasless Ethereum Layer 2 network optimized for social applications and games; Brevis, a zero-knowledge proof-powered verifiable computing platform; and Ready, an on-chain banking alternative for cryptocurrency users.
Taiko brings its open-source, permissionless Ethereum-equivalent rollup technology. Routescan provides blockchain exploration tools across 59 networks. Rayls offers scalable private and public blockchain infrastructure with native compliance and quantum-safe privacy features.
Pi Squared is developing decentralized Web3 infrastructure targeting speeds exceeding 100,000 transactions per second with sub-100 millisecond finality. PEXX delivers neo-banking services specializing in stablecoin and fiat currency conversion. ProbeLab measures Web3 network protocol performance and proposes design improvements.
BR Capital operates institutional cryptocurrency trading and infrastructure, having backed Consensys, Nansen and Uniswap while building cross-chain execution systems. BOB positions itself as a Bitcoin DeFi gateway, and UR combines fiat and cryptocurrency management in a single application.
Media partners providing coverage include crypto.news, SEED Latam, DiarioBitcoin, Territorio Bitcoin, Mujeres en Crypto, Ultravioleta DAO, Yellow Media and Crypto Breakfast Club.
The conference schedule runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Argentine time, with attendees receiving authentic Argentine cuisine throughout the day. An official after-party hosted by Rayls follows the main programming, featuring live lomo and vacío carving stations, jamón service, cocktails and a guest DJ.
The concurrent Rayls Hackathon begins Nov. 18 and concludes Nov. 19, marking the inaugural public developer experience of the Rayls ecosystem.
Alex Jupiter, product lead at Rayls, said the developer community forms the heart of the platform.
"This program gives builders real influence over how sub-second Ethereum evolves — not just to use our chain, but to define what it becomes," Jupiter added.
Organizers allocated up to $100,000 in cash prizes across three categories. The first category rewards artificial intelligence applications for DeFi protocols, such as models simulating risk data and regulatory compliance for institutional requirements. The second category focuses on ERC-4626 yield-bearing vaults, including tokenized receivables backed by real-world assets. The third category accepts miscellaneous projects bridging traditional finance and DeFi, such as on-chain identity applications.
Judges evaluate projects on working prototypes built during the hackathon, problem statements, long-term vision, business models and alignment with Rayls' technical direction. Participants receive guidance from Rayls team members, advisors and technical experts throughout the development period. Final submissions require five-minute in-person pitches followed by five-minute question sessions scheduled for 3 p.m. Nov. 19 at the hackathon venue. Demonstrations must be pre-recorded.
Prize announcements follow at the Rayls Happy Hour starting at 6 p.m. in the same building. Only Buenos Aires attendees can participate; virtual participation is not permitted.
The hackathon targets smart contract developers working on latency-sensitive DeFi applications, infrastructure builders connecting traditional finance real-world assets to DeFi communities, product teams exploring millisecond-level finality capabilities, and institutions seeking compliant blockchain infrastructure for Ethereum integration. Organizers positioned the event as an opportunity for the first developer cohort to shape the Rayls platform's evolution.
Closing Thoughts
AdoptionCon Buenos Aires combines conference programming with hands-on development through the parallel Rayls Hackathon, addressing both theoretical adoption challenges and practical implementation barriers in Web3 technology. The event brings together institutional representatives, consumer application developers and infrastructure providers to examine regulatory frameworks, user experience improvements and capital market integration. Yellow Media joins crypto.news and six other outlets in providing coverage of the proceedings.