Activity-weighted blockchain consensus steals the show: Paris Blockchain Week recap

Paris Blockchain Week 2025 spotlights PoSA merge, Bahamut blockchain, hackathon wins and calls for rules on digital assets worldwide.
Mike Kara
Posted by Mike Kara April 21, 2025 3 Mins Read
Paris Blockchain Week 2025 spotlights PoSA merge, Bahamut blockchain, hackathon wins and calls for rules on digital assets worldwide.

Paris Blockchain Week 2025 gathered the industry’s leading voices for important announcements, lively discussions and high-level networking. The event brought together about 9,600 attendees from 95 countries to discuss Web3 innovation at the iconic Carrousel du Louvre on April 8-10.

Fastex and Bahamut — an EVM-based, layer-1 public blockchain — drew attention with its approach of weighting validator rewards by onchain activity. On April 8, Fastex Web3 program lead Pavel Aramyan introduced Bahamut’s proof-of-stake-and-activity (PoSA) merge to a packed audience. The mechanism builds on proof-of-stake (PoS) by tracking how often each validator’s smart contracts are used and weighting block-proposal odds accordingly.

“What sets Bahamut aside is the consensus mechanism where validators have the opportunity to deploy their smart contracts and tie them directly to their validator nodes,” Aramyan explained. “Whenever these smart contracts are used, validators accumulate ‘activity’ — a rating influencing their chances to propose blocks and earn greater rewards.”

PoSA in action at the hackathon

Expanding on the core event, a multitude of side events enriched the experience of Paris Blockchain Week visitors. During the Paris Blockchain Week Hackathon (April 5-6), organized by BizThon with the Solana Foundation and XRPL Commons, developers explored three tracks at the VO2 Offices, including a dedicated Bahamut challenge focused on integrating PoSA into new decentralized applications (DApps).

Eleven talented teams developed solutions on the Bahamut blockchain in a friendly competition for a share of the €10,000 prize pool. Judged by a panel, including Fastex executives Pavel Aramyan and chief business development officer Armen Baghdasaryan, the winning teams emerged with innovative solutions:

  • 1st place (€5,000): Looser Bracket – “Gaming Meets Liquidity”

  • 2nd place (€3,000): Rod For Bahamut – “Boost Smart Contract Earnings with PoSA”

  • 3rd place (€2,000): Monolith – “Memes Coin Launchpad”

  • Special Recognition: Pixamut – “AI Pixel Wars on Bahamut Chain,” earning priority access to the Bahamut Foundation Grants Program

A glimpse of the future at the ‘confidence conference’

On April 7, Fastex hosted its “Future Confidence Conference” at the elegant Atica Venue near Notre Dame, outlining a roadmap that features PercentMe — a DeFi lending protocol on Bahamut — along with consumer-facing services such as YoWallet, YoHealth, YoPhone, YoSIM and YoBlog.

Meri Mirijanyan, head of payments at Fastex, emphasized the convergence of traditional finance and crypto, noting that 70% of Fortune 500 companies show growing interest in crypto trends. She explained that Fastex Card can be used for daily transactions anywhere Mastercard is available, adding: “With Fastex Card, we are trying to make the payment process as simple as possible while keeping it as secure as possible.”

Global insights on digital assets and regulation

On April 9, Fastex chief legal officer Vardan Khachatryan joined the panel “The Influence of Digital Assets in the Global Economy,” stressing that clear stablecoin rules are essential if mainstream institutions are to adopt tokenized money. Alongside representatives from Animoca Capital, Flipster, Freedx and Paybis, he underscored the significance of clear regulatory frameworks to support broader digital asset integration.

Celebratory conclusion at La Machine du Moulin Rouge

The Paris Blockchain Week closed at the iconic La Machine du Moulin Rouge, where more than 2,000 registered guests — developers, founders, investors and policy-makers — gathered under the venue’s famous red windmill. Sponsored by Fastex, the event shifted PBW’s energy from conference halls to dance floors; house and downtempo sets filled the main room while smaller lounges offered space for quieter conversations and last‑minute deal‑making.

Music played until nearly 3 am, but the evening was as much about networking as celebration. The informal setting, far removed from panel stages and pitch decks, boosted the community’s collaborative spirit and sent participants into the Paris dawn with new contacts and renewed momentum.

Find out more about Fastex, PoSA and Bahamut

Disclaimer. Cointelegraph does not endorse any content or product on this page. While we aim at providing you with all important information that we could obtain in this sponsored article, readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company and carry full responsibility for their decisions, nor can this article be considered as investment advice.

Tags: