MERGE Madrid institutional summit
The MERGE Madrid institutional summit takes place on October 27, 2026, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Madrid Stock Exchange in Madrid, Spain. It opens the three-day MERGE Madrid event and focuses on custody, bank-grade digital assets and stablecoins; no specific coins are tied to the event.
What is happening
The summit is the first day of MERGE Madrid, which continues with a two-day conference at the Palacio de Cibeles on October 28 and 29. According to the official agenda, check-in from 3 p.m. is reserved for speakers and Business ticket holders, and a VIP cocktail dinner follows the sessions.
Four sessions are listed, one of them in Spanish. An institutional custody panel features Coty de Monteverde of Banco Santander and Luis Ayala of BitGo. A Crypto Finance panel on bank-grade digital assets in practice includes Stijn Vander Straeten of Crypto Finance Group (Deutsche Börse) and Gonzalo Pradas of Openbank. A stablecoin roundtable hosted by Rain brings together Fermín Cifuentes and Malcolm Clarke of Western Union. A Spanish-language session on crypto-assets and the transformation of the banking sector includes Benoît Courtois of Unicaja, Xaquin Broz of ABANCA and Aleix Guillaumes of Creand Wealth Management, moderated by Aurora Cuadros of Cecabank. A 5:30 p.m. slot has not yet been confirmed.
According to the organizer's September 30 press release, Western Union will present its dollar stablecoin USDPT, issued by Anchorage Digital Bank on Solana. The release also mentions Qivalis, an alliance of 37 institutions in 15 countries preparing a euro stablecoin, with a commercial launch planned for the second half of 2026, subject to authorization. Santander will discuss a project it is exploring with several large international banks. A Solana side event, El Encuentro Solana en España, runs on October 26 by pre-registration.
Why it matters
The lineup shows traditional banks, payment companies and custody providers discussing how they build and integrate stablecoins and digital-asset services, rather than whether they will. For holders and traders, such sessions are a way to follow how established financial institutions describe their plans for custody, payments and tokenized assets, and what regulatory conditions they attach to them.
The Western Union presentation and the Qivalis euro stablecoin discussion are the items most closely tied to concrete products. Statements made at the summit may clarify timelines, but the Qivalis launch still depends on authorization, so any dates mentioned should be treated as plans rather than commitments.
Access to the October 27 summit is limited: only the Business ticket opens it, and the source cites a cap of 400 attendees, speakers included. Things to watch include the content of the unconfirmed 5:30 p.m. slot, the detailed schedule for October 28 and 29, and any launch date given for the Qivalis euro stablecoin.
Key details
- Date: October 27, 2026, 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. (Madrid Stock Exchange, Madrid, Spain)
- Project: MERGE
- Coins: none specified (USDPT stablecoin on Solana is mentioned in the program)
- Category: Summit
- Status: Confirmed
- Source: Cointribune, MERGE Madrid 2026 day-by-day program (https://www.cointribune.com/en/merge-madrid-2026-day-by-day-program-2/)