Digital Asset Summit Agenda 2022 | Blockworks (2023)

AlfonsoPeccatiello is the author of The Macro Compass, the world's fastest growing financial newsletter.
The Macro Compass leverages on Alf's experience running a large pool of institutional money and offers actionable investment ideas and unique macroeconomic insights.

Before launching The Macro Compass,Alfonsowas the Head of Investments for a $20 billion portfolio for ING Germany.

Widely recognized as an investment portfolio and global macroeconomic expert,Alfonsohas a solid track record in enhancing portfolio's risk/return profiles and anticipating important changes in macroeconomic trends - with a special focus on monetary mechanics and fixed income

DiMartino Booth began her career in New York at Credit Suisse and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette where she worked in the fixed income, public equity, and private equity markets. DiMartino Booth earned her BBA as a College of Business Scholar at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She holds an MBA in Finance and International Business from the University of Texas at Austin and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.

Michael has been a student of markets and market structure, for nearly 30 years. His proprietary research into the shift from actively managed portfolios and investment funds to systematic passive investment strategies has been presented to the Federal Reserve, the BIS, the IMF and numerous other industry groups and associations.

Patrick Corker leads treasury, finance and strategy and corporate development for Circle. Previously, Patrick was a Finance executive at LedgerX and Goldman Sachs after beginning his career as an Auditor at Deloitte & Touche.

David Hoffman is co-founder of Bankless and is a steward of crypto culture. David focuses on writing fundamental investment theses for Etherand Ethereum, while also making deep connections to impacting culture and the psyche of those who adopt a crypto lifestyle. Davidholds 99% ofhis wealth outside of Banks and inside of Ethereum, and is focused on leading the way for others to do the same.

BrianMosoff is the CEO of Ether Capital (NEO: ETHC),a public technology company focused on yield generation and infrastructure that supports the Ethereum ecosystem.He has been actively involved in the crypto industry for adecade and helped launch the world's first spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs alongside Purpose Investments in 2021.Brianis a capital markets expertwho has acted as an advisor to both the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) regarding digital asset policy. He is the President of the Canadian Web3 Council, special advisor to Wealthsimple and a mentor to early blockchain start-ups at theRotmanSchool of Management'sCreativeDestruction Lab.

Kain Warwick is an Australian cryptocurrency entrepreneur most-known as the founder of Synthetix protocol. Synthetix is a financial primitive that enables the creation of synthetic assets, offering unique derivatives and exposure to real-world assets on the blockchain.In 2020, Kain popularised the concept of yield farming that sparked the 2020 DeFi boom, earning the moniker: ‘the father of modern agriculture.

Perianne Boring is the Founder & President of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the world's largest trade association representing the blockchain industry. The Chamber’s mission is to promote the acceptance and use of digital assets and blockchain-based technologies. Working with policymakers, regulatory agencies, and industry, the Chamber advocates for a pro-growth policy environment that fosters job creation, innovation, and investment.Perianne was named America’s Top 50 Women in Tech by Forbes. In 2016, she was named 10 Most Influential People in Blockchain by CoinDesk.

The Honorable Kathleen L. Kraninger is the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Solidus Labs where she leads the firm’s regulatory strategy and works to advance market integrity and responsible innovation in digital asset markets. Solidus Labs is the first automated, comprehensive, and testable market surveillance and risk monitoring hub tailored for digital assets.

Previously, she served as the Senate-confirmed Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from December 2018 until January 2021, leading the 1,500-person independent, regulatory and law enforcement agency. She made her mark on all aspects of the agency’s mission and operations, particularly in facilitating innovation, promoting financial inclusion and leading through the economic uncertainty of the global pandemic. In addition, Kraninger served on the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Financial Stability Oversight Board, and as chair of the Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council.

Her distinguished public sector career spans senior roles at the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security, the Office of Management and Budget, and in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Kraninger graduated magna cum laude from Marquette University and earned a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. She served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine.

Casey Wagner is a New York-based business journalist covering digital assets and macro economics. Prior to joining Blockworks, she reported on markets at Bloomberg News. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Media Studies.

Robert Materazzi is the CEO of Lukka, the leading provider of enterprise software & data for crypto middle and back office solutions. Robert has diverse experience leading Product, Customer, Risk, and Marketing and other teams. Prior to Lukka, he led large scale risk, cybersecurity, & technology transformations while at PricewaterhouseCoopers for 6 years. Before joining PwC, Robert was a Marine AH-1W Super Cobra pilot for nine years.

Valerie A. Szczepanik is the Director of the Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial
Technology (FinHub) Office at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Before
that, she was the Senior Advisor for Digital Assets and Innovation and an Associate Director in
the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance. She also served as Assistant Director in the SEC
Division of Enforcement’s Cyber Unit. Ms. Szczepanik served as a Special Assistant United
States Attorney at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. She
clerked for federal judges on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and, prior to clerking, practiced patent
law. Ms. Szczepanik received her Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University and her
Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dan is one of the most well known Bitcoin educators and a 9 year marketingleader. He was formerly the Director of Growth Marketing at Kraken, one of the world’s biggest and most well-known crypto exchanges. He is a serial crypto entrepreneur with two exits (Interchange > Kraken, ZeroBlock > Blockchain.com), and has a wide span of experience across 5 Bitcoin companies over 10 years. In between his time in crypto, he was on the Growth Product and Marketing teams at Uber. In his free time, he has become one of the most well-known educators of Bitcoin, with over 750,000 followers on social media. He was part of the original 2013 crypto meetup group in SF which was comprised with the founders of Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, and others.

Didier is an accomplished financial services executive with more than 15 years of experience in the capital markets and custody sectors, most recently as Head of Product, Custody Canada at Royal Bank of Canada. Previous RBC roles included Global Head of FX Standing Instruction, Head of North American FX Sales, and Vice President, Sales. He has also held positions at UBS and Genuity Capital Markets.

Bessie is a New York based crypto reporter who previously worked as a tech journalist for The Org. She completed her master’s degree in journalism at New York University after working as a management consultant for over two years. Bessie is originally from Melbourne, Australia.

