Sofia as a Fintech and Onchain Hub | Ivan Goychev, Sofia Municipality | Future Finance Forum 2026

very much. Thank you very much for this introduction. First time I hear so exciteful presentation for myself. So really glad I'm happy to be here not only as an institutional representative but as one of you actually I grew as an IT software engineer and uh early in my career I was actually focused on fintech as you I had uh the chance to work for uh net net solutions they had uh a product called Dynamo and it uh was a portfolio management for private equity which was quite cool at that time. One of our projects was for Goldman Sachs actually and I was so proud you know as a software engineer to to to work on such a project so early in my career.

Then I moved to another company, a startup that we were uh working on a project for algorithmic trading, analyzing articles from the news and media to measure the sentiment and to see in which way to trade on the market. Pretty interesting and tough project. We joined forces with uh strong mathematical Bulgarian minds and uh it was really really uh difficult but also quite uh satisfying to see the system trading by itself and gaining [snorts] percentage of profits. Um later on I moved to other industries but uh still I followed the Bulgarian market finanica with their risk management products then uh the blockchain technologies limechain Nexo with the crypto and in my mind I was always close to to this this fintech sector seeing how much talent we we can offer to to the world and uh maybe not only applying these technologies but also running the forefront of them. I was listening just uh yesterday Vlad Tennf with uh you know the Robin Robin Hood founder he was talking about to tokenization on Peter's Diamanti's uh moonshot podcast and I was so proud also for that Bulgaria Bulgarian talent on the global stage.

So this is something I'm also very very happy to see you on this conference and this conference organized here because it proves one once again that Sophia and Bulgaria is is really a center of such a vibrant community attracting talent also from outside. I saw the speakers list very impressive. So today it will be really valuable conference from institutional side. What can the city offer? Well, I think for the city as a platform and I also advise you to take as much as advantage of that.

I'm trying to build the platform for you so that you can innovate on top of what the city uh has as uh problems first data as open data and then of course clients. The city has 1 million3 300,000 clients, right? the citizens every day walking around the city doing stuff, trading uh uh working. But uh if we take the last probably trends in tokenization and asset tokenization, can we dream about something? Can we dream about tokenizing the city assets?

Can we consider opening the so-called micro jobs to make the fast real-time transactions between those who are willing to take on those micro jobs to let's say for example clean the city help with improvements of micro improvements of the city for citizens to be engaged in the city and not only waiting for the let's say administration to fix it, but also everyone to be able to fix their own community being online, being engaged, transacting with others and working together. This is something that uh I'm personally quite keen into helping happening. I cannot do it myself. We have a team inside the municipality, but I would like to partner together with you. So please step forward, come contact us, propose solutions.

We will support you in the way that we can as I said with open data with cases with with use cases with clients and with of course marketing that this is happening in Sophia. So this will be from me really for as an institution this is what we can help you. the government is the next level with the laws and regulations and the European uh parliament is also working in that regard to relax maybe the regulations so that innovation can happen faster in the conferences and interactions that I have with you representatives I will also stress on that but on the city level is where you can find best uh for from my from my uh efforts. Thank you again. Wish you very very very valuable day.

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