NAKA at Plan ₿ Forum El Salvador 2026

At most conferences, people talk about what they're going to build. At Plan ₿ Forum, they show what's already running.

El Salvador hosts it for a reason. The country made Bitcoin legal tender in 2021, not as an experiment but as a response to broken infrastructure. Remittances make up ~24% of GDP. Traditional payment processors were taking 5-7% in fees on average for every transaction. When your economy depends on money sent home by workers abroad, you can't afford extraction at that scale. 

But El Salvador didn’t stop at policy. It became a global proving ground for Bitcoin adoption - attracting builders, investments, and attention by putting real infrastructure in the real world, not just debating it on stage.

Plan ₿ Forum grew out of that environment. It's where Lugano demonstrated its city-wide Bitcoin payment system. Where remittance operators working across Latin America compare notes on what actually moves money efficiently. Where builders test real infrastructure and get feedback from people who've already deployed it.

The Plan B Forum El Salvador 2026 edition runs January 30-31 in San Salvador, bringing together fintech and blockchain heavyweights like Paolo Ardoino (Tether CEO), Jack Mallers (Strike), Elizabeth Stark (Lightning Labs), Adam Back (Blockstream), Saifedean Ammous, Jimmy Song, and many others.

NAKA Founder & CEO Dejan Roljic will take the stage as a keynote speaker.

We’ll be at Plan ₿ Forum as an official sponsor, showcasing a stablecoin-native infrastructure stack designed to make payments instant, programmable, and universally accepted.

From getting your own NAKA+ Visa Platinum Card, to experiencing self-custodial card payments across the venue and throughout the city, you’ll be able to see what it feels like.

If you're working on payment infrastructure that operates outside traditional rails, this is where that work gets validated or challenged by people doing the same thing.

Pay2Play: experiencing payments in practice

Each day of the forum, participants who use their NAKA Card for purchases will be able to enter a prize draw by submitting their payment slip at the NAKA booth in the exhibition area. 

The daily prize is a DJI Neo 2 (Fly More Combo) Drone. Attendees can enter the raffle by making a payment with Bitcoin or stablecoins at the event. One winner will be selected daily and announced at 4:00 PM CET. To be eligible, participants must be present at the time of the draw and able to present proof of purchase.

Any payment made with the NAKA+ Visa Platinum Card at the venue or across the city will be eligible to enter the game. 

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On stage: an environment already changing

NAKA Founder & CEO Dejan Roljić will deliver a keynote speech on the P2P Stage on January 30, at 11.30 AM, titled “Who Owns Money Now?”, a look at the shift from institution-controlled systems to user-owned infrastructure, as stablecoins make settlement faster, more transparent, and increasingly programmable.

Later that day, he’ll join a main-stage panel alongside ecosystem leaders including Rocelo Lopes (SmartPay), Dario Sneidermanis (Muun), Jeremy Almond (Paytastand), and Nico Moran (Simply Bitcoin).

This will be a conversation about what’s already unfolding: users now expect instant settlement, global usability, and real ownership of value, and the payment rails are being forced to adapt.

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Conversations beyond the stage

Some of the most meaningful discussions about infrastructure take place outside formal programmes.

On the evening before the forum, NAKA is hosting a Crypto & Chelas Defi Meetup, bringing together prominent ecosystem leaders, business owners, and local voices for an open, high-signal conversation on what real financial adoption actually takes. The evening opens with a keynote by Dejan Roljić, Founder & CEO of NAKA, followed by the panel, “From Fiat to DeFi: The Path to Real Adoption,” and continues with networking, drinks, and an after-hours gathering with the people shaping El Salvador’s financial future.

​This will be our third Crypto & Chelas gathering, and we’d love to welcome you into the community - built around open dialogue and real-world conversations on the evolving financial industry. 

If you want to join El Salvador’s local KOLs and ecosystem operators for an open, high-signal conversation, register your interest to attend the meetup here.

This is a curated, invite-only gathering with limited capacity. Every application is reviewed manually, and selected guests will receive a personal invitation with the full event details.

For NAKA, traditionally supporting the Plan ₿ Forum El Salvador reflects a long-term commitment to Latin America and to infrastructure as the foundation of real financial change.

We share the same values this event is built on: open access, personal sovereignty, and systems that work in the real world.

Payment rails shape access, continuity, and trust. They should be built with the same seriousness as any critical public infrastructure.

And for us, this is personal - NAKA has an office in El Salvador, and we’re building here for the long term.

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