2020 WEBINAR SERIES

CoinAlts Fund Symposium

WEBINAR | EPISODE 2 REGISTRATION NOW OPEN
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COINALTS 2020

a series of webinar events the investment community on the investment, legal and operational issues for cryptocurrencies as a new asset class.

Agenda

Announcing the second installment of our webinar series! Tune in on Sept. 16th for a fireside chat with Matthew Goetz and Matthew Stover as they discuss the hot topics around running a digital asset fund in 2020. From institutional due diligence to the trends driving the space forward, the two CEOs and Founders will do a deep dive on the industry's past few years and road ahead.

Wednesday, September 16, 2020
2:00 pm to 2:45 pm ET
COINALTS FUND SYMPOSIUM WEBINAR SERIES: Episode #2
Speaker:   Matthew Goetz, BlockTower Capital
Host: Matt Stover, MG Stover

Discussion of trends and issues in the formation cryptocurrency funds.

We will bring together officials from the various regulatory bodies (SEC, CFTC, and SRO members) to discuss current and future regulatory matters, as well as how managers can be prepared for increased regulatory requirements.

Investors will come together with managers to discuss what they look for when investing in crypto funds.

Panelists will discuss the operational issues and intricacies of running a crypto fund.

Women are becoming a larger presence in the crypto industry and the accomplished panelists will discuss what we will see as this trend continues.

Exchanges and OTC desks will come together to provide updates and best practices with respect to trading and execution.

Keynote presentation by our featured keynote speaker.

Speakers

Featured Keynote Speaker
Matthew Goetz
CEO, BlockTower Capital
Matthew is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BlockTower Capital, a leading institutional cryptocurrency investment firm bringing professional trading and portfolio management to an emerging digital asset class.

Previously, he served for 11 years at Goldman Sachs, managing and leading many areas of the Firm’s investment management practice, including most recently as Head of its U.S. Not-for-Profit Institutions business.  Earlier in his career, Matthew was an engineer at Sargent & Lundy, where he focused on multi-disciplinary projects across structural, mechanical and electrical engineering in the energy sector.  He currently serves on the Advisory Board for the University of Illinois Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, and for two non-profits in education and micro-enterprise development.

Matthew earned a B.S. in Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an M.B.A. from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Panel Speakers
Matt Stover
CEO, MG Stover & Co.
Matt Stover founded MG Stover & Co. in 2007 after many years of public accounting with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Spicer Jeffries LLP.  During his public accounting career, Matt provided audit and tax services to a diverse client base including large multi-national billion dollar companies as well as the million dollar start-up funds. Matt’s audit experience was primarily focused on the securities industry; hedge funds, private equity, commodity pools, mutual funds, broker-dealers, and investment advisors. He managed all phases of the audit engagements including planning, budgeting, supervision, review and preparation of financial statements.

Matt graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BBA in accounting and earned a certificate in international business from Thames Valley University in London, England. He is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a FINRA Series 27 license. Matt is also a member of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and a Director for Help For Children.
Past Keynote Speakers
Mark W. Yusko
CEO & CIO, Morgan Creek Capital Management
Olaf Carlson-Wee
Founder and Managing Member, Polychain Capital
Tim Draper
Founder, Draper Associates
John Howard Burbank, III
Founder & Chief Investment Officer Passport Capital, LLC
Mark Yusko is the Founder, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management. Prior to forming Morgan Creek, Mr. Yusko was President, Chief Investment Officer and Founder of UNC Management Company, the Endowment investment office for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from 1998 to 2004. Throughout his tenure, he directly oversaw strategic and tactical asset allocation recommendations to the Investment Fund Board, investment manager selection, manager performance evaluation, spending policy management and performance reporting. Total assets under management were $1.5 billion ($1.2 billion in endowment assets and $300 million in working capital). Until 1998, Mr. Yusko was the Senior Investment Director for the University of Notre Dame Investment Office where he joined as the Assistant Investment Officer in October of 1993. He worked with the Chief Investment Officer in all aspects of Endowment Management.

