95% of crypto startups that approach Gate Ventures don't make the cut. That number, shared on stage at the 14th Edition AIM Congress in Abu Dhabi, says more about the current state of the industry than most market reports do.

The AIM Congress gathered fintech leaders, investors, and institutional players for a panel titled Mastering AI, Blockchain, and ML Applications in Banking, Payments and Wealth Management. Laura K. Inamedinova, Chief Ecosystem Officer at Gate.com and Founder of LKI Consulting, joined a panel with 4 industry leaders to examine where the industry is actually heading.

Panelists:

1. Syed Shahan - Founder, Touchforce (Moderator)

2. Sardar Durrani - Global Head of Investments and Strategic Partnerships, Genesis Digital Assets (GDA)

3. Namer Khan - Chairman, MENA Fintech Association

4. Chris Pinkerton - Chief Growth Officer, Flybits

5. Christopher Keshian - CIO, Triton Liquid Fund

Building resilient businesses isn't a consolation prize for a bear market. Inamedinova reframed how the industry should read market stress: businesses built to function independently of bull-market conditions are structurally stronger. Volatility is routine in crypto - panicked selling is common, but that doesn't make it rational. The real filter is whether a company's fundamentals hold when sentiment turns negative.

AI in banking isn't a sprint - it's an 18-month procurement maze. Pinkerton outlined a "crawl, walk, run" adoption model, where banks start with workflow optimization before moving toward revenue-generating personalization. Implementation timelines run 6 to 18 months, complicated by legacy core banking systems and regulatory clearance processes. The promise is real; the path is slow.

MENA is positioning itself as a regulatory test bed. Khan pointed to frameworks like Abu Dhabi's ADGM as evidence that regional regulators are actively encouraging supervised experimentation. Licensed blockchain firms are already partnering with private banks to build compliant crypto asset management platforms - a model that could reshape cross-border payments infrastructure.

Tokenization isn't theoretical - it's already touching a $4 billion market on its way to $100 billion. Keshian highlighted carbon credit fractionalization as a live use case: blockchain enables smaller entities to participate in ESG markets while eliminating double-counting. By 2030, that market is projected to reach roughly 25 times its current size.

Investors are done betting on founders who got lucky early. Durrani was direct: industry experience now outweighs being an early crypto adopter. Traction, revenue paths, and tokenomics tied to genuine product utility matter. "No" is the most-used word in a disciplined investment process.