NEW YORK — When Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan show up at a crypto conference, not just as speakers but also as sponsors, something has changed.
This shift will be on full display at Consensus Miami 2026, where an unprecedented roster of institutional heavyweights, federal policymakers and crypto pioneers will gather 5-7. May to chart the convergence between traditional finance and digital assets.
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, Senator Ashley Moody and White House Official Patrick Witt will attend a Consensus event for the first time, along with debut sponsors Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan, joining returning partners Fidelity, Mastercard, Bridge by Stripe and many more.
The conference expects more than 15,000 attendees, and institutional attendance nearly doubles to about 35% of the audience — representing an estimated $10 trillion in assets under management, according to Brad Spies, vice president of Consensus.
“We have reached a moment where finance, crypto, technology and politics are strongly converging forces,” Spies said. “All these things that have been so hard to achieve – political victories, institutional adoption, widespread use of stablecoin – that have been mentally ‘off in the future’ for us are finally at our doorstep.”
The lineup
Headliners include Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Strategy’s Michael Saylor, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Bullish CEO Tom Farley, along with Cloudflare Chief Strategy Officer Stephanie Cohen, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary and Tether US CEO Bo Hines.
The institutional bench cuts deep. Morgan Stanley’s Jed Finn and Amy Oldenburg, ICE’s Michael Blaugrund, Nasdaq’s Tal Cohen and DTCC’s Frank La Salla are joined by executives from Charles Schwab (Sarah Hammer), Franklin Templeton (Sandy Kaul), JPMorgan (Kara Kennedy) and Citi (Ryan Rugg and Deborah Querub). On the fintech side, Mastercard’s Raja Rajamannar, Robinhood’s Johann Kerbrat and MoneyGram’s Anthony SooHoo round out the list.
Key topics include the future of stablecoins in the wake of the GENIUS Act (and potentially the CLARITY Act), agent trading, tokenization, and quantum computing implications for the industry. More than 20 sessions will be devoted to agent trading alone, highlighted by a panel titled “The Trillion Dollar Question – What’s the Framework for Agentic Payments?” with Erik Reppel, founder of Coinbase’s payment protocol x402.
‘A great opportunity’
The conference kicks off with its Institutional Summit at The Ritz-Carlton on May 5, where institutional investors and asset managers are convened to discuss how new capital should flow into digital assets. Speakers include Vanessa Melendez of Accent Partners, Nick Maffeo of ERS of Texas, Alex Pack of Hack VC, Tushar Jain of Multicoin Capital, and Timothy Barrett of Texas Tech University Systems. Sessions will cover prediction markets, equity tokenization and how LPs are rethinking crypto allocation amid market volatility.
The following day brings Wealth Management Day, tailored specifically for financial advisors. Sessions will address how high net worth individuals can engage in digital assets, how crypto fits into IRA retirement accounts, and how the advisory industry can provide holistic planning around digital holdings – including intergenerational wealth transfer.
Institutional Summit and Wealth Management Day
For the wealth management community, the timing feels urgent.
“I see the crypto space as a great opportunity for the wealth management space,” said Christina Lynn of Mariner Wealth Advisors, who is attending Wealth Management Day for the first time. “Financial advisors are slowly adopting and becoming more familiar with crypto topics, but we’re just skimming the surface.”
Lynn warned that advisers who wait too long risk losing clients to a do-it-yourself approach. “Clients and prospects are making their own crypto investments without an advisor, introducing risks and not integrating with the rest of their portfolio or planning advice,” she said. “If we don’t address this and bring crypto into our fold, it will become a bigger concern.”
Charles Schwab, which is preparing the launch of Schwab Crypto for its millions of retail investors, is formally participating in Consensus for the first time this year. “Consensus is one of the most influential annual gatherings in the digital asset community, making it a natural venue for Schwab,” said Joe Vietri, head of digital assets at the firm.
‘If you don’t inform yourself, you’re asking to become a dinosaur’
Matthew Tuttle, head of leveraged ETF issuer Tuttle Capital Management, comes to Consensus to deepen his understanding of stablecoins and tokenization – technologies he sees as inevitable forces in the fund industry.
“The next big thing is stablecoins, but I haven’t quite wrapped my head around ‘why and how’ they work yet,” Tuttle said. “Then there’s tokenization, which will affect our industry. I don’t know exactly how yet, but I know I’ll be talking more about it in five years. If you’re an ETF issuer and you’re not informing yourself about this, you’re asking to become a dinosaur.”
Tuttle recently filed to launch the T-Strive Digital Credit ETF (DGCR), managed in partnership with Strive, which will invest in bitcoin tax companies’ preferred stocks — instruments like those offered by MicroStrategy and Strive that yield about 10% annually. He intends to pay investors 14% per year.
His beliefs in space have changed decisively. “There is so much institutional backing that I don’t see how BTC can go to zero anymore,” he said. “Ten years ago I would have said it could, but now I buy.”
