From Custody to Capital Markets Infrastructure | Diogo Mónica & Kartik Talwar at Pragma Lisbon 2026

Wed, Aug 12, 2026, 12:00 AM

Haun Ventures General Partner Diogo Mónica joins ETHGlobal Co-Founder and CEO Kartik Talwar to discuss crypto’s progression from secure custody to full capital-markets infrastructure. Drawing on his experience co-founding Anchorage, Mónica explains why the company paired advanced security with a federal banking framework and how regulated institutions compound trust, capital, and operating capability over time. The conversation asks where crypto-native value accrues as traditional financial firms adopt blockchain technology and whether banks, infrastructure providers, or open protocols will capture the next phase of growth. Mónica explains that Anchorage was designed around two requirements that institutional customers could not separate: cryptographic security and a regulatory structure they understood. Becoming a federally chartered bank created long-term obligations but also allowed the company to compound trust, capital, products, and customer relationships. They explore product ideas at the intersection of crypto, artificial intelligence, payments, and verifiable digital activity. AI systems create new demand for cryptographically verifiable records of model behavior, reasoning, and outputs, even if many experiments serve narrow markets before reaching scale. Mónica also reflects on moving from operator to investor and on evaluating businesses across the ecosystem. His advice to founders is durable and category-agnostic: work on a real problem, understand the customer, keep experimenting through difficult cycles, and make something people want. Infrastructure succeeds when it converts technical possibility into a product institutions or users repeatedly choose. The discussion then turns to emerging infrastructure that may create new demand. Mónica argues that model behavior and outputs can be recorded in indelible ledgers with cryptographic signatures, and that zero-knowledge proofs are becoming efficient enough to verify computation. The conversation also points to Cloudflare’s work on bringing payment mechanisms and verification into the network stack. 00:00 Introduction to Diogo Mónica 01:12 From Anchorage Founder to Investor 01:39 Balancing Investing and Operating 02:17 Professionalizing Angel Investing 02:59 Business Curiosity Beyond Anchorage 03:15 The Long Path to a Federal Charter 04:12 Anchorage and the Trust Bank Model 04:29 New Tailwinds for Modern Banks 05:07 The Cost of Regulatory Resistance 05:45 Security, Regulation, and Compounding 06:34 Crypto Extends Traditional Finance 06:59 Where Financial Value Accrues 07:43 Self-Custodial Financial Products 08:14 Faster Access to Financial Licenses 08:34 Crypto Neobanks and Card Products 09:47 Stablecoins Replace Whitelists 11:12 Libra and New Currency Experiments 12:02 Why Unlikely Experiments Are Worth Trying 12:18 Consortium Coins for Commerce 13:13 Distribution as Part of Product Design 13:48 Open Areas in Financial Infrastructure 15:09 Cryptographic Records for AI Models 15:53 Zero-Knowledge Proofs for AI Outputs 16:44 Economic Incentives for Intelligent Agents 18:07 Verifying the Internet Stack 18:28 Cloudflare and Network-Level Payments 19:13 What Founders Ask Investors 20:14 Security and the Basics of Building 20:56 Advice Through Difficult Market Cycles 21:36 Build Companies, Not Crypto Projects 22:36 Stablecoin Neobanks and Dollar Access 22:54 From Dollars to Tokenized Stocks 23:27 Make Something People Want _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇵🇹 *Pragma Lisbon 2026* Pragma Lisbon 2026 was held on June 25th at the Carlos Lopes Pavillion in Lisbon, Portugal and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Lisbon 2026 YouTube Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxB4xW8JYdk ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Haun Ventures X: https://x.com/HaunVentures ✅ Follow Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city