Mr. Yusko received his Bachelor of Science Degree, with Honors, in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Business Administration in Accounting and Finance from the University of Chicago. Mr. Yusko is an Advisory Board member of a number of private capital partnerships and alternative investment programs and has served as a consultant on alternative investments to a select group of institutions. Mr. Yusko is an Investment Committee member of the MCNC Endowment, President and Chairman of the Investment Committee of The Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Foundation at the University of Notre Dame, and President and Head of the Investment Committee of the Morgan Creek Foundation.
Tim Draper founded Draper Associates, DFJ and the Draper Venture Network, a global network of venture capital funds. The firms’ investments include Baidu, Focus Media, YeePay, KongZhong, Skype, Hotmail, Tesla, SolarCity, Coinbase, Ledger, Robinhood, Athenahealth, Box, TwitchTV, SpaceX, Cruise Automation, Carta, Planet, PTC and many others.

He is a leading spokesperson for Bitcoin, Blockchain, ICOs and cryptocurrencies, having won the Bitcoin US Marshall’s auction in 2014, investing in over 50 crypto companies, and having led investments in Coinbase, Ledger, Tezos, and Bancor, among others.

He created viral marketing, a marketing method for exponentially spreading an electronic service from customer to customer, instrumental to the successes of Hotmail and Skype and other applications, particularly effective for mail and communications applications. Arguably, social media, crowdsourcing and growth hacking are all outgrowths of viral marketing. 

He is regularly featured on all major networks as a proponent for entrepreneurship, innovative governance, free markets and Bitcoin, and has received various awards and honors including the World Entrepreneurship Forum’s “Entrepreneur of the World,” and is listed as one of the top 100 most powerful people in finance by Worth Magazine, the top 20 most influential people in Crypto by CryptoWeekly, #1 most networked VC by AlwaysOn, #7 on the Forbes Midas List, and #48 most influential Harvard Alum.

In promoting entrepreneurship, he created Draper University of Heroes, a residential and online school based in San Mateo, Ca to help extraordinary people accomplish their life missions. The school created entrepreneurs that built 350 companies including crypto leaders, QTUM, Spacecash, DataWallet and Credo. He started Innovate Your State, a non-profit dedicated to crowdsource innovation in government, and BizWorld, a non-profit that teaches young children how business and entrepreneurship work. 

He served on the California State Board of Education, and led a movement for Local Choice in schools culminating in becoming proponent for a statewide initiative for School Vouchers. He also led a statewide initiative to create competitive governance with Six Californias, followed by an initiative for Three Californias.

Tim Draper received a Bachelor of Science from Stanford University with a major in electrical engineering and a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School. He has two honorary doctorates from The International University and Trinity College of Dublin.
Mr. John Howard Burbank, III serves as the Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Passport Capital, LLC, which he founded in August 2000. He received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and earned his BA in English Literature from Duke University.
Past Speakers
Cory Johnson
Chief Market Strategist, Ripple
Marco Santori
President & Chief Legal Officer, Blockchain
Jim Calvin
Deloitte
Mary Conway
Partner, Davis Polk
Cory is the Chief Market Strategist of Ripple. Prior to Ripple, Cory worked as a hedge fund portfolio manager at Kingsford Capital Management and journalist at Bloomberg and CNBC covering high-growth technology companies.

Earlier in his career Cory ushered in many startups, including theStreet.com, the Industry Standard, SLAM and Vibe magazines.
Marco is the President and Chief Legal Officer of Blockchain, the world's largest wallet and leading software platform for digital assets. Known as the "Dean of Digital Currency Lawyers," Marco is a recognized authority in the law and policy of block chain technologies. As a Partner at both Cooley LLP and Pillsbury Winthrop, he counseled banks, broker-dealers, exchanges, wallets, payment providers, and other companies making new and exciting uses of distributed ledger technology. Marco counseled his clients primarily on the money transmission and securities laws, including anti-money laundering regulations.