You can contact Bessie at [emailprotected]

John is the co-Founder of Celestia and Fuel Labs. Creator of Optimistic Rollups, previously scalability researcher at ConsenSys

Meet Sandeep Nailwal. Also known as the co-founder of Polygon, a global and sustainable Web3 infrastructure built on Ethereum. After studying computer science, Sandeep received his MBA from the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (Nitie), one of the top schools in India, where he specialized in information technology. Sandeep went on to lead the technology department at Welspun, the largest textile company in Asia, and worked as a consultant at Deloitte.

Sandeep’s background in tech set the foundation for the 2015 launch of his company, ScopeWeaver, India’s largest marketplace for professional services. It was here that he designed and developed blockchain-based decentralized application architecture. As with many, once Sandeep dipped his toes into the world of web3, there was no turning back. Sandeep immersed himself in literature, reading everything and anything about artificial intelligence and other new technologies, such as blockchain. Just two years later, in 2017, Sandeep, Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun united under a common vision for the future of blockchain tech, and Polygon was born.

Currently, Sandeep is based in Dubai, with the support of his 400+ people team that are distributed across India, Dubai, Asia, the USA, and Europe. Sandeep’s day to day is filled with a little bit of everything, including, branding, marketing, adoption, and operations at Polygon, as well as partnering with key stakeholders to push forward the vision of Polygon. With a strong team behind him, Sandeep is excited to continue to develop the Polygon ecosystem, with the ultimate mission of bringing crypto to the masses.

“Mass adoption of crypto is our core mission at Polygon…” - Sandeep Naiwal

Diana Biggs is Chief Strategy Officer of Valour, the first publicly listed company focused on digital assets and decentralized finance. She is a recognized blockchain and fintech expert and a global executive working tirelessly to broaden adoption, accessibility and understanding of these technologies. In addition to her role at Valour, Diana is an Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and serves on the board of the Swiss entity of HIVE Blockchain, the first publicly listed crypto mining company.

Throughout her career, Diana has worked with some of the biggest names in banking and decentralized finance including at HSBC as its first Global Head of Innovation for HSBC Private Banking. She also built the innovation team for HSBC Retail and Wealth Management across the UK and Europe. Diana launched Valour, the European issuer of digital asset ETPs as the CEO, leading it from launch to acquisition by DeFi Technologies (now renamed as Valour) in 2021, growing the firm from 0 to over 300M USD in AuM.

Her career has earned widespread recognition as she has been named one of the Standout 35 on the Innovate Finance Women in FinTech Powerlist 2018, one of the top 25 Fintech influencers in the UK by CityAM, she is on the Fintech Finance GOLD Power List, in the Blockchain News Top 100, amongst the The 100 Most Influential Blockchain People, in the Kurtosys Women in Finance Power 100 and on Innovate Finance’s Women in Fintech Powerlist 2016. Diana is a powerhouse in the crypto space, and a true champion of innovation.

While working in Burkina Faso for Kiva as a Social Enterprise and Financial Inclusion fellow, Diana experienced firsthand the ways in which social and geopolitical factors create barriers between people and access to financial systems. Diana believes in the power of technology to break down these barriers and to empower disenfranchised populations to access financial institutions while promoting access, transparency and financial inclusion. Diana believes that by proliferating the understanding and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology, access to wealth will become more democratized and accessible than ever before.

She is currently a mentor at start-up hub and coding academy Gaza Sky Geeks and impact tech accelerator at Katapult Impact. As an Anthemis Group Fellow from 2016-2017, she explored the potential for blockchain technology to help solve humanitarian challenges through her venture, Proof of Purpose. Diana has also served as a member of the Board of Digital Leaders in Europe for the World Economic Forum

This wealth of extensive and diverse experience in the traditional and decentralized financial sectors, along with her on the ground work in impacted communities, gives Diana an extremely unique perspective to speak about the systemic, social, financial and technological problems that are being solved with technology by people like her. She fully believes in the possibilities of blockchain technology, and the massive potential that it has to reach. Diana sees this technology as a force for good, and a catalyst for real change, and she has the experience and knowledge to back it all up.

Martha is a veteran emerging markets specialist, with two decades of experience in capital markets, including sales and distribution and portfolio management, with a strong emphasis on equities research and macro analysis. Martha studied International Finance at Columbia University and has an undergraduate degree in International Relations, with a focus on trade and economics, She sees digital assets as the new frontier in investing, and is particularly interested in the potential for blockchaintechnology in developing nations.

Shawn Douglass is a business and technology executive with over 20 years of experience in the industry. Mr. Douglass is Co-founder and CEO of Amberdata, a leading provider of digital asset data infrastructure and market intelligence to financial institutions. Prior to founding Amberdata, Mr. Douglass served as President of Software and CTO at Unified, building and operating the company's SaaS offerings in cross-platform data management and analytics, while assisting in raising $64M in venture funding. He also served as CTO at ServiceMesh (acquired by CSC for $282M) and drove strategy and vision for the ServiceMesh Agility Platform. Prior to ServiceMesh, he was Managing Director at EMC Ventures, where he led strategic investments in cloud, security, big data/analytics. He has held roles as Board Member, Operating Executive, Technologist, Advisor, Venture Investor, and derivatives trader. Mr. Douglass is a graduate of Harvard Business School.

Uddhav is CEO and Co-Founder of Friktion Labs, the core contributors ofFriktion, a leading DeFi portfolio management protocol. Friktion’srisk-managed yield generation products enable Institutions, DAOs, and everyday users to safely access DeFi returns across market cycles. Launched in December 2021, Friktion has over 17,000 users and recently passed $2.5 billion in traded volume across 25+ markets.

Prior to crypto, Uddhav spent time in commodities trading on BP's gasoline, crude oil, and low carbon fuels desks. Uddhav has a degree in Petroleum Engineering with a focus on mathematics and geopolitical statecraft.

A result driven leader with a track record of successful management and entrepreneurship, DJ has the tenacity and skills to develop the vision of any company he founds or manages. With extensive knowledge of the digital financial & economic landscape, he is able to push performance and innovate whilst delivering growth. Possessing vast managing directorship and CEO experience he ensures that clear objectives and results are being delivered to improve on the quality of the crypto finance sector and open new paths in the Defi world.

DJ’s journey in the blockchain industry started in 2013, leading to the foundation of BitSE - one of the first companies to activate in blockchain technology research and development. QTUM and VeChain are two of the high impact projects created by BitSE and denominated as “ahead of their time” by various publications.

