A two-day event hosted by the Ethereum Korea Consortium. Day 1 (Sep 28, 2026, Conrad Seoul) was an invitation-only day for financial institutions, and Day 2 (Sep 29, 2026, Seongsu) was the builder day, Build Beyond the Narrative.
Hyunil Jang, CFO of title sponsor DB Securities, opened Day 2 Builder Day and explained what it means for a financial firm to give opening remarks in front of builders. He framed digital assets not as a source of short-term returns but as a task for verifying changes in financial infrastructure. He introduced the Busan shipping carbon-reduction STO pilot and the review of a collaboration with the Optimism Foundation, and proposed three principles of collaboration to builders.
ECK co-founder Sanghyun Eom (Sose) and Yubin Kang, CEO of NonceClassic, presented in a conversation format the background to launching the Ethereum Korea Consortium and EK1, its three goals, the composition of its 13 member companies, and its direction for cooperation in Asia and globally.
Hyeoksu Jang of Four Pillars first introduced the EF's long-term roadmap Strawmap and its immutable values, CROPS, and then explained the two headliners of the next upgrade Glamsterdam, ePBS (EIP-7732) and BAL (EIP-7928), along with gas repricing. He summarized that Glamsterdam is foundational work to structurally raise the L1 gas limit further without raising hardware requirements, rather than to deliver immediately noticeable changes, and that FOCIL, Frame Transactions and others have moved to the next fork, Hegotá.
Centered on the five 'North Star' goals set by Strawmap (Fast L1, Gigagas L1, Teragas L2, Post-Quantum L1, Private L1) and the core L1 values of CROPS (censorship and capture resistance, open source, privacy, security), a panel with EF, community, research and infrastructure perspectives discussed who decides Ethereum's direction and how. In the later Q&A, the following were recorded relatively clearly: the EF decision-making style revealed by the Hegotá tier list, the openness and slow consensus of ACD, whether AI can be used in governance, and the debate over institutions' 'quantum resistance vs AI' priorities.
Researcher Yoonhyung Lee, co-author of EIP-7885 (NTT precompile), explained how Strawmap's execution layer quantum-resistance approach has changed over time. The progression is NTT precompile → ephemeral keys → leanSPHINCS hash-based signatures + mempool aggregation (EIP-8288) on top of Frames (EIP-8141). The key message is that, as advances in binary field proofs have sharply cut the cost of standard hash proofs, an approach of 'optimizing proving and aggregation without changing the standard (SLH-DSA)' is becoming realistic. Behind this is the schedule the EF has officially committed to: 'a quantum-resistant L1 by December 2029 at the latest'.
Leaders of three leading Korean validators (Altus, Nodeinfra and DSRV) discussed three topics: the barriers to entry and concentration in the validator business, the impact on the business of EIP-8363 (Tapered Issuance Burn), a proposal to reduce Ethereum issuance, and why Korean infrastructure companies have not reached the top ranks alongside global leaders such as Figment and P2P.org. The shared diagnosis was that 'technical barriers have already fallen, and the moat is trust, track record, institutional networks and licenses'. On EIP-8363, the concerns that gathered were that, while they agree with the long-term direction, it is premature and could accelerate centralization by pushing out solo and small validators.
A talk in which Sunnyside Labs candidly shared the design background, technical choices and trade-offs of Privacy Boost, the on-chain privacy solution it built. The technical choices are a structure in which a TEE server generates ZK proofs on top of a shielded pool (UTXO, note, nullifier), Groth16, a viewing-key-based escape hatch, and its own account abstraction based on account ID and Auth Registry. The goal is to use existing wallets (EOA, Safe, MPC) and Ethereum liquidity as they are, while guaranteeing both latency under 500ms and self-custody.
