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The preliminary agenda for Blockchain Life 2026 lists 34 sessions across two days at Dubai’s Festival Arena on December 1 and 2, with Wall Street-adjacent institutions, exchange executives, gaming figures and UAE regulators sharing the Space Stage, Cointribune reported.
Organisers divide the schedule evenly, with 17 slots on each day, and state that the programme is provisional and subject to change. A second stage tied to the AI Future Forum is also referenced, though all detailed sessions listed so far run on the Space Stage.
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Key facts
- Day one opens with a keynote by Sergei Khitrov, founder of Listing.Help, Jets.Capital and Blockchain Life; day two opens with a fireside chat with Arthur Hayes of Maelstrom, whose session title is still to be announced.
- Speakers on December 1 include Ben Zhou (Bybit), Sandeep Nailwal (Polygon), Felix Fan (Trust Wallet), Rajat Sakhuja (Mastercard) and Luke Judges (Ripple).
- December 2 brings Yat Siu (Animoca Brands) on the agent economy, Jamie King (Rockstar Games) on gaming and ownership, and a regulation panel with Ruben Bombardi (VARA) and Dmitry Fedotov (ADGM).
- A “Mining After the Halving” panel is set for 5:00 p.m. on December 2 with Naeem Aslam (Zaye Capital Markets), Davis Hui (Canaan) and Li HanQiang (SpiderPool).
- AMBCrypto reported that Toobit returns as a Premium Sponsor at Booth A10, after winning Best CEX User Interface and Best CEX Educational Platform at the Blockchain Life Awards 2025 through public voting.
Institutions and exchanges share the opening day
The first day begins with an institutional panel moderated by Danil Gaidamakin of Jets.Capital, joined by John Cahil (Galaxy Digital), Andrei Grachev (DWF Labs), Amit Mehra (Borderless) and James Wo (Digital Finance Group). A later session on trading platforms pairs a fireside chat between Alex Falcon and Bybit’s Ben Zhou with a panel drawing on BingX, MEXC, KuCoin, Bybit and BitMart to discuss AI-driven trading and its attack surfaces.
Sandeep Nailwal delivers a keynote titled “The 2 Quadrillion Dollar Wave”, Mert Mumtaz of Helius addresses privacy in the age of AI and quantum computing, and Felix Fan of Trust Wallet covers social wallets. Marius Smith (Ethereum Institutional) and Marcin Kaźmierczak (RedStone) each give tokenization keynotes, while a BTCFi panel features Hadir Gaber of ChainMena alongside crypto commentators including Chris MMCrypto.
Payments run through the afternoon. Koray Koska of Ether.fi Cash moderates a stablecoin cards panel with Polygon Labs, Bakkt, Bitcoin.com and Mastercard, while Nic Puckrin of Coin Bureau moderates a session on stablecoins as a cross-border rail for remittances and corporate FX with Ripple, BCG and others.
UAE regulation and mining close the forum
The second day pairs a regulatory discussion with commercial detail: Bombardi of VARA, Fedotov of ADGM and Ahmed Allam of the Ruler’s Court of Dubai explain the UAE’s pace-setting stance, and at 3:00 p.m. Irina Heaver of NeosLegal interviews Bombardi on building a licensed digital-asset business. A tokenization panel moderated by Marcin Matyja of BCG covers treasuries, credit and funds on-chain with CoinMarketCap, Algorand Foundation, Cardano Foundation and Oracle.
Mining appears only on day two. The day ends with the Startup Pitch ceremony at 5:35 p.m., the Blockchain Life Awards 2026 at 5:40 p.m., and a close at 6:10 p.m., followed by a VIP afterparty from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Tickets are currently at the early bird rate of $189 for Standard, $329 for Business and $999 for VIP, rising to $399, $729 and $2,099 at the last-chance price. Each ticket also grants access to the AI Future Forum, and Cointribune offers readers a 10% discount with the code Cointribune.
Why it matters
The agenda is a useful read on where the industry’s attention sits: stablecoins and tokenization occupy as much stage time as price and mining, and institutional allocation gets its own panel with Bitcoin Suisse, XBTO and Rakbank. It also puts UAE regulators on the same programme as the exchanges and payment firms they supervise, at a point when the country’s digital-asset rules are shaping how firms set up in the region.
The two reports differ in scope. Cointribune carries the full session-by-session schedule and ticket tiers; AMBCrypto reports Toobit’s sponsorship and cites Henley & Partners’ 2026 Crypto Adoption Index, which placed the UAE second among 36 markets, up from fifth previously, and expects more than 15,000 attendees from over 130 countries with more than 200 speakers.
What to watch
Organisers say more sessions remain to be announced, and Arthur Hayes’ fireside chat title is still unfixed. Confirmation of those slots, and whether the early bird pricing holds as tickets sell, are the next concrete signals before the doors open in Dubai.
Reported by Cointribune.
Sources: Cointribune, AMBCrypto