Stellar kicks off Meridian 2026 conference in Lisbon

The Stellar Development Foundation’s annual Meridian conference opened in Lisbon on October 28, 2026. The Defiant is covering the event live from the floor.

The setting is the historic Convento do Beato, a former convent now hosting conversations about tokenization and payment rails.

The two-day event runs through October 29. Its agenda leans heavily on the practical side of the Stellar network: institutional finance, payments, developer tools and upcoming technology upgrades.

What is on the agenda

Meridian 2026 is built around keynotes, technical sessions and networking. The stated themes are scaling, ecosystem growth and institutional tokenization.

The speaker list reads less like a crypto meetup and more like a finance industry panel. SDF leadership, including Denelle Dixon, is on the bill.

So is Nadine Chakar of DTCC Digital Assets. Anthony Scaramucci of SkyBridge is also slated to speak. Representatives from US Bank and the digital asset custody firm Fireblocks round out the headline names.

On the technical side, sessions cover block production speed and quantum readiness.

Hackathon, tickets and turnout

Before the main stage opened, builders had their own warm-up. The HackMeridian hackathon ran from October 25 to 26.

Participants competed for a prize pool of up to $30,000 in XLM, the native token of the Stellar network.

Ticket pricing was structured with accessibility in mind. A developer pass costs $49, while general admission runs $299.

The foundation also designed its pricing to make attendance easier for government participants.

Previous editions of Meridian drew more than 1,000 participants from a range of countries.

A conference with a long memory

Meridian launched in 2019 as the foundation’s flagship event. Since then it has served as the main annual stage for SDF to gather its global community around deploying the network in finance and payments.