Chainge Finance is DJ’s latest initiative and its main goal revolves around full financial independency and decentralization. Powered by Fusion DCRM technology, this one of a kind digital finance app engulfs all of the features that users need in order to become their own digital bank and rid themselves of tedious traditional financial processes. From stealth cross chain transactions, escrow smart contracts & decentralized trading in the Future DEX and Options DEX, Chainge’s

automated financial services are now available through a pristine,

smooth mobile app UX interface.

Chainge Finance has recently become the leader in the cross-chain/ interoperabity sector and stands as the most liquid cross-chain aggregated DEX on the market with 70bn+ in aggregated liquidity. DJ spends most of his time overseeing and working on its development.

Johann is the Product Lead for MetaMask Institutional. Since launching the product in February 2021, Johann has managed the product strategy and roadmap, design and operations, and also crypto custodian integrations. Prior to joining ConsenSys, Johann spent time as a Fintech founder, Director of Product for a Pan-European Robo-advisor, and Global Macro Portfolio Manager, where he helped to start and build the business.

Colin leads business development at Centrifuge, the DeFi protocol for financing real world assets on-chain, where he focuses on establishing strategic partnerships to build the ecosystem of private structured credit on-chain.

Prior to Centrifuge, Colin led the business development efforts at Keemotion (acquired by Sportradar) and prior to that at Axial.net. Colin graduated with a degree in Economics from the College of the Holy Cross.

Ambre is the CEO of Kaiko, an enterprise-grade market data provider in the blockchain-based digital assets industry. Prior to joining Kaiko, Ambre spent a decade at HSBC in London and Paris, structuring equity derivatives and equity-based financing solutions (Global Markets & Equity Capital Markets). Ambre has a passion for world-changing technology, and has been interested and invested in digital assets since 2012.

John Patrick Mullin is a FinTech entrepreneur, investor, and educator living in Hong Kong. He’s a Co-founder of MANTRA DAO, a popular Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform and SOMA.finance a US-regulated Decentralized Exchange (DEX). Prior to this he served as the Managing Director of Tritaurian Capital, a FINRA-regulated boutique investment bank focusing on providing financial services and capital raising solutions for startups and SMEs. He also has a traditional investment banking background having worked at Guotai Junan Securities in Shanghai, China. As an educator, he has spoken at leading universities across the world, including Harvard, London Business School, and Peking University. Additionally, John is an active investor as General Partner (GP) of UNKNOWN VC, an early stage venture capital firm investing in DeFi and Web 3.0.

JackCarlisleis the Director of Credit at BlockTower Capital’s Credit Fund, where he co-leads the firm’s investment activities. Jack is focused on both specialty finance solutions for non-traditional lenders and loan purchase agreements. Previously, Jack worked at Hildene Capital Management, most recently as a Senior Investment Analyst. At Hildene, Jack covered primary and secondary trading for the firm’s positions in asset backed securities, legacy collateralized debt obligations, and mortgage-backed securities.

Collin Erickson is a member of investment team at Victory Park Capital Advisors, LCC (“VPC”), where he focuses on digital asset investing. VPC is a $5.5billion AUM global alternative investment manager focused on providing asset-backed private credit solutions to both established and emerging businesses.

Previously, Collin was an investment banking analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, focusing on M&A and special situations. Collin graduated from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

Ornella is a Miami-based multimedia journalist covering NFTs, the metaverse and DeFi. Prior to joining Blockworks, she reported for Cointelegraph and has also worked for TV outlets such as CNBC and Telemundo. She originally began investing in ethereum after hearing about it from her dad and hasn't looked back. She speaks English, Spanish, French and Italian. Contact Ornella at [emailprotected]

Blake West is the cofounder of Goldfinch, and of Warbler Labs, which supports the decentralized Goldfinch protocol on Ethereum. Before Warbler Labs, he was an engineer at Coinbase and at Hint Health. Prior to tech, he was a professional keyboardist in Austin, TX, and invented the Hummingbird notation system.

John Calabrese leads Product at Nansen, and has over 10 years of experience in product management. Previously, he worked at large companies in the finance technology space such as FIS, Fidelity and startups such as Cinch and Monit.

John has roots in traditional finance, earning his CFA and FRM designations, but is most passionate about the future of finance where products are more decentralized, transparent, and efficient through blockchain technology. When not working or trading crypto, John can be found at home spending time with his Shiba Inu, Nutmeg.

Lisa Fridman is the President and Co-Founder at Quadrata, focused on bringing identity and reputation on-chain through Web3 passports. Ms. Fridman is an experienced business builder and investor. She was previously the Head of Blockchain Strategy at Springcoin, Inc. (“Spring Labs”). Prior to joining Spring Labs, Lisa served as a Co-Head of Strategy at Martlet Asset Management, Chief Executive of PAAMCO Europe and the Global Head of Research at PAAMCO. Throughout her career, Lisa has collaborated with leading financial institutions and allocators, delivering bespoke solutions. Ms. Fridman received her MBA from UCLA Anderson. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Business Economics from UCLA. Lisa is passionate about education and serves on the Fink Center Board.

Amy is head of the emerging market equity investment business with investors based in New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai and Riyadh. She joined Morgan Stanley in 2001 and has over 21 years of experience. She was previously chief operating officer of the emerging markets equity business, and held roles in FX trading, portfolio management support, and product development and strategy. Amy started her career in internet consulting before transitioning to finance. Amy received a B.A. in business administration, with a concentration in finance, from Fordham University and a Master of Science, in Applied Psychology, from the University of Southern California.

MatthewSigel runs crypto research at VanEck and is the portfolio manager of Smart Contract Leaders, one of the firm’s liquid token funds. Formerly, he was a portfolio manager and analyst at AllianceBernstein.

Michael Bodley is a New York-based managing editor for Blockworks, where he focuses on the intersection of Wall Street and digital assets. He previously worked for the institutional investor newsletter Hedge Fund Alert. His work has been published in The Boston Globe, NBC News, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post.

Contact Michael via email at [emailprotected]

Amy Wu leads FTX Ventures, a $2B venture fund investing in crypto and web3 companies. She's led investments in companies including Yuga Labs, Arbitrum, Alchemy, Webull, Epic Games, and Solana between her roles at FTX and Lightspeed Venture Partners, where Amy previously led crypto and gaming investing. Prior, Amy was an executive at Discovery, Inc, as CFO of APAC and the digital and sports businesses.