Marco is an author of the SAFT Project Whitepaper, responsible for the first self-regulatory effort for token sales (also known colloquially as ICOs). He is an advisor to the International Monetary Fund, the Blockchain Ambassador to the State of Delaware, and was the Chairman of the Regulatory Affairs Committee of the Bitcoin Foundation. He has been quoted by Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Coindesk, Washington Post, The New Yorker, Wired, Entrepreneur.com and Crain's New York Business.
Jim Calvin has more than 30 years of experience specializing in financial transactions, compensation planning, wealth transfer, insurance products, corporate, partnership, and international taxation. He has been with Deloitte member firms in Boston, New York, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Calvin joined the firm in 1986 and has been a partner since 1995. He is the author of the forthcoming Bloomberg BNA Portfolio, “Taxation of Cryptocurrencies;” and the author of the RIA/WGL treatise, “Regulated Investment Companies.”
As a partner in Davis Polk’s Tax Department, Ms. Conway focuses on investment management matters, including the formation and operation of private equity funds, hedge funds, mutual funds and other pooled investment vehicles. Her practice includes partnership matters and international tax matters.
Ari Paul
BlockTower Capital
Donald R. Wilson, Jr.
Founder and CEO, DRW
Kirstan Barnett
Element Capital Group
Michael Bucella
Partner & Global Head of Strategic Partnerships, BlockTower Capital
Ari Paul is co-founder and CIO of BlockTower Capital. He was previously a portfolio manager for the University of Chicago's $8 billion endowment, and a derivatives market maker and proprietary trader for Susquehanna International Group (SIG). Ari earned a BA in political science from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the University of Chicago with concentrations in economics, entrepreneurship, strategic management, and econometrics & statistics. Ari is a CFA charterholder.
Donald R. Wilson, Jr. is the founder and CEO of DRW, a principal trading firm with more than 800 employees at its Chicago headquarters and offices in Austin, Houston, London, Montreal, New York and Singapore.  
Don started in the industry in 1989, focusing on capturing opportunities in the markets through technology, research and risk management, and founded DRW in 1992 while trading in the Eurodollar options pit at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. DRW has since expanded into real estate investment, venture capital and cryptoassets.

Don is an influential leader in the financial futures industry and in 2010 founded the FIA Principal Traders Group. He is co-founder and board member of Eris Exchange, a designated contract market which trades an interest swap futures contract, and is the co-inventor of the Eris Exchange’s intellectual property. He is co-founder and board member of Digital Asset Holdings, a company which leverages distributed ledger technology to improve the settlement of financial instruments.

An early adopter in cryptoassets, DRW established Cumberland as a bitcoin trading desk in 2014. Today, Cumberland is one of the world’s largest providers of liquidity in all cryptoassets and a leader in the crypto ecosystem.

Don holds an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Chicago, where he is now a trustee. He also sits on the board of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Foundation. An avid competitive sailor, Don is the founder of the Chicago Match Race Center and served as chairman of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Chicago.
Kirstan Barnett is co-founder of Element Capital Group, LLC, a full-service advisory company for the digital asset economy, and Chief Operating Officer and a member of the Investment Committee Element Digital Asset Management LLC, advisor to the Element Digital Funds. Ms. Barnett has over twenty years of executive experience in corporate finance, asset management, emerging markets and the start-up company space. For over a decade she was the partner of a top-tier SEC registered hedge fund with over $10 billion aum and in institutional investor base. As its first General Counsel, she built out its legal and compliance structure, directed all regulatory and media matters, led high-stakes litigation teams and initiated an operational risk infrastructure review. An active early stage investor, Ms. Barnett serves on the Investment Committee of Castor Ventures, an early stage venture fund focused on investments affiliated with her alma mater, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the Founder of SheGives, a philanthropic foundation focused on effective altruism. Ms. Barnett holds a BA from the University of New Hampshire, a JD from Georgetown University Law School and an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.
Michael Bucella is a Partner and Global Head of Strategic Partnerships for BlockTower Capital, a leading institutional cryptocurrency investment firm bringing professional trading and portfolio management to an emerging digital asset class.

