Our co-founders, Bernhard Haslhofer and Karl Zettl, were invited as speakers at the Digital Innovation Summit Bucharest (DISB), one of the leading technology and policy events in Eastern Europe, bringing together key voices from the digital economy, public institutions, and emerging tech industries.

Bernhard Haslhofer, Co-Founder and Research Lead at Iknaio, delivered a keynote titled "Lessons Learned from Standardizing Crypto-asset Attribution and Data Exchange." Drawing on extensive experience in blockchain analytics, Bernhard emphasized the increasing complexity of cryptoasset investigations, highlighting that future investigations must become data-driven to scale effectively with the growing challenges. He also emphasized the critical need for standardization across public and private sector actors in the crypto domain. His talk clearly demonstrated why common data models and interoperable formats are essential for scaling compliance and investigative efforts in the rapidly evolving crypto ecosystem.

Meanwhile, Karl Zettl, Co-Founder and CEO of Iknaio, joined the panel "Towards Data Exchange Standards and Interoperability – CEO Level Discussions." He highlighted Iknaio’s foundation on an open-source core, designed to foster transparency and collaboration while giving institutions the ability to verify results independently. Karl emphasized the need to move beyond black-box models in blockchain intelligence: “Trust is built through explainability—especially when working with the public sector.” He pointed to the lack of standardization in address attribution as a key challenge and referenced Interpol’s DW-VA Taxonomy as a promising step toward harmonizing data models across the ecosystem. On a lighter note, when asked to score the ongoing match between crypto bad actors and law enforcement, Karl quipped, “Two years ago, it was 3–0 for the bad guys. Now it’s 3–1—momentum is shifting,” citing increasing regulation and stronger collaboration as signs of progress.

The DISB was an important event for connecting innovation and responsible governance, and we are grateful for the invitation and for being able to contribute to the dialogue on a secure and scalable crypto data infrastructure.