THE BRIDGE SUMMIT
The Bridge Summit was a single-day digital-asset conference held on Monday, September 28, 2026, at Josun Palace, A Luxury Collection Hotel, in the Gangnam district of Seoul, South Korea.[1] Presented by the Korean broadcaster TV Chosun and the Seoul-based Web3 firm Bridge34 and co-hosted with the Silicon Valley venture fund Hack VC as main partner, the summit was positioned as the forum that opened Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) 2026, convening global Web3 projects, financial institutions, media, regulators and Korean retail investors under one roof to discuss digital assets, artificial intelligence (AI) and tokenized finance.[2][3]
The program ran from 09:00 to 17:45 and comprised 23 sessions and 40 speakers spread across keynotes, special talks, solo sessions, fireside chats and roundtables.[2] The organizers described the event as an invitation-based premium conference curated for depth of participation rather than scale, with mainstream attendee categories that included media, institutions and "$1B+ Web3."[2]
Concept and Format
The Bridge Summit was built around a deliberate contrast with the closed-door format common to institutional finance events. The organizers stated that most such gatherings place funds, banks, listed companies and regulators in private rooms separated from the wider market, and that the summit instead placed the institutional stage in the same building as the people who trade, build and shape market sentiment.[2] The event was explicitly described as neither a side event nor a closed-door briefing, but a venue where institutional market actors met practitioners and retail investors before Korea Blockchain Week began.[2]
The physical layout reflected this intent. The summit used one main stage for keynotes, panels and roundtables and one open floor where institutions, projects and Korean retail investors shared space throughout the day.[2] Partner booths and a networking area were designed to bring retail voices into the room and connect projects with users, media and communities on site.[2] The organizers framed the summit as a point where Korean regulators, public institutions and market leaders could outline preparation for the next phase of digital assets, and where traditional finance capital might meet Web3 technology.[3]
The recurring themes advertised for the event were "AI · STO · Stablecoin," framed more broadly as digital assets, tokenization, AI and tokenized finance.[2] The event was presented bilingually in Korean and English throughout.[2]
Organizers and Partners
The summit was presented jointly by TV Chosun and Bridge34, with Hack VC as co-host and main partner, and Tiger Research serving as the official research partner.[3] TV Chosun is a Korean national comprehensive-programming broadcaster (종합편성채널) active across news, current affairs, entertainment and live broadcast formats; for the summit it was tasked with providing mainstream media coverage to extend Web3 discussion to a broader public agenda.[2]
Bridge34, a Seoul-based Web3 marketing and events firm, describes itself as providing go-to-market (GTM) strategy, marketing, online and offline events, and analytics, and as a Web3 accelerator connecting global Web3 projects with the Korean market through community, media and partnerships.[1] The firm has stated it has more than 150 global clients, more than 80 strategic partners and has gathered more than 10,000 participants, summarizing its role as turning conference strategy, partner programming and community operations into measurable market moments.[2] Hwang In-soo, chief executive of Bridge34, stated that the firm would "bridge the information and language gap between global projects and the Korean market."[4] Alongside Bridge34, the Luma registration page listed Min H. Kim as a host of the event.[1]
Hack VC is described as a thesis-driven venture firm and one of the first institutional investors in frontier technologies such as Web3 and AI, having backed founders for more than ten years and investing from the early stages.[2][1] A number of blockchain projects were listed as sponsors and partners on the conference lineup, including OKX Wallet, the decentralized AI blockchain 0G, Aptos, Mantle, Berachain, EigenCloud, Orderly, IOST, KGEN and Axis Robotics.[3][5] Bridge34's X account described EigenCloud as a Silver Sponsor and BlockStreet as a Silver Partner for the 2026 edition.[11]
Venue
