Paris Blockchain Week 2026, which concluded on April 16 at the Carrousel du Louvre, hosted its flagship startup competition Start In Block during the main event
Paris Blockchain Week 2026, which concluded on April 16 at the Carrousel du Louvre, hosted its flagship startup competition Start In Block during the main event.
– The competition, offering $10M+ in prizes, grants, and credits, saw 12 finalists pitch across two days in front of 400+ investors and institutional leaders, making it one of the most competitive editions of Start In Block to date.
From over 1,000 applications, finalists were selected across three distinct tracks: the Institutional Adoption Track led by the Cardano Foundation, the DeFAI Track led by Spectrum Nodes, and the Bittensor Track led by YUMA. The competition culminated in a final pitch on the Main Stage, where three companies were awarded the overall prizes. Start In Block 2026 was contested across three distinct tracks, each designed to surface the most promising builders in their respective categories.
Here is a full breakdown of the finalists who took the stage at the Carrousel du Louvre. The Institutional Adoption Track, led by the Cardano Foundation, brought together startups building the infrastructure that bridges traditional finance and the digital asset economy.
The four finalists were Masumi, the payment and identity layer for AI agents; Zetta Capital, transforming illiquid private debt into tradable securities across a $26 trillion asset class; Sundial Protocol, a Bitcoin-native Layer-2 unlocking non-custodial DeFi and cross-chain liquidity; and Libertum, institutional-grade tokenization infrastructure for compliant real-world asset tokenization. The DeFAI Track, led by Spectrum Nodes, showcased startups redefining decentralised finance through intelligent infrastructure.
The four finalists were Neuron, delivering real-time data from physical devices into autonomous systems with no cloud dependency; Deploi, an orderbook-based secondary market bringing pricing and liquidity to private credit; The Risk Protocol, making risk tokenizable, programmable, and tradeable on-chain for the first time; and Coinbax, programmable escrow with compliance controls built natively into stablecoin payments. The Bittensor Track, led by YUMA, brought together the most ambitious builders on the Bittensor ecosystem, deploying subnet intelligence across industries from finance to physical infrastructure.
The four finalists were 404, building Large Spatial Models that bridge language AI and the physical world; Synth, delivering predictive intelligence for financial markets using decentralised subnet models; Manako, making every camera intelligent through an open and permissionless computer vision layer; and Bitcast, the AI protocol connecting brands with influencers through verifiable, performance-driven campaigns on the Bittensor network. Start In Block 2026 was judged by some of the most respected investors, builders, and institutional leaders in digital assets; the people whose capital, conviction, and pattern recognition make them uniquely qualified to identify what the industry actually needs next.
The jury for Start In Block 2026 comprised Mykolas Majauskas of Bybit, Tomasz Kajetan Stańczak of Nethermind, Jessi Brooks of Ribbit Capital, Greg Schvey of YUMA, Siam Kidd of DSV Fund, Brett Sun of Prelude, Matthew Felice Pace of Spectrum Nodes, Pablo Campos of Bit2Me, David Bchiri of XRPL Commons, Samiz Bayan of Draper Dragon, Brian Wong of ASCII Ventures, and Ethan Pierce of Borderless Ventures. Manako claimed the overall title and the top prize in the Bittensor Track, recognised for its open and permissionless computer vision layer that makes every camera intelligent — turning visual data into actionable intelligence for enterprises and autonomous systems.
The Risk Protocol finished in second place and claimed the top prize in the DeFAI Track, with its institutional-grade risk infrastructure making risk tokenizable, programmable, and tradeable on-chain for the first time in the industry's history. Sundial Protocol took third place and claimed the top prize in the Institutional Adoption Track, recognised for its Bitcoin-native Layer-2 built on Cardano, unlocking non-custodial DeFi, yield, and cross-chain liquidity for UTxO-based assets, including BTC and ADA.
Start In Block 2026 demonstrated that the next generation of digital asset infrastructure is not on the horizon; it is already being built. From the quality of applications to the depth of what was presented on stage, this edition raised the bar for what a startup competition at this level can look like. Paris Blockchain Week is Europe's leading institutional digital asset summit, bringing together 10,000 leaders from banking, asset management, venture capital, regulation, and digital asset infrastructure.
After concluding its seventh edition in 2026, the event will return in 2027 as Signal Week, taking place on a new date and new location. This publication is provided by the client. The text below is a paid press release that is not part of Cointelegraph.com independent editorial content. The text has undergone editorial review to ensure quality and relevance, it may not reflect the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.com.
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