Attend

Venue

AFT '26 will be held as an in-person event in London, UK on the London School of Economics campus from October 6-9, 2026. Please note that there will be no remote attendance or streaming available for this event.

The conference will take place on the main LSE campus, located in central London, centered around Houghton Street and Clare Market in the City of Westminster.

The conference reception will be held in the Staff Common Room, which is on the 5th floor of the Old Building (OLD), access via Houghton Street.

The main conference will take place in “The Venue”, which is in the basement of the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre (SAW), access via Sheffield Street.

The conference dinner will take place on board the Golden Spirit, which will depart from Temple Pier (WC2R 2PN, a 15 minute walk from the campus) at 6:30pm sharp on October 8th. Please arrive by 6:15pm at the latest to ensure time to board.

Rump Session

Call for contributions

Do you have breaking news, progress reports, or other topics of interest to the financial cryptographic community? Can you keep your talk short¹ and entertaining? The Rump Session is where people show off their talents, present breaking news, humorous takes on the subject, present their rejected AFT submission to a rowdy² audience, or present work under submission in the hope of influencing program committees.

1. The actual length of your talk will be decided by the rump session chair, who accepts bribes in all (crypto)currencies and more primitive payment systems (e.g. beer).

2. The audience is encouraged to be extra rowdy.

Submission Guidelines

Time constraints: 1-5 minutes, 6 minutes if very funny

Submission deadline: Thursday, October 8, 12:00 London

Send talk proposals with PDF slides and the requested amount of time to bernie [snabel-a] commonprefix [punktum] com (emailed address encrypted with advanced Danish cryptography)

Awards and Audience Participation

To encourage you all to contribute humorous talks, we will be awarding a “Best Talk” award. In the spirit of AFT, we will be leveraging state-of-the-art financial technologies to determine the winner. All members of the audience will be given tokens for the latest (definitely not vibe coded) DeFi app for determining the award winner, so get your degen mood on and make sure to attend the Rump Session even if you don't plan to give a talk.

Format

Your slides must be submitted as a PDF, which we will collect together to avoid laptop changes (we like decentralized systems but not that much...). If you plan to give a talk without slides, prepare and submit one slide with your name and talk title. If your proposed submission has any special requirements please contact the rump session chair and we will let you know what is or is not possible.

Detailed instructions

When submitting your slides, remember to specify how many minutes you need for your presentation. Some submissions may have to be shortened because of time constraints. Please remember that the Rump Session is meant for short and entertaining presentations. Any submissions not following these guidelines may be rejected³.

3. The rump session chair reserves the right to accept submissions not following these guidelines after heavy modifications…

Hotels

While there is no official conference hotel, the surrounding area offers plenty of accommodation options across a range of price points. Some examples of nearby hotels:

Imperial London Hotels | Bloomsbury | Affordable & Central. They have several hotels in their chain. Tavistock is usually the cheapest.

https://www.grangehotels.com/hotels-london/. Again, several hotels available.

Z Hotel Holborn: https://www.thezhotels.com/hotels/holborn/

Or, if you want to treat yourself, there is always: https://www.thesavoylondon.com/

Registration

Please register here. Registration fees (in GBP) are as follows:

Fees

The Conference fee includes access to conference presentations for 3 days from October 7th to October 9th; attendance at the Welcome Reception on October 6th; social dinner on October 8th; coffee breaks and lunches for the 3 days.

The Social attendance only ticket can only be purchased by people accompanying a conference registrant and includes attendance at the Welcome Reception on October 6th and social dinner on October 8th.

Authors of Accepted Papers

Each accepted paper must be accompanied by the registration of at least one distinct author. Papers presented at the main conference (Day 1 to Day 3) require at least one registration at the full rate (Conference) by August 31, 2026. Papers without a valid accompanying registration may be excluded from the proceedings.

Student Support

We have limited funding to potentially support attendance of a few participants with financial needs. This is generally intended for presenters who can secure some but not all of their own funding, although we will consider applications from all participants.

Eligibility: Applicants to this grant must be a student at the time of physically attending AFT'26 to qualify. Generally, travel grants are awarded to PhD students pursuing research in areas of interest to AFT. We rarely consider master's students and do not consider postdocs.

Your application must include the following:

• A resume with complete contact information and correct email address.
• A short personal statement (up to 250 words) detailing the relevance of the conference to your research and career development, a breakdown of estimated expenses (conference registration, travel, and lodging), and an explanation of why you cannot attend AFT without a travel grant.
• A letter (maximum 1 page) from your advisor (or faculty contact) confirming your good standing at the institution, explaining the benefits and potential contributions of your attendance at AFT, describing your current funding status and need for the travel grant, and committing to supplement the travel award to cover remaining costs.

Please submit your application by Aug. 26th, 2026, via email to aft26-chairs@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk including your CV, statement and reference letter as a single PDF.

Visa Letters

Attendees requiring a visa to travel to the UK are encouraged to contact the general chair as soon as possible to request an invitation letter. Please include the following information:

• Full legal name
• Nationality
• Passport number
• Date of birth
• Physical address
• Email address

Warning and Disclaimer: any fraudulent attempts to obtain visa support letters will be reported to the authorities. We may also share applicant information with relevant immigration authorities for verification purposes.

Notice Regarding Photography and Video Recording

Please be advised that during the Advances in Financial Technologies Conference in London (October 6-9, 2026), photographs and video recordings may be captured throughout the event. By attending the conference, you automatically consent to the use and publication of such images and recordings on our website, social media channels, in the media, and through other communication channels.

If you prefer not to be included in these materials, please notify us of your preference explicitly during the registration process by emailing the general chair.