The summit was held at Josun Palace, A Luxury Collection Hotel, in Seoul's Gangnam district, with the address given as 231 Teheran-ro, Gangnam District.[1] The hotel sits near Yeoksam and Seolleung stations.[6] The organizers described a Gangnam luxury venue divided into dedicated spaces: a Grand Ballroom for the main stage, a Private Chamber for roundtables and closed sessions, and a space called The House used as the open floor for booths and networking.[2] The official ballroom, listed as the Great Hall, has a capacity of 652 square meters.[2]
Program and Sessions
Doors opened at 09:00 for check-in, and the official program began with opening remarks at 09:30.[5] The schedule ran from 09:00 to 17:45 and was organized so that the morning reviewed Korean virtual-asset regulation, the outlook for global exchanges in the Asian market and the potential use of stablecoin infrastructure, while the afternoon focused on the security token offering (STO) market outlook, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and decentralized AI.[4]
The day opened with remarks from Jungho Yoon of TV Chosun at 09:20, followed by congratulatory remarks from National Assembly members Byungduk Min and Kangil Lee.[2] The regulatory keynotes followed: Youngjun Yoo, Director General for Digital Financial Policy at the Financial Services Commission (FSC), spoke on "Outlook and Expected Effects of Korea's Digital Asset Regulation," and Taeseok Kim, head of the Virtual Asset Examination Team at the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), spoke on "A Globalizing Korean Market, Clearer Rules."[2] Arthur Hayes, chief investment officer of Maelstrom and co-founder of BitMEX, delivered a special AI talk titled "FLOP, Food for AI Agents."[2][3]
The late morning featured solo sessions and a fireside chat: Lennix Lai of OKX Wallet presented "xStocks: Bringing Global Assets Onchain," Chris Feng of AXIS Robotics presented "The Compounding Data Engine for Physical AI," Michael Heinrich of 0G took part in a fireside chat moderated by Elena Kang of Presto, Miru Lee of Stage Five gave the keynote "Where Telecom Begins, Web3 Begins," and Vincent Chok of First Digital presented "The Future of Stablecoins & Agentic Payments" before the lunch break at 12:20.[2]
The afternoon resumed at 13:00 with two keynotes on tokenized finance: YongJae Lee of Mirae Asset delivered the STO keynote "The Future of Finance Built by Security Tokens and Digital Assets," and Sanghui Shin of Hana Financial Group delivered the stablecoin keynote "Tokenized Finance and the Future Agenda for Financial Institutions."[2] These were followed by the roundtable "Digital Assets Through Institutional Eyes: ETFs, Security Tokens, and the Korean Market," featuring Christian Crowley of a16z crypto, Rodney Yesep of Hack VC and Samuel Shim of Meritz Securities, moderated by Fireant of Bridge34.[2]
Further solo sessions spanned the middle of the afternoon: Avery Ching of Aptos spoke on "Foundational Technology for Markets and Machines," Manish Agarwal of KGEN presented "A Verified Human Network to Source Multimodal and Diverse Data for Robotics & LLM," and Michael Ho of D3 presented "Welcome to the Domain Supercycle."[2] An "AI and Robotics" roundtable paired Jake Choi of 0G and Chris Feng of AXIS Robotics, moderated by Rodney Yesep of Hack VC, and Tim Tsai of Everything presented "Trade Crypto, Stocks, Commodities, Collectibles — All in One Place."[2]
The program closed with four thematic roundtables. "RWA in Practice: From Tokenized Assets to Onchain Use" brought together Gemma Shin of Mantle, Nakul Gupta of Multipli and Blake Jeong of IOST, moderated by Mark Lee of Future House. "Onchain Trading, Next Chapter: Who Trades, What Trades, and Why Trust It" featured Taweh Beysolow of Bond, Ran Yi of Orderly and Iggy Ioppe of Theo, moderated by Victoria Woo of Orderly. "Trusted AI: Verified Data, Verified Facts, Agents That Act" included Ben Yorke of STARCHILD, Manish Agarwal of KGEN and Ze Atalaya of Verona, moderated by Tim Haldorsson of Turtle. The final session, "Liquidity That Stays: Building Deep and Sustainable Markets," featured Daniel Kim of TopHash and Essi Lagevardi of Turtle, moderated by Jiwoo Jun of Kaito.[2] A final raffle by Bridge34 was scheduled for 17:30, with the closing at 17:45; the organizers noted that the schedule was subject to change on the day.[2]
Government and Policy Participation
