On December 11, 2024, at Wyndham Grand İstanbul Levent, Webrazzi Fintech 2024 opened a second stage dedicated for the first time to the crypto and blockchain world: Next Wave by CoinTR. On this special stage, our Managing Partner Erdem Mümtaz Hacıpaşaoğlu joined leading figures of the crypto industry to share his assessment of where the sector is heading and how Turkey’s new regulatory framework will translate into practice.
The central thesis of the stage was clear: as Turkey’s legislative process for crypto-assets nears completion, the ecosystem is heading into a new “bull season”; however, the sustainability of this cycle depends as much on risk management in DeFi, custody infrastructure on the cold-wallet side, and the construction of Web3 communities as it does on companies’ legal positioning.
The speakers on stage
Alongside Mümtaz, the Next Wave by CoinTR stage featured Ali Eşelioğlu (CEO of CoinTR), Alemşah Öztürk (founder of 4129), Ussal Şahbaz (Managing Partner at Ussal Danışmanlık), and Emre Çolakoğlu (Co-founder and CEO of Parabol Labs).
A bull season under the new legal framework
The opening theme of the stage was the kind of cycle the ecosystem enters after Turkey’s crypto-asset regulation passed through the Grand National Assembly. Mümtaz emphasized that the new framework — which strengthens the Capital Markets Board (CMB) — repositions Turkey as a market that international players can re-underwrite; he also reminded the audience that the transition demands rapid positioning around licensing requirements, capital adequacy, and director liability.
Risk, reward and innovation in DeFi
As the DeFi ecosystem evolves at speed, the stage examined how risk management, yield structures and protocol-level innovation are interlinked. Governance tokens, liquidity mining, and cross-chain integrations introduce new risk vectors that raise the information burden on users — while pointing to a future in which DeFi will not exist outside the regulatory perimeter.
Cold wallets and the future of digital asset custody
How institutional investors will custody crypto assets, how cold-wallet technologies will integrate with licensed custodians, and how the balance between self-custody and institutional custody maps onto Turkey’s regulation were the most technically dense topics of the stage. Mümtaz underscored that KYC/AML obligations and the principle of segregating client assets will be decisive for companies offering custody services.
The future of AI, blockchain, and marketing
In a Web3 setting, how AI and blockchain are jointly redesigning marketing — user attribution, community segmentation, on-chain behavior-based campaigns — is shaping the growth vocabulary of the next generation of brands. In a world where AI agents can transact on-chain, new legal categories emerge around personal data and data ownership.
Building strong communities in the Web3 ecosystem
Turkey’s most prominent Web3 ventures and the practice of community building — token-gated communities, DAOs, user-centric governance — were discussed as decisive factors in moving the local ecosystem onto a global scale.
Highlights from this stage
- Post-regulation: A bull season and a fast-closing positioning window
- DeFi: Risk, reward, protocol innovation
- Custody: Cold wallets and institutional custody architecture
- AI + blockchain: The redesign of marketing
- Communities: User-centric governance in Web3
You can read Webrazzi’s announcement of the stage at this link.