Christine is a Partner and Head of Digital Asset Strategy at Apollo Global Management, Inc. In this newly created position, Christine leads digital asset strategy across the firm, exploring more ways to apply blockchain technologies to Apollo’s business. She also plays a key role in Apollo’s strategy to invest in some of the most innovative digital asset companies and founders, with a specific focus on those transforming the financial services sector where Apollo can serve as a validator and enabler of new technologies. Previously, she was a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan and led its Blockchain/Crypto/Metaverse program through initiatives in digital assets, tokenized payments, internet of-things, decentralized identity, NFTs, and virtual worlds. She is a graduate of Brown University. Christine was named in Fortune’s The Ledger 40 Under 40 list of “the most impressive, young superstars transforming business at the leading edge of finance and technology.”

Pete Najarian is the Managing Partner of RW3 Ventures.

RW3 Ventures is the recently launched digital asset investment firm in partnership with The Raptor Group.

Pete has significant dedicated digital asset experience having previously served in senior leadership roles for two leading digital asset operating businesses, Xapo and BitGo.

Prior to that, Pete spent over 20 years building and leading Emerging Markets businesses for some of the world’s largest banks, UBS and RBS.

The Raptor Group is a trusted venture firm with significant investments across fintech, sports and gaming, healthcare and digital assets.

Vanessa Grellet is a Managing Partner at Aglaé Ventures. Vanessa is a Global Executive with over 20 years of expertise in the Financial Services and Tech industry. At Aglaé Ventures she manages the Web 3 focused fund. Prior to joining Aglae she has Head of Portfolio growth at CoinFund and Executive director at ConsenSys where she focused on driving adoption for Ethereum based products, Strategic initiatives, Alliances and Channels. She was involved in setting up the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), the Accounting Blockchain Coalition (ABC) and the Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition (BSIC). Prior to ConsenSys she was a Strategy Executive at NYSE focused on investments and M&A and a key member of PwC’s global wealth management team. Vanessa is a Founding Board member of AABC focused on Blockchain and Art, a member of the Advisory Council of ConsenSys, a Milken Institute Associate, a contributor to the World Economic Forum Digital Future Council and part of Cointelegraph’s list of 100 most influential people for 2022. Mrs. Grellet graduated Cum Laude from Law School (Paris II Assas) and Business School (HEC).

Ron represents the association on Capitol Hill as the Director of Government Relations. Ron’s background in crafting a bipartisan cryptoregulatoryframework via legislation dates back to 2016 when he served as the Financial Services Policy Lead for Rep. Warren Davidson (OH-8). During Ron’s five years on Capitol Hill, he authored several pieces of legislation including the Token Taxonomy Act, Federal ReserveRegulatoryOversight Act, and the Derivatives Fairness Act. Before coming to Capitol Hill, he was the campaign manager for three successful Texas State Senate races. Ron received his B.A. from Georgetown University.

Erin Fennimore brings over 10 years of expertise and experience in the area of information reporting and withholding. Prior to joining TaxBit, Fennimore led the Global Tax Reporting group at Moss Adams, where she focused on the private equity and venture capital sector, as well as advising multinational corporations and financial institutions on compliance with information reporting and withholding regulations.

Erin also worked at IHS Markit (formerly Compliance Technologies International) where she designed, tested, and implemented tax software solutions for tax due diligence, withholding, and information reporting. At TaxBit, Erin leads the expansion of the tax software solutions in the emerging and ever changing area of crypto domestically and abroad.

Mike Castiglione joined Eventus as Director of Regulatory Affairs, Digital Assets in February
2022 where he focuses on preparing clients for the range of global rules that could affect crypto
and their compliance systems. He joined Eventus after 15 years in the US government focused
on national security and emerging technology policy, including with the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA). During that time, he advised the White House, Defense Department, others in
government about global risks, the implications of technological advancements, and policy
options. He has led teams specializing in data analytics and over-the-horizon forecasts during
foreign crises.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Michigan State University and a Master of Public Affairs
(MPA) from Princeton.

Michelle L. Neufeld is the Deputy Chief Compliance Officer and BSA/AML Officer for BitGo. BitGo is the leader in institutional digital asset custody, trading and finance with global reach. In her role, Michelle is responsible for setting and enabling strategy, providing advice and counsel, liaising with stakeholders, and maintaining effective compliance programs for the various legal entities around the globe that comprise the BitGo organization.

Michelle has more than 25 years of global banking, securities, and brokerage experience. Before her current role at BitGo, she was head of Controls for Wells Fargo International, a service unit that comprised of all the business executed outside the US including Corporate and Investment Banking, Commercial Banking and Wealth and Investment management. In her role, Michelle was responsible for the global first-line-of-defense risk awareness and management across all FIG businesses. She led all first-line activities related to financial crimes (including risk underwriting), regulatory compliance, and operational risk, working closely with other Wells Fargo risk teams, auditors, and regulators.

Prior to WF, she served as executive vice president and Chief Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) officer for Banc of California. There she developed and implemented the administration, vision, and strategy of all aspects of the BSA Compliance Program. Michelle held multiple roles at GE Capital, including the global head of Financial Crimes Compliance and chief compliance officer for both the Americas and Global Commercial Real Estate. Before joining GE Capital, Michelle led Bank of America’s AML advisory function in North America. She also served as the AML officer and associate general counsel for the global investment bank at JPMorgan Chase and general counsel and compliance officer at The Reserve Funds.

Earlier in her career, she was a staff attorney in the National Association of Securities Dealers’ Department of Arbitration and Mediation. Michelle actively participates in government, regulatory, law enforcement, and industry trade associations and forums. In addition, she participated in the Financial Action Task Force’s public/private sector consultative initiative. She is a past member of BSA Advisory Group and a past co chair of the Security Industry and Financial Markets Association’s Financial Crimes Compliance Committee.

Michelle holds a J.D. from New York Law School and a B.A. from the University of Miami.

Steve is the Risk Leader for the firm’s market leading financial services teams working to “Build, Connect and Protect” the digital assets and cryptocurrencies ecosystem. In this rapidly changing area, he advises on strategy, risk, regulatory and control concepts and overall market considerations as crypto-focused and traditional financial services firms consider their own market aspirations and risk tolerances. His experience spans across all related regulatory authorities, helping firms better align their strategy to emergent needs while still meeting customer demands. He has specifically supported efforts related to expectations of state, federal and global regulatory and enforcement authorities.