A defining feature of the summit was the presence of Korean policymakers and regulators alongside industry figures. The published speaker list included National Assembly Financial Services Committee members Min Byung-deok and Lee Gang-il, FSC Digital Finance Policy Director Yoo Young-joon, and FSS virtual-asset inspection team head Kim Tae-seok.[5] Reporting described these figures as central practitioners for the enforcement of the Virtual Asset User Protection Act and for the planned second-stage basic-law legislation, and characterized the summit's distinctive quality as bringing conservative traditional-finance policymakers and Web3 innovators onto a single stage to coordinate policy direction directly.[3]
Min Byung-deok's involvement during Korea Blockchain Week drew separate coverage. According to the publication 금융계, the lawmaker visited The Bridge Summit at the invitation of the 불개미 (Bulgaemi) crypto community and said he observed strong market interest in the "tax-deferral" (과세유예) system.[7] The same report described Min's broader schedule across the week, which included the "East Point: Seoul 2026" event and two National Assembly policy seminars — one on legislative tasks for the RWA era following tokenized securities, titled "STO 이후, RWA 입법과제 모색," and one held with the Korea Fintech Industry Association on "블록체인 위 금융의 미래," addressing global onchain financial transition and Korea's choices.[7] The report noted he also met global industry figures including Ripple's global policy co-head Rahul Advani and representatives of Ondo Finance and Sumsub.[7]
Registration, Rewards and On-Site Experience
The Bridge Summit operated by pre-registration and invitation. Submitting an application did not guarantee admission; a separate approval process could follow registration, and admission could be restricted by on-site capacity and was granted only after verification of registration details.[1][5] Registered attendees entered by scanning a ticket QR code received by email, after which they received a photo, a badge and a raffle ticket.[8]
To encourage onchain participation, the organizers stated they would provide a total of 50,000,000 Korean won (about 5,000만 원) in token airdrops and on-site prizes distributed through booth missions and a lucky draw.[3] The advertised breakdown comprised a Lucky Draw first prize of 0.1 BTC awarded to a single winner at Josun Palace; a token-reward pool of 3,000,000 won, split as 1,000,000 won each to three participants; rewards of 50,000 won each to 300 on-site participants; and live random raffles throughout the event offering items ranging from coffee to assorted gift vouchers.[9] Entry to the Lucky Draw required completing designated on-site booth missions, and the organizers advised attendees to complete Eventree registration in advance because most on-site rewards would be distributed through that platform.[1]
The organizers set out conditions attached to the rewards. Photos and videos could be taken and later used for documentation and promotion; the details and requirements for airdrops and prizes could change depending on on-site circumstances; and any taxes or charges arising from prizes were the sole responsibility of the winner, who might be required to provide personal information and documents for tax payment and distribution, with failure to do so potentially resulting in prizes being withheld or eligibility revoked.[1] The organizers said further details and updates would be shared through Bridge34's X account, @Bridge34__.[1]
A community attendee account described the on-site flow in practice: visitors moved through roughly seven booths, listened to staff missions, received branded merchandise for completing them, and returned their raffle ticket upon completion, with many booths drawing lines.[8] Projects noted as present on the floor included KGEN, AXIS Robotics and Everything.[8]
Reception and Coverage
The summit opened on September 28, 2026, and was reported by Korean outlets as the core conference of Korea Blockchain Week 2026, gathering domestic and foreign institutional investors, project founders, policymakers and research-institution representatives.[3] Coverage emphasized three focus areas: the institutionalization of the virtual-asset market, the convergence of AI with onchain computing, and the future of tokenized finance and RWA.[3] Bridge34 stated that the summit concluded successfully in Seoul and was covered by TV Chosun's news division, TV Chosun News, which highlighted that it brought together leaders across policy, institutional finance, digital assets, AI and tokenized finance.[11] The event was also indexed by various event-listing platforms ahead of the date, where it was variously cataloged as a free, offline, multichain gathering taking place during KBW.[10][9] For partnership and general inquiries, the organizers provided the contact address [email protected].[2]
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