For about an hour, the panel discussed bottlenecks in the ZK industry (demand, proving cost, performance), the choice between zkVM abstraction and custom circuits (precompiles), the scope of Lean 4-based formal verification and the trusted computing base (TCB), and how ZK will be used after Ethereum L1 moves to a zkEVM. There was consensus that AI is greatly accelerating prover optimization and the writing of precompiles and circuits. Next sources of demand that were mentioned include scalability (rollups, OP Succinct-style), verification of API results in agent payments based on x402, verifiable AI computation, and selective disclosure of identity information.
A DeFi panel covering the limits of incentive-dependent growth, incentive design based on external revenue, value distribution between apps and lending protocols, the actual impact of the Uniswap fee switch (UNIfication), the burden V4 dynamic fees place on arbitrage and solver infrastructure, and the question of loss sharing after the April KelpDAO rsETH bridge exploit. It closed with the message: 'Build apps that generate external revenue, not casinos.'
A technical panel covering the complexity and scalability gains that ePBS (EIP-7732) in Glamsterdam (CL: Gloas) brings to consensus clients, the relationship between L1 scaling and the L2-centric roadmap, whether ZK and PeerDAS actually solve the trilemma, and what clients may look like over the next 5 to 10 years, including post-quantum, Lean formal verification and node architecture.
A talk in which Pantera analyzed the growth and economics of prediction markets, user cohorts, and oracle closing-price manipulation MEV strategies in short-term crypto markets, using Polymarket and Kalshi data from the first half of 2026. It concluded that trading volume is driven by a small number of professionals and bots, and that incentives and market design determine participant behavior and fairness.
A panel in which organizations outside the Ethereum Foundation (EF) that support the ecosystem, namely the conference (EthCC), grants (Octant) and hackathon (ETHGlobal) organizations, discussed the EF's role and limits, what the EF will look like in five years after the June 2026 restructuring, grant selection criteria, and advice for running the Korean community. The underlying question was how EF alumni organizations such as Ethlabs and outside funders will fill the gap as the EF cuts its budget.
A debate over EIP-8363 'Tapered Issuance Burn' (Draft as of 2026-08-04, Hegotá PFI), which burns part of validator rewards as the staking ratio approaches 50% of supply in order to remove the incentive to issue, between co-author Jerome and Lido on the opposing side. It covered problems with the current issuance curve (annual issuance ≈ 166×√staked amount), the rationale for the 50% cap, operator concentration vs staking ratio, the roles of LSTs and DeFi, the entry queue, and MEV and solo stakers. The moderator introduced that the proposal will not be included in the next fork, Hegotá.
A panel on why native account abstraction is still needed after ERC-4337 and EIP-7702. It examined the differences in design philosophy between Frame Transactions (EIP-8141), confirmed as a Hegotá headliner, and EIP-8130, led by Base and supported by Optimism and Arbitrum. Coming right after the effort to merge the two standards broke down two weeks before the event (September 14), the key issues were the burden on wallets when both standards coexist, who manages the key registry on L1, and the problem of aggregating post-quantum signatures.
Starting from Vitalik's February 2026 diagnosis that "we should stop seeing L2s as Ethereum's branded shards," the panel discussed the actual scaling contribution of L2s, the meaning of L2BEAT Stage 2 and decentralization, the debate over value return from L2 to L1 around blob fees, and the trend of companies such as Circle and Stripe launching their own L1s (Arc and Tempo). The audience Q&A also covered the privacy roadmap and institutional and retail onboarding strategy.
As the last session on Day 2 3F, it covered what blockchains can offer AI agents (permissionless financial infrastructure, x402 payments and the ERC-8004 identity and reputation standard, smart contract-based commerce) and each company's products and strategy. It introduced the MetaMask agent wallet and MetaMask Money/mUSD, Virtuals' chat-native trading agents and aGDP, and Base's three-pillar strategy of trading, finance and payments (CB Stocks and Aave collateral, APAC agentic payments), and the key issue was the trust and guardrails needed for people to entrust money to agents. It ran about 5 minutes over and ended at 19:12, followed by the closing announcements for the event.