Steve’s perspectives are unique and sought after as he has been able to draw from 30 years of financial services experience across numerous transformation and risk/control topics, and apply that experience to the rapidly changing and opportunistic crypto industry. As an original architect of EY’s Financial Crime consulting services, he has unique perspectives on the challenges faced when considering this expanding market and disruption to traditional financial services. In addition to being a frequent speaker and writer on topics related to cryptocurrency strategy, he is also a Certified Cryptocurrency Expert (CCE) and Certified Anti–Money Laundering Specialist and multi-year recipient of EY’s Entrepreneur of the year award.

Brad van Voorhees is a co-founder of the Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol, a market mechanism that financially rewards bitcoin miners using verified clean energy, and allows asset managers and corporates a way to add “Proof of Sustainable Mining” to their bitcoin holdings. Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol’s mission is to “Make Bitcoin Our Planet’s Most Powerful Climate Positive Asset”. Prior to founding SB Protocol, Brad was Director of Sustainability and Responsible Sourcing at VF Corporation (The North Face, Supreme, Vans) (NYSE: VFC) where he spent eight years building the company’s global sustainability department from inception. During his tenure with VF, Brad held roles based in Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong, and lead a team of forty associates covering Sustainable Operations for all of APAC and EMEA. Brad has extensive experience with topics such as renewable energy, resource efficiency, and government engagement. Beyond his corporate role, Brad is a long-time entrepreneur and early-stage investor in various venture backed startups.

Mason is the CEO and Founder of Blockware Solutions and a Managing Partner of M31 Capital.Blockware Solutions is a first-of-its-kind operation that gives global Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency miners a turnkey solution to access an emerging and fast-growing market. Blockware is verticallyintegrated - it offers mining rig hardware procurement, owned and operated mining rig colocation services , advisory, mining software, pool operations, and node operations. The company has sold over 300,000 mining rigs since its launch in 2017, placed over 400MW's of hosting clients, mined thousands of Bitcoin, and publishes Proprietary Research through its research arm Blockware Intelligence, which has been translated in over 15 languages and has garnished hundreds of millions of views. Mason has played a pivotal role in bringing Bitcoin Mining to North America through Blockware Solutions.

Leah Wald is an economist with an expertise in asset management focusing on value investing. She co-founded Valkyrie with CIO Steven McClurg, after a career spanning NGOs, the World Bank, and asset management.

Prior rolesinclude a stint at Vital Financial, where Ms. Wald spearheaded investment strategies for multi-billion dollar asset managers on global macro strategy;Ms. Wald was also partner at Lucid Investment Strategies, an asset management firm specializing in cryptocurrency investments. Additionally, she worked at the World Bank Group and co-founded Veterati, a mentorship platform assisting unemployed and transitioning US veterans to secure meaningful employment.

Ms. Wald is a contributing writer for Forbes and co-authored the book Hyperwave Theory: The Rogue Waves of Financial Markets.

Peter Wall is the CEO of Argo Blockchain. Peter was a member of the management team that founded Argo and has been responsible for day-to-day operations since the company launched. He’s passionate about how blockchain and cryptocurrencies can impact people’s everyday lives. Known as a guy who gets things done, Peter’s varied career includes work as a technology entrepreneur, journalist, and filmmaker. He lives in Ottawa, Canada.

Co-founder and CEO of Blockstream, Dr. Adam Back, invented Hashcash, the proof-of-work algorithm cited by Satoshi Nakamoto in the Bitcoin whitepaper, as the future basis for its mining function. Throughout his two-decade-long vocation as an applied cryptographer and security architect, he has held senior roles with a number of technology companies, including Microsoft, EMC, PI, VMware, and Zero-Knowledge Systems, as well as advised many more companies on cryptography and peer-to-peer finance. Dr. Adam Back holds a computer science Ph.D. in distributed systems from the University of Exeter.

Brent Johnson brings over twenty years of experience in the financial markets to his position as CEO of Santiago Capital where he manages $175mm for High Net Worth families via separately managed accounts and private funds.

Brent enjoyed more than nine years as a Managing Director at BakerAvenue Asset Management, a $2 Billion Asset Manager and Wealth Management firm, with offices in San Francisco, Dallas and New York. He was the lead advisor for several of the firms largest clients.

Before joining BakerAvenue, Brent spent nine years at Credit Suisse in their private client group. He got his start as part of the training program at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) in New York prior to moving to San Francisco. He joined Credit Suisse in the fall of 2000 when the bank purchased DLJ.

Earlier in his career, Brent was a financial auditor for Philip Morris Management Company in New York City where he performed audits at the company’s headquarters as well as subsidiaries in Germany, Hong Kong, and Richmond, Virginia.

Brent regularly gives interviews and speaks at conferences regarding precious metals, currency markets & macroeconomic trends. His views have been quoted in numerous print, online and television outlets.He lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico with his wife Mary and son Moses.

Carlos Domingo is co-founder and CEO of Securitize. Carlos has 25+ years of experience in innovation and digital transformation, including having also founded SPiCE VC, the first truly liquid, inclusive and transparent tokenized VC on the blockchain.

Previously, Carlos was CEO of Research & Development for Telefonica (one of the largest telecom companies in the world), as well as CEO of New Business and Innovation for Telefonica Digital.

Carlos holds a PhD in computer science, speaks English, Spanish and Japanese, and is based in Miami.

Michael Ippolito is a co-founder at Blockworks in charge of content and finance. Previously to co-founding Blockworks, Michael was a consultant where he advised mid-market manufacturing-focused companies on operational and capital efficiency as well as M&A strategy.

AsCopper’s Chief Revenue Officer, and with more than 15 years’ experience in finance on both the buy and sell sides, Boris has built and leads the company’s global sales strategy. He has a background in business development and relationship management in both traditional financial services and fintech. Boris has a Masters of Business Administration from IMADEC University, Vienna and also studied Business and Operational Economics at the University of St.Gallen

Founder & CEO of dYdX. Previously software engineer at Coinbase, Uber. Princeton CS ’15

As a Director of Strategy at Algorand, Hendrik is focused on DeFi and emerginguse cases for web3 technology. In addition, heis working with traditional financial institutions on innovative use cases for their existing businesses as well as ways to bridge institutional capital into DeFi. Hendrik previously worked as atrader in Citi's Equity Block Trading division. He graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Finance and lives in New York.

