i spent the past week at @chainlink smartcon in new york, and it felt less like a conference. you could tell instantly: this wasn’t the retail-driven defi of 2021 anymore, the room was filled with suits. met governments, institutions, funds, a16z and great friends. here are my keytakeaways 👇 tldr -> in smartcon 2025, its the institutional capital markets. 1. institutions tokenizing funds onchain ubs, tradeweb, wisdomtree, and ftse russell all announced live onchain deployments, fund tokenizations, treasury data feeds, and global index publishing via chainlink infrastructure. the shift is from “should we?” to “how fast can we?” platforms that tokenizes funds: @Securitize @DigiFTTech and platforms where users can have RWA exposure @OndoFinance @OpenEden_X @SolvProtocol @plumenetwork @FalconXGlobal 2. risk assessment is becoming an onchain business model. both s&p global and moody’s are now labeling stablecoin depeg risks. the moment you can quantify risk, you can price it, insure it, and trade it. this is how credit markets begin through trust standardization. we’re watching defi’s credit-rating moment play out just like projects i am looking at for insurance related themes: @NexusMutual @InsurAce_io @neptunemutual @EaseDeFi @UnslashedF and especially so for @bright_union @OpenCover 3. compliance as api. chainlink’s automated compliance engine (ace) aggregates 20+ institutions, from aave and anz to fidelity and hamilton lane, into programmable frameworks. institutions can now operate across jurisdictions. global capital finally becomes mobile. some protocols to watch @blupryntco @aztecnetwork @billions_ntwk @RaylsLabs @tenprotocol 4. chainlink runtime environment (CRE) the CRE mainnet launch was the highlight for me, with partners like mastercard, ubs, google cloud, aws, and coinbase. institutions can now run verifiable logic, privacy-preserving computation, and settlement workflows across chains -> all inside one runtime. 5. confidential compute closes the last institutional gap. privacy and compliance have always been opposing poles. chainlink’s confidential compute bridges that divide, allowing sensitive data to stay private while outputs remain verifiable. now, entire categories like private credit, insurance underwriting, and sovereign fx trading become viable onchain. other protocols running confidential compute include @nillion @ArciumHQ @ritualnet @partisiampc @zama @inconetwork @EnclaveE3 @super__protocol we’re not early anymore. we’re entering the industrial phase of the onchain economy. lastly, shoutout to some projects and people I met like @upshift_fi @sproutfi_xy @protocol_fx @LayerZero @Decentralisedco @Quantstamp @spearbit @therollupco