ETHCluj Conference Returns to Cluj-Napoca, Romania – Expanding Eastern Europeʼs Builder Ecosystem
After a successful first edition, ETHCluj returns for its second conference, bringing together Ethereum developers, researchers, founders, and community leaders from across Europe and beyond.
Taking place at Cluj Arena, ETHCluj 2026 builds on the momentum of its 2025 debut, which gathered over 200 attendees – more than 40 of them students, 80 speakers, 90+ sessions, 9 side events, 10 sponsors, 3 institutional partners and 19 ecosystem partners – all delivered by a lean, builder-led team rooted in the local technical community.
ETHCluj 2026 is supported by a growing network of sponsors and global community partners. The Main Sponsor for this year’s event is Akasha Foundation.
ETHCluj collaborates with leading Ethereum communities worldwide – some of them are listed here and the list continues to grow.
ETHAuckland
ETHBelgrade
ETHBengaluru
ETHBucharest
ETHCali
ETH Cinco de Mayo
Ethereum Cat Herders
ETHDublin
ETHLagos
ETHMumbai
ETHPrague
ETHSlovenia
ETHTokyo
ETH Tbilisi
ETHWarsaw
NapulETH
POAP
Thrilld Labs
Urbe.eth
Local and regional partners
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca Babes-Bolyai University Transilvania IT Cluster
Cluj Startups
Cluj-Napoca Transylvania Angels Network The Municipality of Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca Municipal Council
OpenAlt Romania open-source technology community
Together, these collaborations strengthen our global connectivity while rooting meaningful development within Eastern Europe.
ETHCluj Community & Conference Built by Builders, for Builders
ETHCluj is a community-led Ethereum initiative based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, focused on technical education, protocol literacy, and sustainable ecosystem growth. Run by developers and ecosystem operators, the initiative prioritizes depth over hype and long-term contribution over short-term visibility.
ETHCluj Conference is not a generic crypto event. It is a technical Ethereum-focused conference designed around:
Protocol literacy
Infrastructure and security
Applied Ethereum development
Long-term ecosystem growth
Conference Tracks – 2026 Edition
Content will be structured across six technical tracks:
Ethereum Culture & Roadmap
AI and Ethereum
Privacy
Usability & Adoption
Security
Decentralized Finance DeFi
The program features both local and international speakers announced via the official website and social channels, representing infrastructure, research, security, and application-layer innovation within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Side Events During ETHCluj Week
In addition to the two-day conference, ETHCluj will once again be surrounded by a series of community-driven side events taking place throughout ETHCluj Week in Cluj-Napoca.
During the 2025 edition, the ecosystem organized 9 independent side events, including meetups, workshops, informal builder gatherings, and partner-hosted sessions across the city. These events created additional opportunities for deeper technical discussions, project collaboration, and community connection beyond the main conference agenda.
For 2026, ETHCluj expects a similar number of side events, organized by ecosystem partners, visiting communities, and local contributors.
While the main conference takes place on 13 14 May 2026 at Cluj Arena, the broader ETHCluj Week will extend activities across multiple venues throughout the city.
This format allows participants to experience not only the conference itself but also the wider Ethereum community gathering in Cluj-Napoca.
ETHCluj 2026 brings together 40+ global industry leaders, including: Paul Dylan-Ennis Polar – Professor at the College of Business,
University College Dublin and author of Absolute Essentials of Ethereum.
Cheeky-Gorilla – Core contributor to Protocol Guild- a collective fund that supports Ethereum Layer 1 core protocol contributors through long-term, onchain token vesting.
Milos Stankovic – Core protocol developer, working for Ethereum Foundation since 2024 and currently part of the Protocol Prototyping team working on Ethereum’s upcoming upgrades.
Krzysztof Paruch – Mathematician and crypto economist focused on mechanism design, prediction markets, and capital-efficient onchain financial systems.
Anastassis Oikonomopoulos Sinkas – Program manager at the ArbitrumDAO OpCo with a background in business administration and economics.
Roxana Nasoi – Core Contributor at Logos, leading London chapter, Forbes-featured, Top Privacy Voice 2025 and TEDx speaker on Digital Identity 2020.
Alin-Mihai Barbatei – Founder and Principal Security Researcher at Cyba Blockchain Security, with over a decade of cybersecurity expertise spanning Web2 and Web3, securing over $1B in TVL across EVM and Bitcoin L2s.
Gavin Birch – Builder focused on privacy infrastructure and governance design, founder of Armada, exploring activity shaping, revenue-gated unlocks, and credible neutrality in Ethereum systems.
Gabi Dumitriu – Certified Investigator OSCE Cyber), blockchain expert building tools to combat illicit crypto activity, with experience spanning enterprise blockchain solutions and crypto forensics.
Dr. Neville Grech – Experienced white hat hacker in software engineering, security, and program analysis and the lead author of MadMax – a static analysis technique that combines decompiling EVM bytecode with logic-based analysis to automatically find gas-focused vulnerabilities in smart contracts.
Owen Healy – One of the most recognized recruiters in blockchain technology, helping build teams behind leading Web3 projects
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