Prior to BlockTower, Michael spent nearly a decade with Goldman Sachs. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2008 as part of the Firm’s Asset Management division (GSAM), where he focused on investment strategies, markets and institutional investors globally. Most recently, Michael worked in the Securities Division where he ran the Multi-Asset Sales & Trading business in Canada and led efforts to expand this strategy globally. Previous to this role, he led the Institutional Global Equities business, also in Canada.

Michael earned a BS in Finance, Economics & Accounting from Fordham University. He is a member of Fordham University’s President’s Council and involved in multiple charitable organizations, with recent philanthropic endeavors involving several independent trips to aid the relief efforts in Puerto Rico.
Bobby Cho
Global Head of Trading, Cumberland
Lee Schneider
Debevoise & Plimpton
Julie Kim
General Counsel & CCO, Passport Capital
Tara Bogard
Kingdom Trust
Bobby Cho is the global head of trading at Cumberland , a DRW Company, and one of the largest liquidity providers in cryptocurrencies. Previously, Bobby was director of trading at itBit Trust Company where he was responsible for their crypto asset trading and custody business. Prior to his role at itBit, Bobby was vice president of trading and a municipal securities principal at Digital Currency Group (f/k/a SecondMarket) where he assisted in the creation of one of the first cryptocurrency broker-dealers. Bobby is also a mentor to Plug and Play, a Sunnyvale based global innovation platform. He is a graduate of Villanova University.
Lee A. Schneider is global General Counsel at Block.One, the world’s largest blockchain developer and author of the EOSIO software. Schneider is responsible for all of the company’s legal affairs and will be involved in its proactive regulatory and compliance initiatives.

He joined Block.One after leading the blockchain practices at two major international firms, most recently McDermott Will & Emery. While at McDermott, Lee led both the Fintech and broker dealer practices.

Lee has been recognized as one of the leading voices in blockchain related regulation and compliance, and has played a role in structuring several of the largest and most successful blockchain-related projects.

Schneider co-hosts Appetite for Disruption, a bi-weekly FinTech podcast with former SEC Commissioner Troy Paredes, and has contributed to the global-leading guidance, “A Securities Law Framework for Blockchain Tokens” developed by Coinbase.

Mr. Schneider holds a Juris Doctor degree from American University’s Washington College of Law and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of Michigan.
Ms. Kim serves as the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Passport Capital, an SEC-registered investment adviser based in San Francisco. She oversees all legal and compliance matters for the firm. Before joining Passport, Ms. Kim practiced with the law firms of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. Ms. Kim’s practice focused on representing hedge funds, private equity funds and registered investment advisers.

Ms. Kim graduated from Cornell Law School where she earned a J.D., cum laude, and was an Editor of the Cornell Law Review. She earned her B.A. in Philosophy with Distinction in All Subjects from Cornell University. She is a member of the State Bar of California and the State Bar of New York.
Tara Bogard has over 15 years of experience in the customer service industry. Her passion for helping others is the driving force behind her hard work and dedication. At Kingdom Trust, Tara specializes in developing and implementing growth opportunities within and between organizations and new business strategy and solutions.
Alexander Pack
Director, Bain Capital Ventures
Laura Shin
Crypto Journalist
Nolan Bauerle
CoinDesk
Sara Silverstein
Executive Editor, Business Insider
Alexander is a Director at Bain Capital Ventures, where he founded and leads its Network Investing initiative to invest in experimental finance opportunities and disruptive fundraising models. He invests in cryptoassets, investment funds, and technology startups across sectors.

