The modern blockchain convention circuit has more and more adopted the construction of an industrial commerce present. This evolution is neither unintentional nor with out advantage. The “expo” format effectively concentrates builders, distributors, customers, and buyers in a single venue, enabling hiring, partnerships, product training, and business coordination at scale. These features are reputable, and in lots of circumstances important. I don’t method this actuality with disdain; in my function as Venture Lead at Bancor, I’m immediately reliant on the connective utility that such occasions present.
The priority, nevertheless, will not be that conferences serve business ends, however that business optimization has turn out to be their dominant (typically unique) organizing precept. As flagship occasions have oriented themselves primarily round person acquisition and enterprise improvement, much less area has remained for the types of mental work that initially gave this subject its coherence: cautious downside formulation, express assumptions, technical disagreement, and disciplined critique. The outcome will not be a failure of convening, however a narrowing of what’s permitted to matter inside the convening itself.
This shift has had penalties. In earlier phases of the {industry}, concepts have been anticipated to face up to interrogation. Claims have been refined by argument. Fashions have been debated publicly, and disagreement was handled as productive fairly than rude. In additional mature scientific and engineering disciplines, such practices are formalized by seminars, peer evaluation, and editorial norms. Inside blockchain, in contrast, they’re typically displaced by narrative incentives that reward consistency of message over accuracy, and optimism over examination.
The cumulative impact is refined however corrosive. Simplified speaking factors crowd out technical rationalization, metrics flow into with out definition, and assertions are repeated with out fashions. Disagreements are softened into “group” language fairly than resolved by evaluation. Over time, critical researchers and practitioners disengage, not in protest, however in recognition that the accessible boards not reward the work they’re educated to do. What stays is discourse optimized for repetition fairly than understanding. It’s towards this backdrop that efforts to reintroduce structured, research-first boards matter; not as alternate options to conferences, however as correctives inside them.
It’s a profound aid to see the Token Engineering Academy (TE Academy) take the initiative to create a discussion board the place the one value of entry is mental self-discipline: concise exposition, clear downside statements, strategies, outcomes, and limitations, with advertising content material handled as a class error fairly than tolerated background noise. I’m proud that Bancor is actively collaborating within the execution of this new, strictly educational discussion board, the TE Analysis Symposium (TERSE), premiering at EthCC[9] 2026 in Cannes. I’m equally proud to serve on the steering committee that’s pushing to make this an actual symposium, not a renamed observe.
I don’t write this as an off-the-cuff observer of the TE Academy ecosystem, nor as a one-time contributor stepping ahead as a result of an occasion now exists that flatters my preferences. All through my tenure as Venture Lead at Bancor, I’ve intentionally utilized public technical boards as a corrective instrument.
My involvement with the TE Academy started in March 2021, through the “Balancer Simulations” program. At the moment, I introduced a high-level overview of the utility of elastic-supply tokens in addition to a use case for AMMs in buying and selling insurance-linked securities (ILS), a notable and early foreshadowing of the present discourse on Actual-World Belongings (RWAs). In July 2023, through the TE Academy observe of EthCC[6] in Paris, I spoke about Carbon Defi (Bancor’s flagship alternate product) for the primary time in entrance of a stay viewers.
Whereas nonetheless servicing the necessity to introduce, then, a comparatively new idea in onchain alternate primitives, the speak was nonetheless a technical account of the product design and its mathematical construction. That technical correctness and pedagogical targets ought to take precedence over an inexpensive alternative to shill a product has largely characterised all public seminars I’ve delivered for Carbon DeFi, with and with out the TE Academy, as evidenced by my work at ETHWarsaw[3] and ETHWarsaw[4] (September, 2024 and 2025), Devconnect (November, 2025), ETHDubai (April, 2024), and NapulETH (September, 2024). This emphasis additionally extends to my written contributions. Even in my comparatively rare posts on this weblog, my therapy of Carbon DeFi is predominantly technical and centered on implementational particulars fairly than narrative positioning. A consultant instance is “Principle vs Actuality: The Precision and Accuracy of Carbon DeFi’s Fastened-Level Arithmetic”.
In July 2024, through the TE Academy observe of EthCC[7] in Brussels, I introduced “Fixing Objectively Dangerous Fashions in LP Efficiency Evaluations”. This speak was not product-oriented; it was a critique of prevailing {industry} practices, together with a selected argument that the time period “charges”, as generally utilized in AMM efficiency narratives, fails as a coherent analytical object and ought to be discarded.
