Growth, Trust and Global Adoption on Display at Fastex Harmony VI Meetup

Both literally and figuratively, Dubai sits at the center of trade and commerce. The roots run deep. Dating back to the spice routes of antiquity, the region has long connected East and West and served as a global hub. Now Dubai is a flourishing environment for blockchain and Web3, making it the perfect setting for Fastex’s Harmony VI meetup. Held at the Intercontinental Ras Al Khaimah, this summit of experts, founders and CEOs underscored Fastex’s leadership, growth and focus on one crucial concept: trust.

“At the end of the day, the user wants to trust you, trust the environment,” said Vakhtang Abrahamyan, CEO of Fastex. The mission of Fastex is to onboard billions of people into Web3, and Abrahamyan explained that for this to happen, people need to trust it. “In the digital environment,” he said, “I want to make sure that my transactions or assets are safe.”

Fastex’s quest for global adoption – in a way that’s trusted, transparent and compliant with regulation – was on full display throughout Harmony VI. New partnerships in Korea, for example, bring Fastex into a thriving Web3 ecosystem. “FTN [Fasttoken] has Bahamut, which has quite good scalability,” said Dr. James (Jeon Junghweon), CEO of Estaria. “It’s faster and less expensive. It’s a very good fit for the Korean market.”

And the Korean market is booming. Dr. James shared a statistic that many in the US will find astonishing: The 24-hour trading volume of cryptocurrencies in Korea is $14 billion dollars. “Last month,” said Dr. James, “the trading volume of cryptocurrency in Korea was more than the traditional Korean stock market.”

This is one reason Fastex launched partnerships with both Estaria and iPrime. “Through the collaboration among FTN and Estaria and iPrime, we can leverage a whole cross-game financial ecosystem,” said Dr. James. “Not only gaming, but also payments and the NFT marketplace. It will be a success story.”

Another success story is in Malta. Fastex recently received in-principle approval for a Virtual Financial Assets (VFA) Category 4 license from Malta, which illustrates the project’s commitment to transparency and compliance. “Category 4 is the most onerous of the licenses that we provide under the virtual financial assets regime,” said Kenneth Farrugia, CEO of the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA). Farrugia explained that for a company like Fastex to get in-principle Category 4, “we acquired a lot of information in terms of corporate governance, in terms of risk-management, in terms of AML, in terms of financial stability and in terms of the organizational structure.” (Translation: It’s a thorough audit. And Fastex passed it.)

None of this global adoption would be possible, of course, without progress on the underlying tech itself. And that brings us to Bahamut, where updates on Fastex’s layer 1 blockchain continue at warp speed. “We have been working on the implementation of our in-house-developed consensus, which we call Proof of Stake and Activity, and it’s a new concept. No other blockchain is using this. This is really the cornerstone of Bahamut,” said Pavel Aramyan, Web3 program lead at Fastex. For nearly two years, Aramyan’s team has raced to iterate on the testnet. Now the main-net is about to be unleashed. “The time has finally come,” said Aramyan. “We’re ready to deploy it…It will be ready by the end of January.”

These themes of progress, growth and partnerships were highlighted in the panel “Unlocking Blockchain’s Potential: Strategic Leadership in Custody, Regulation and Innovation,” which included thought leaders across Web3. The panel highlighted just how quickly the space is changing, especially when it comes to regulation. “Fastex started about three years ago, and at that time, the regulation was quite theoretical,” said Abrahamyan. Since then, explained Abrahamyan, the regulators themselves have become more educated, and they now understand that Web3 “is inevitable, and the sooner that regulation comes, the better consumer rights will be protected.” This is a win for both consumers and business. The upshot, said Abrahamyan, is that “the page is turning.”

The page is turning to another corner of the Web3 world, and this could have massive implications for the space. “What do we care about in any market in the world? Liquidity,” said Gerry Afentakis, head of European and MENA sales at Zodia Custody. “And regulation is the deconstruction of the bottleneck to liquidity.” He explained that there was a limit to the capital that retail investors could or would bring. “There’s only so much liquidity that retail can and will bring in the absence of institutional validation and participation,” said Afentakis. “We’re all eagerly awaiting this influx of institutional capital, and institutions will only come when there is a level and defined playing field. That’s what regulation is.” The birth of ETFs saw the beginnings of this influx, and Afentakis predicted that the ETFs are “just the beginning of a trend that now feels irreversible. And when liquidity comes, we all win.”

And some were winners in more ways than one. At the posh outdoor gala to conclude the conference – brimming with evening gowns, dinner jackets and even a floating dancer that descended from a parachute (because why not?) – Fastex gave one lucky attendee a party gift they will not soon forget. Most events like this dole out awards like a free dinner, a gift card to a spa or maybe $100 in cash.

The gift at Fastex Harmony VI?

An actual apartment that the winner will own in Ras Al Khaimah.

Then again, given its intersection between East and West, antiquity and modernity and now the crossroads of traditional finance and Web3 innovation, a free home in Ras Al Khaimah seems just about right. (We’re counting down the days until Harmony VII. Because we need a new apartment.)

Watch the “Unlocking Blockchain's Potential” panel here, and one-on-one interviews with thought leaders from the Fastex ecosystem here.