Michael is the CEO and co-founder of Fireblocks, a secure digital asset infrastructure company. Prior to Fireblocks, he co-founded Lacoon Mobile Security, which was acquired by Check Point, and was then appointed the Head of Products, Mobile and Cloud Security for Check Point. Michael is a serial cybersecurity entrepreneur and investor. He is also a recognized industry speaker, delivering talks at RSA Conference, BlackHat and Infosec. Before his commercial endeavors, Michael pioneered the mobile security field in an elite military technological unit (8200), where he received the Israeli Presidential Excellency Honor for his contributions. He holds a BSc in Computer Sciences and Physics from Ben-Gurion University, Israel.

Michael Ippolito is a co-founder at Blockworks in charge of content and finance. Previously to co-founding Blockworks, Michael was a consultant where he advised mid-market manufacturing-focused companies on operational and capital efficiency as well as M&A strategy.

Bill Barhydt - born in New York City, and currently residing near San Francisco - is a serial entrepreneur and pioneer in Internet and media technologies for 30 years.

Bill is the founder and CEO of Abra. Forbes describes Abra as "the Robinhood of Crypto!” Abra enables myriad crypto banking services for consumers and institutions including trading, high yield interest accounts, borrowing and lending.Abra has customers in over 100 countries.

As a recognized expert in Internet and Mobile technologies Barhydt has presented at over 100 conferences including The World Economic Forum, The US State Department, The Mobile World Congress and TED where he gave the first ever TED Talk on Bitcoin in 2012.

Bill started his career working in R&D at the CIA and NASA. Bill also spent several years working at Goldman Sachs in Fixed Income Trading. As one of the early team members of Netscape, Bill was involved in building some of the core infrastructure that helped grow the consumer Internet we all use today.Today Bill is globally recognized as a technology pioneer and as an avid investor in companies across the broader technology ecosystem.

Coby Moran is Lead Investigator for Merkle Science, he and his team support the company’s clients in the event of a crypto crime - providing critical insights and reports on the flow of illicit funds. He also partners with the organization’s Innovation Team to expedite the process of data acquisition and enhance de-mixing capabilities, enabling Merkle Science to better serve its customers before, during and after an attack.

Prior to joining Merkle, Coby worked as an FBI Analyst, where he consulted on a multitude of cryptocurrency cases involving ransomware, money laundering, ICO scams, and darknet marketplaces to name a few. He also consulted for multiple agencies advising on digital assets cases providing invaluable insights and leads. Coby holds two Bachelor’s degrees in Criminal Justice and Spanish from The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina.

Based in Chicago, Saeed Badreg currently serves on Jump Crypto’s Strategic Partnerships team. At Jump Crypto, Saeed is heavily focused on supporting the continued development of Jump's special projects including the Wormhole protocol, a communication bridge between Solana and other top decentralized finance (DeFi) networks, and the Pyth network, a specialized oracle solution for latency-sensitive financial data, among other strategic initiatives.

Prior to Jump, Saeed served as the Chief Executive Officer of Tolemaeus, mobile and web application developer and software integration platform, and co-founded Makanak, a product aggregating one of the largest business datasets for the MENA regions.

Saeed earned a bachelor’s degree in Law and Society from American University and an MBA Primer from DePaul University.

Bessie is a New York based crypto reporter who previously worked as a tech journalist for The Org. She completed her master’s degree in journalism at New York University after working as a management consultant for over two years. Bessie is originally from Melbourne, Australia.

You can contact Bessie at [emailprotected]

Ben’s professional background consists of investing, advising and operating financial technology companies. Most recently, he was recognized by Forbes as a member of the 2022 Forbes 30- Under-30 class for his achievements in Finance. He is currently the head of corporate development at Figment, the market-leading blockchain infrastructure provider for institutions that was recently valued at $1.4bn from private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Previously, he was the Director of Product at Fidelity Digital Assets, focused on building the institutional infrastructure to support custody and trading of crypto assets. Prior to that Ben led the corporate development effort for Symbiont, an enterprise FinTech company creating the next generation of financial markets infrastructure using blockchain technology. Before Symbiont, Ben was an associate at SenaHill Partners, a merchant bank where he advised and invested in early-stage FinTech companies. He started his career as an equity trader at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The work he is most proud of is being the Co-Chairman for Futures and Options junior board - a non-profit career and personal development program for NYC’s underserved youth. Ben graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business with a double major in Finance and Technology Management from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.

Laszlo is co-founder and CEO at Kiln. He previously co-founded a tech recruitment company before he started to build Kiln in 2018."

Matt is the CEO and Co-Founder of Alluvial Finance. Alluvial is building the enterprise liquid staking standard. Recently he was the Head of Liquid Staking Products at Figment, a blockchain infrastructure company focused on building web3. Prior to joining Figment, Matt spent 12 years in the proprietary trading space leading teams in building high-frequency, algorithmic trading systems. He was a Partner and Managing Director at Transmarket Group. Matt graduated from Purdue University with a degree in Computer Engineering and University of Chicago with a Master’s in Computer Science.

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Sam Martin, based in Ohio, is a research analyst at Blockworks. Prior to Blockworks, Sam spent 2 years working at various firms in the agricultural commodity business.

Micki Koonin is co-founder and Chief of Staff at Paradigm. Previously she was a volatility trader at Wolverine Trading, a proprietary trading firm, trading US Indexes and Commodity derivatives for 10 years. She holds a Master's in Software Engineering from DePaul University and a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematical Decision Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Casey Wagner is a New York-based business journalist covering digital assets and macro economics. Prior to joining Blockworks, she reported on markets at Bloomberg News. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Media Studies.

Karl Turner is the VP of North America atCrypto.com. With 5 years of experience in the crypto industry, he is leading the growth and development ofCrypto.com’s exchange and institutional business in North America. Prior to joiningCrypto.com, Karl was the Head of Business Development at JST Capital, a quantitative trading firm focused on digital assets and Head of Business Development in EMEA at Kraken Exchange. He got started in crypto leading sales and BD at CryptoCompare, a crypto market data aggregator and indexing firm. Karl started his career in traditional finance, spending 4 years at MSCI & 2 years at BGC Partners in London.