I’ve maintained such non-product, industry-first targets outdoors of TE Academy programming and with express claims that may be scrutinized, falsified, and improved. In October 2024, I introduced a technical therapy of DEX MEV at MEVShanghai. This speak was later refined for ETHDubai (April 2025), separating sandwich assaults from arbitrage and insisting on exact claims about who bears which prices, and below what assumptions. In June 2025, I delivered a sandwich-attack-focused model at ETHBelgrade, and an much more thorough model for the College of Zurich Blockchain Middle in December 2025. Associated therapies additionally seem in my written work, together with “The Optimum Sandwich: Find out how to Exploit Blockchain Fans with Arbitrary Precision” and “The Forbidden Sandwich: A Principle of MEV-resistant CFMM Transactions”.
In April 2025, through the TE Academy observe of EthCC[8] in Cannes, I assumed the function of a important interlocutor, chairing the “TE Unplugged” session. Reasonably than offering the customary “tender validation” frequent at crypto occasions, my function was to supply a type of real-time, public peer evaluation for audio system Vasily Sumanov (Valueverse.ai) and Phillip Zahn (20squares) after their talks. This “agreeably unpleasant” posture, grounded in open criticism, is precisely what TERSE seeks to revive.
In October 2023, I delivered a four-part lecture sequence for the Bonding Curve Analysis Group, which served because the progenitor for a five-part postgraduate-level lecture sequence “DeFi’s Concentrated Liquidity From Scratch” (and an accompanying 85-page textbook) for the TE Academy Examine Season (April-July 2024).
This document is the rationale I’m prepared to talk plainly. My relationship with the TE Academy supplies provenance earned by a constant physique of technical work throughout a number of years and codecs, from foundational lecture sequence and printed course materials to public important inquiry. It has allowed me to inhabit a job that’s too typically absent from the convention circuit, which treats discourse as an area for interrogation fairly than a venue for advertising theater.
For my part, TERSE is the formalization of this posture. It’s a concerted effort to revive a sturdy bridge between theoretical analysis and deployed methods, the place fashions, specs, and empirical claims are handled as main objects, and the place persuasion is subordinate to rationalization. By anchoring this symposium on the coronary heart of the biggest blockchain and cryptocurrency convention in Europe, we’re setting a normal for what constitutes reputable work on this subject. TERSE is designed as an area the place concepts are rewarded solely insofar as they survive contact with correctly knowledgeable criticism.
TERSE is a practical effort to supply a public dwelling for the conversations many people already conduct in smaller rooms. Bonding curve invariants, simulation outcomes, formal verification, and governance trade-offs are already mentioned with care in non-public. TERSE proposes that this mode of discourse ought to have a everlasting place on the heart of our {industry}’s most seen gatherings. Accordingly, we invite researchers and practitioners who search a discussion board the place technical work is the first occasion. Formal pedigree and institutional affiliation are irrelevant. The requirement is the work itself, submitted as a manuscript and introduced with out promotional intent.
We welcome submissions throughout token engineering and cryptoeconomics. Related subjects embrace protocol and mechanism design, incentive and market design, verification and simulation, governance and financial safety, and analysis that spans technical, financial, and authorized constraints. Each peer-reviewed papers and work in progress are applicable, offered the submission is research-driven and non-promotional. Overview will probably be attentive and constructive. The factors are readability of the analysis query, defensible assumptions, methodological rigor, and an express account of what the outcomes set up and what they do not.
If a proposal is accepted, the expectation is straightforward: the speak should train. A particular undertaking could inspire the work, however the presentation should stay centered on the query, the method, and the findings. Persuasion should stay subordinate to rationalization. TERSE additionally depends on reciprocity; a rigorous program is a reciprocal alternate of mental labor. Authors could also be requested to evaluation the work of others with the identical care they might count on for his or her personal.
TERSE is a discussion board for staff.
When you have work that deserves a cautious listening to, I enthusiastically encourage you to submit.
Symposium Particulars
Submission Deadline: February 20, 2026
Occasion Date: March 31, 2026
Location: Cannes, France (EthCC[9])
Submission Portal: [LINK]
The Case for Constructive Adversarialism at Mainstream Conferences was initially printed in Bancor on Medium, the place individuals are persevering with the dialog by highlighting and responding to this story.
