On January 29, more than 80 builders, founders, operators, and ecosystem voices gathered at La Oveja Negra for the third Crypto & Chelas, an invite-only, curated side event and warm-up for Plan ₿ Forum El Salvador.

The room was filled with key opinion leaders, entrepreneurs, and builders already working with payment infrastructure, digital assets, or financial services in their daily operations. The goal was practical exchange.

Throughout the evening, guests had the chance to meet and talk directly with leadership and team members from NAKA, creating space for real conversations around products, compliance, and where adoption is actually happening today.

From Vision to Operational Reality

The evening opened with remarks from Miha Culiberg, Head of LATAM at NAKA, who describedCrypto & Chelas as a working space where blockchain and digital assets are discussed openly, practically, and without hype, where the industry stops being abstract and starts becoming operational, usable, and real for businesses and users alike. This was followed by a keynote speech from NAKA’s Founder & CEO Dejan Roljić, who spoke about the gradual shift away from institution-controlled financial systems toward user-owned infrastructure, setting the tone for the discussion that followed: the transition is already underway, and businesses need to understand where they fit within it.

The panel “From Fiat to DeFi: The Path to Real Adoption” brought together Luka Paragi (Chief Product Officer, NAKA), Hector Torres (Abogado y Notario de El Salvador), and Gabriel Gutiérrez (Co-founder & CEO, Cubo), moderated by Alicia Delia.

The discussion stayed grounded in business reality: cross-border friction, settlement delays, cost structures, regulatory bottlenecks, and the practical question many companies still face Howto move funds faster, cheaper, and with fewer dependencies without becoming a bank? The open format encouraged active audience participation, turning the panel into a real exchange between builders rather than a staged discussion.

Key Panel Takeaways

• True adoption occurs when the underlying technology becomes invisible;

• User experience (UX) remains a primary barrier for scaled adoption;

• Validation complexity remains a major commercial blocker;

• Financial inclusion requires ecosystem-level collaboration;

• The market is shifting from payment processing to real-time settlement infrastructure;

• Trust and brand credibility remain fundamental adoption drivers;

• Regulatory clarity is essential for institutional and mass adoption;

• Market leadership favors early, responsible participation.

As the third Crypto & Chelas meetup, the shift was visible: familiar faces returning, new builders joining, and a clear sense that a real community is forming around practical adoption. With more meetups already planned for later this year, the format is evolving from an event into an ongoing working ecosystem supported by NAKA.

The evening continued with networking, drinks, and an after-hours gathering, the kind where the right people stay in the room because the conversation is still valuable.

Crypto & Chelas is positioned as a working room. A place where builders compare operational realities, founders test assumptions, payment infrastructure stops being theoretical, and adoption is discussed through real use cases already happening in the market.

The series will continue through 2026, in San Salvador and beyond, keeping the same formula: Small room, real products, honest conversations,and the people actually building the future of finance sitting at the same table.