DeFi, RWAs, and $180K in Prizes: Cointelegraph Connect Closes Out EthCC Week in Cannes

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On April 2, Cannes hosted more than just EthCC[9]. Cointelegraph Connect: Cannes Edition landed on the final day of the Ethereum ecosystem's marquee European week – at the Canopy by Hilton, a short walk from the Palais des Festivals. The format was deliberate: small enough to make every conversation count, programmed tightly enough to keep the signal high.

Cointelegraph CEO Yana Prikhodchenko opened the event by framing the central tension facing Web3 founders right now: "As AI makes it faster than ever to launch a startup, the real challenge is no longer building a polished product. It's building something that solves a real problem, has healthy unit economics, and can find its market."

Panels: Infrastructure, RWAs, and the State of DeFi

The afternoon ran four main sessions, each focused on a distinct pressure point in the current Web3 landscape.

The opening panel examined how institutions are actually building on blockchain infrastructure. It was followed by a session on real-world asset tokenization: the regulatory friction, the structural limitations, and where the RWA market goes from here. The compliance angle cut through the discussion. Alexander Macfarlane put the core tension plainly: "DeFi compliance is controversial because you end up falling under a broker-dealer point of control – you fall under a lot of regulation quickly, and that's what's really complicated about KYC."

The headline moment of the agenda was a fireside chat with Stani Kulechov, Founder of Aave Labs. Kulechov's slot fit neatly into the week's dominant thread – on-chain lending moving from DeFi experiment to financial system fixture. “We want to expand from a lending protocol into a credit protocol and tap into real-world opportunities,” he stated.

The fourth panel closed the agenda by taking stock of DeFi's established layer: lending, trading, staking, and yield strategies in 2026. Speakers included Charles d'Haussy from dYdX Foundation, Jonathan Han from Euler, and Praneeth Srikanti from Ethereal Ventures.

The event brought together names from across the stack. Charles Guillemet represented Ledger on the security and custody side; Luke Judges came from Ripple; Martin Quensel from Centrifuge. Jerome de Tychey of Ethereum France, Ashna Vaghela of Mercuryo, and Joachim Lebrun of Tokeny completed the lineup.

The Cointelegraph x Funders VC Startup Pitch Contest

The final hour of the event belonged to founders. The pitch competition – run jointly by Cointelegraph and Funders VC, sponsoring the contest – put early-stage Web3 startups in front of a room full of active decision-makers, with a combined prize pool of $180,000. Funders VC put up $25,000 in cash. Additional prizes came from security and infrastructure names across Web3: QuillAudits, ChainGPT, ChainGPT Pad, and Hashlock.

Aleksandr Nechaev, Partner at Funders VC, spoke on the firm's decision to back the contest: "Thanks to Cointelegraph for setting us up  with so many ambitious founders! The market now is not ‘good’ or ‘bad’, it’s reinventing itself, and innovation in the Web3 space is still accelerating rapidly. At Funders, we believe in partnership and collaboration. We are excited to ride this momentum alongside some of the best people in the industry, funding more projects with Cointelegraph Accelerator."

Funders VC manages $20M AUM and focuses on DeFi and RWA projects, combining direct investments with delta-neutral and yield strategies. The firm's involvement in the pitch contest extends into a broader partnership with the Cointelegraph Accelerator.

What Comes Next

Cointelegraph Connect: Cannes Edition closed with an extended networking session, giving founders who had just pitched and investors who had just heard them time to keep the conversation going.

The deals that start in rooms like this rarely close the same day. But the Cointelegraph Accelerator and Funders VC have made clear they're in it for more than a single afternoon in Cannes. They will continue to build the pipeline – and Cannes was a visible step in that direction.

Web3 enthusiasts can check the Cointelegraph Accelerator event page to get notified about future announcements.