[fc-announce] Fwd: AFT 2026 - call for participation

[R. Hirschfeld]

As of this year, Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT) is an IFCA
conference.  A separate mailing list is planned for AFT announcements,
but this one time the AFT26 call for participation (attached below) is
being forwarded to the FC list.


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: AFT 2026 - call for participation
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2026 14:40:26 +0000
 From: Aggelos Kiayias <Aggelos.Kiayias at ed.ac.uk>

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to the eighth international conference on 
Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2026), taking place 6–9 October 
2026 at the London School of Economics in London, UK.

AFT is a premier venue for presenting the latest developments in 
technologies related to novel financial infrastructure such as 
cryptocurrencies and their applications, blockchains, and exchanges. AFT 
is an annual conference of IFCA.

Conference website: https://aft.ifca.ai/aft26/index.html


--- PROGRAM ---

The technical program comprises 36 papers across 12 sessions, spanning 
cryptographic and consensus protocols, proof of stake, parallel 
execution and state contention, automated market makers and liquidity, 
mechanism design, auctions for transaction ordering, MEV incentives and 
countermeasures, censorship resistance and fair ordering, selfish mining 
and proof-of-work rewards, detection of adversarial behaviour, and 
empirical studies of fees and trading.

Keynote: Dr. Raphael Auer, Wednesday 7 October (title TBA).

The program also includes a rump session, a business meeting open to all 
attendees, a welcome reception on 6 October and the conference dinner on 
8 October.

Full program: https://aft.ifca.ai/aft26/program.html


--- AFFILIATED WORKSHOP: DeTaP 2026 ---

The 1st Workshop on Decentralisation: Theory and Practice will be held 
on the afternoon of 6th October, ahead of the welcome reception. DeTaP 
brings together cryptography, distributed systems, economics and law 
around defining and measuring decentralisation, governance, legal tests 
and liability, and the trade-offs against efficiency, scalability and 
accountability. There are no proceedings, so work in progress and work 
published or submitted elsewhere are equally welcome.

Attendance is free, but places are limited and separate registration is 
required.

Workshop: https://blockchain-technology-lab.github.io/DeTaP/

Workshop registration: https://luma.com/5kf6ydcj

--- REGISTRATION (regular rate ends 31 August 2026) ---

Register at: https://ifca.ai/payment-aft/

Fees in GBP, regular (by 31 August) / late (by 16 September):

   Conference: £550 / £700

   Conference, student: £300 / £400

   Social attendance only: £100 / £115

The conference fee includes access to all presentations from 7–9 
October, the welcome reception on 6 October, the conference dinner on 8 
October, and lunches and coffee breaks across the three days. The social 
attendance ticket is available only to those accompanying a registered 
participant and covers the reception and dinner.

Please note that AFT 2026 is an in-person event; no remote attendance or 
streaming will be available.

Authors of accepted papers: each accepted paper must be accompanied by 
the registration of at least one distinct author at the full conference 
rate by 31 August 2026. Papers without a valid accompanying registration 
may be excluded from the proceedings.

--- STUDENT SUPPORT (apply by 26 August 2026) ---

Limited funding is available to support attendance by participants with 
financial need. Grants are generally awarded to PhD students pursuing 
research in areas of interest to AFT, and are typically intended for 
presenters who can secure some but not all of their own funding.

Applications should be submitted as a single PDF containing a CV with 
full contact details, a personal statement of up to 250 words covering 
the relevance of the conference to your research, a breakdown of 
estimated expenses and why you could not otherwise attend, and a letter 
of at most one page from your advisor confirming good standing, funding 
status and a commitment to cover remaining costs.

Send applications to aft26-chairs at mlist.is.ed.ac.uk by 26 August 2026.

--- VISA LETTERS ---

Attendees who require a visa are encouraged to contact the general chair 
as early as possible to request an invitation letter, including full 
legal name, nationality, passport number, date of birth, physical 
address and email address.

--- SPONSORSHIP ---

AFT 2026 is supported by a16z crypto and Input Output at Gold level, and 
IC3 and Sui at Silver level. Organisations interested in sponsorship 
packages are warmly invited to get in touch.


We look forward to welcoming you to London in October.
The AFT 2026 Organising Committee

Aggelos Kiayias (PC Co-Chair)
Maria Kyropoulou (PC Co-Chair)
Andrew Lewis-Pye (General Chair)

aft26-chairs at mlist.is.ed.ac.uk
https://aft.ifca.ai/aft26/index.html
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in 
Scotland, with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais 
a th’ ann an Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann, clàraichte an Alba, àireamh clàraidh 
SC005336.