Jeremy Sheridan is the VP of Regulatory Affairs for Prime Trust. He has over 30 years of law enforcement experience, from corrections to uniformed police work to executive investigative leadership for the United States Secret Service.

Jeremy has a proven track record of achievement. He began his career with the Secret Service in Tucson, Arizona, conducting financial crimes investigations. He moved on to the protection phase of his career, where he served in supervisory roles for Presidents Bush and Obama and Vice Presidents Biden and Pence. His last protective assignment was as the Special Agent in Charge for the Vice Presidential Protective Division.

He subsequently served in leadership positions within the Human Capital Division, Office of Intergovernmental and Legislative Affairs, and Office of Training. He retired as the SES Assistant Director of the Office of Investigations, where he led the global investigative mission of the Secret Service, consisting of 161 offices and over 3,000 personnel.

Jeremy has his Master's Degree in Public Administration, is an Executive Leadership Coach, and has numerous cyber certifications from Carnegie Melon University, the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, and the Global Information Assurance Certification.

Mr. Douglas Borthwick is our Chief Business Officer. Mr. Borthwick has over 25 years of experience in the finance industry, most recently founding and building the Chapdelaine FX electronic and voice trading business for inter-dealer broker TP-ICAP from 2012 to September 2018. Mr. Borthwick held various roles with Morgan Stanley from 1996 through 2005; managing foreign exchange derivatives trading groups in New York and London, with a strong focus on emerging markets. He then ran the strategic trading desk at Merrill Lynch from 2005 to 2006, and the Latin American FX trading business at Standard Chartered from 2006 to 2009. In 2010, Mr. Borthwick managed trading and research areas for startup foreign exchange agency, Faros Trading, a company that was later sold to FXCM in 2013. Mr. Borthwick holds a bachelors of science in Economics from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from Yale University’s School of Management.

Anthony Bassili, CAIA is Head of Asset Allocators for Coinbase Institutional. In this role, he is responsible for advising North America’s largest financial institutions on investment solutions related to digital assets, web3, and crypto strategies. His Clients include Government and Corporate Pension Plans, Consultants, Multi-Manager Platforms, Outsourced Chief Investment Officer platforms (“OCIO”), Foundation/Endowments, and Family Offices.

Prior to joining Coinbase, Mr. Bassili served as Head of Pension for iShares. There he led BlackRock iShares efforts in expanding the investor toolkit for allocators to include ETFs across public and private asset classes, including ESG and niche or thematic exposures. Prior to leading the iShares business, he spent more than a decade leading multi-asset investment strategy for the Global Trading and Transition Management platform at BlackRock.

From 2015 to 2020, Mr. Bassili also served as Chapter Head for the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) San Francisco Bay Area chapter, leading more than 400 CAIA members in connecting and pursuing financial literacy across alternative investment strategies. Over this period, Mr. Bassili served, on behalf of BlackRock, on the Board of Directors for the Bay Area Council and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. He focused on Local Policy and Tax issues across the State of California. He holds the NASD series 3, series 7, series 63, and Series 24 licenses.

Sam joined crypto during the 2017 bull run as a hobby. While looking for interesting projects he came across MakerDAO and was instantly hooked. After being part of the community for 2 years, he joined on as the first DAO smart contracts dev and later joined the Protocol Engineering team full time. Today Sam coordinates with the other DAO mandated actors across technical, business and strategy to grow the Maker ecosystem.

Saurabh Sharma is a Partner and Head of Investments atJumpCrypto and invest across Blockchain Infrastructure, Open Finance and Web3 primitives. Prior to this, Saurabh was a General Partner atJumpCapital where he led Infrastructure and Application Software investments. Saurabh started his career as a High-Performance Computing Researcher at French National Research Institute, worked as a quant trader with Lehman Brothers and led product, operations, and marketing teams at Groupon.

Carson Cook is the founder of Tokemak, a decentralized liquidity provider protocol, and Membrane, a soon to launch clearing platform for otc trading and lending

Kim is the Head of Research at Chainalysis, where she examines trends in cryptocurrency economics and crime. She was trained in economics at the London School of Economics and in politics at Oxford University. Previously, she explored technological advancements in developing countries as an academic research associate at the London School of Economics, and was an economics researcher at the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Chris DePowis a seasoned compliance officer with experience crafting and implementing compliance policies that address financial crime in relation to cryptoassets, and has spoken extensively on the intersection of the traditional and decentralized financial systems. Prior to joiningElliptic, Chris was a Vice President in the Global Financial Crimes Compliance group at J.P. Morgan, where he provided cryptoasset subject matter expertise to corporate and investment banking customers.

David is a senior analyst focused on capital markets FinTech including digital assets, cryptocurrencies, and market data & analytics. He advises on emerging technologies such as cloud computing, AI/ML, and Blockchain/DLT. Prior to Greenwich, he led Celent's Capital Markets FinTech practice. David has been widely featured in Bloomberg, CNBC, Financial Times, and Waters. He is a frequent speaker at industry events (Chicago Trading Conference, Digital Asset Summit, DerivOps, InvestOps, ISITC, SIBOS, SIFMA Ops, & Trade Tech). He is a graduate and an active alum of Vanderbilt University and a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Glenn Barber is the Head of Sales & Business Development, Americas atCopper.co. – a pioneering digital assets custody and settlement provider. Prior to joiningCopper, Glenn led sales as a consultant at FalconX, an institutional digital asset brokerage, and he was also the Chief Institutional Officer at Voyager Digital, a publicly-traded holding company whose subsidiaries operate a crypto-asset platform to trade crypto assets. Glenn also has over 25 years experience in global capital markets, and was a Managing Director in Equities at Deutsche Bank and Barclays.

Glenn holds a Masters in international Management and Finance from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a BSc in Business Administration and Management.

Chuck Lugay is the Head of Execution Services at sFOX, one of the leading full-service crypto prime
dealers for institutional investors. He has over 25 years of experience in electronic markets working for
industry leaders such as Nasdaq, Knight Capital Group and Citadel Securities focused on best execution
within equities and options. He has also been active in industry organizations serving as a past President
for The Securities Traders Association of New York as well as a Governor on the Security Traders
Association Board of Directors. Today he brings his market structure and best execution expertise to the
digital asset space with sFOX.

Jenna Wright is the Managing Director of LMAX Digital, part of LMAX Group, and has recently been named as one of the top 25 Women Leaders in Financial Technology of Europe by The Financial Technology Report. Jenna has been instrumental in driving growth of LMAX Digital and building it into the leading institutional spot crypto currency exchange globally. Jenna joined LMAX Group in January 2009 and has held multiple senior managerial roles at LMAX Group, including Head of Broker Operations and Head of Client Services. Prior to LMAX Group, Jenna worked at Cantor and UBS. Jenna holds BA in Economics & Politics from the University of Manchester.

Juthica Chou is Head of OTC Options Trading at Kraken. She first joined the crypto space in 2013 when co-founded LedgerX, a regulated bitcoin futures and swaps exchange, where she served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Risk Officer. Prior to that she spent seven years as a derivatives trader at Goldman Sachs. She holds a Bsc in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Mr. Sporn is a seasoned financial sales executive with over 20 years of experience in facilitating senior securities finance and prime brokerage sales. Most recently, Adam was a Managing Director at State Street, where he served as a senior salesperson for the firm’s Enhanced Custody program that offers bank financing solutions to hedge funds, mutual funds, pensions and family offices, as an alternative to Prime Brokerage. Prior to joining State Street, Mr. Sporn was a Managing Director and Head of Business Development and Relationship Management for BNY Mellon's principal financing program, Borrow Plus, a Prime Brokerage alternative that he helped bring to market. from concept to market through his four years at BNY Mellon. He previously spent 11 years at Morgan Stanley, working with the firm’s Prime Brokerage and Securities Lending Groups.

Tyrone leads J.P. Morgan’s Blockchain & Crypto team and is responsible for creating innovative Web3-focused products & solutions for J.P. Morgan’s businesses and clients, and for engaging with the industry at large in order to provide a holistic blockchain strategy for the firm. Tyrone is also the Head of Onyx Digital Assets, a multi-asset tokenization platform that enables the exchange of value for various types of digital assets. Tyrone was previously a Senior Blockchain Product Manager in J.P. Morgan’s Blockchain Center of Excellence and was also the Head of Product for Quorum, an open-sourced Ethereum-based blockchain platform built for Enterprise use. Tyrone sits on the Board of Directors of The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and The Hyperledger Foundation, and prior to joining the blockchain team in 2015, Tyrone was a software engineer within the Credit Markets business and spent several years managing and delivering large strategic programs across various businesses within J.P. Morgan, covering Front, Middle and Back Office risk and trading systems.

Michael Bodley is a New York-based managing editor for Blockworks, where he focuses on the intersection of Wall Street and digital assets. He previously worked for the institutional investor newsletter Hedge Fund Alert. His work has been published in The Boston Globe, NBC News, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post.

Contact Michael via email at [emailprotected]

Sid Powell is the CEO & Co-Founder of Maple, and with his Co-Founder Joe Flanagan launched Maple in 2021. Maple is transforming capital markets through technology and counts traditional finance and crypto-native firms as customers. Sid comes from a background in debt capital markets and institutional banking. During his career in traditional finance, he participated in $3BN+ of corporate bond issuance, established and ran a $200M+ bond funding program, and managed Treasury at a commercial lending FinTech company.

Rebecca Rettig is the General Counsel of the Aave Companies, a group of software development companies that build blockchain-based software for the web3 world. In addition to handling legal matters, Rebecca works with policymakers across the globe on regulatory matters relating to decentralized finance (“DeFi”) and cryptoassets. Rebecca began her legal career at Cravath, Swaine & MooreLLP in New York, litigating complex commercial disputes and defending regulatory enforcement matters; for more than a decade, she’s been representing clients on the cutting edge of technology, and, over the last 5+ years, in the crypto and DeFi sector. Immediately prior to joiningthe Aave Companies in March 2021, Rebecca was a partnerat Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP in the financial services group, serving these types of client. In 2019, Rebecca was recognized as one of the top 100women lawyers in New York byCrain’s New York Business. Rebecca currently serves on the Board of Directors of Silvergate Bank, a public company, and the Board of the DeFi Education Fund, a 501(c)(4) promoting education about DeFi for regulators and policymakers.

Joshua Lim is Managing Director, Head of Derivatives at Genesis Trading. He previously managed the spot and derivs trading desk at Galaxy Digital and built the treasury and OTC trading desk at Circle. Before crypto, Josh traded equity vol at Goldman Sachs.

Zac Prince is the CEO and Founder of BlockFi, a crypto financial services company focused on driving access and inclusion in digital markets for all investors. Founded in 2017, the firm started with a singular crypto-backed lending product offering for retail clients. Since then, under Zac’s leadership, BlockFi has now grown to support more than 650,000 retail clients and 400 institutions worldwide providing a suite of retail and institutional investment products, including the world’s first crypto rewards credit card.

Throughout his career, Zac has held leadership roles at multiple successful tech companies and contributed to two successful acquisitions, Admeld (Acquired by Google) and Sociomantic (acquired by DunnHumby). Prior to founding BlockFi, he led business development teams at Orchard Platform, a broker dealer and RIA in the online lending sector, and Zibby, an online consumer lender.

Zac graduated Cum Laude from Texas State University with a B.A. in International Business and a minor in Spanish.

Sam Martin, based in Ohio, is a research analyst at Blockworks. Prior to Blockworks, Sam spent 2 years working at various firms in the agricultural commodity business.

James helped launch TradeStation Crypto’s offering which utilizes a true online brokerage model that self-directed investors and traders have come to expect for equities, futures, and foreign currency markets. He is a reputed crypto asset specialist and blockchain thought leader focused on helping people find innovative ways to participate in this space. He is active in the blockchain community with speaking engagements, TV appearances and mentoring. James has over 15 years of experience in the Fintech industry.

Marshall Beard is the Chief Strategy Officer atGeminiwhere he leads and manages marketing, business development and the strategy & corporate development team. Prior to joiningGemini, Beard worked for digital media brand Barstool Sports as their Chief of Staff, focusing on corporate strategy and operations. Previously, Beard worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers as a management consultant in their Mergers and Acquisitions Advisory group. Beard started his career at Prudential Financial with a focus on corporate finance. Beard has an MBA from the University of Massachusetts and earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Southern Maine.