Previously, Alexander was a Partner at AngelList and began his investing career at Arbor Ventures, an Asia-based early stage VC firm, where he started its blockchain practice.
Laura Shin hosts the crypto-focused podcasts Unchained: Big Ideas From the Worlds of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency and Unconfirmed: Insights and Analysis From the Top Minds in Crypto. Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Stanford University and has a master of arts from Columbia University’s School of Journalism.
Nolan Bauerle is the director of research at CoinDesk. His work with Bitcoin and blockchain technology began in 2013 after convincing the Canadian Senate Banking Committee to study Bitcoin, helping select witnesses, and drafting the report. As the report was tabled in Parliament, it was simultaneously hashed into Bitcoin’s blockchain.
Sara is the host of Business Insider's cryptocurrency show "the bit" and co-host of Business Insider's "The Bottom Line." You can also see Sara on CNBC's "The Filthy Rich Guide".

Sara has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with a concentration in analytical finance and a bachelor's in mathematics from the University of Colorado.

Before joining Business Insider, Sara worked as a producer for Bloomberg Television. Prior to that she spent five years as a senior portfolio analyst at a hedge fund.
Michael Sonnenshein
Managing Director, Grayscale Investments
Bá Minuzzi
Co-Founder & Managing Partner AUSUM Ventures
Adam White
Coinbase
Marcos Veremis
Managing Director, Cambridge Associates LLC
Michael Sonnenshein joined Grayscale Investments in January 2014. As Managing Director, he is responsible for overseeing the daily operations and growth of the Grayscale business, spanning sales, operations, product development, and investor relations. With $2+ Billion in assets under management, Michael is responsible for maintaining many of the firms’ key client relationships including family offices, hedge funds, and other institutions as well as forming strategic partnerships and evaluating service providers.

Prior to joining Grayscale, Michael was a financial advisor at JP Morgan Securities, covering HNW individuals and institutions. He also worked in a similar capacity at Barclays Wealth, providing coverage to middle-market hedge funds and institutions. Michael earned his Bachelor of Business Administration from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and his Master of Business Administration from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University. He holds his Series 7 and 66 licenses.
Bárbara is a former real-estate entrepreneur and financial advisor to UHNW families in Brazil. She has singlehandedly raised over $250M for real estate and high tech companies in Latin America and the United States, and co-manages over $200M in assets through private banking. 

Bá is best known in the tech industry as the founder of BABEL Ventures, the first venture firm in Silicon Valley to have a Latina as founder and solo GP, with a $30M early stage fund focused in biotech. She has been lauded her for "Breaking all the rules" and "Rocking male-dominated Silicon Valley" by various mainstream publications. Bárbara is based in SF, where she leads BABEL Ventures and recently partnered up with Jeremy Gardner, together they co-founded Ausum Ventures with their first fund being: Ausum Blockchain Fund - focusing on social change through blockchain technology.
Adam White is the Vice President and General Manager of GDAX, the largest digital currency exchange in the U.S. In this role he is responsible for day-to-day operations and leading the strategic direction of the business.

Adam previously worked as a consultant at Bain & Co. and served as an officer in the United States Air Force. Adam has testified before Congress as an expert witness in the payments space and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Optical Engineering from the University of California, Davis.
Marcos is currently a Managing Director in Cambridge Associates’ Arlington, VA office after working in the firm’s Boston and London offices for over 10 years. Marcos works mainly with endowments and foundations and has expertise in constructing customized alternative investment portfolios including hedge funds and venture capital. He is also coordinating the firm’s research in the crypto/blockchain space.
 
MBA, Columbia Business School
MA in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences, Columbia University
BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), Oxford University
Matthew Johnson
Co-Founder & Head of Product, Digital Asset Custody Company
Spencer Bogart
Blockchain Capital
Gary DeWaal
Katten Muchin Rosenman
David Byrd
Americas Blockchain Assurance Research Lead, Ernst & Young LLP
Matthew is the Co-founder and Head of Product at Digital Asset Custody Company. He is a finance and technology executive with twenty years experience in technology leadership. Matthew has co-founded several technology startups with focuses as varied as fin-tech, human resources, and games. In addition to more entrepreneurial pursuits, he has worked with some of the largest hedge funds in the world revolutionizing their technology stacks. Prior to co-founding DACC Matthew worked in technology leadership roles at York Captial Management, Hazeltree, Trafelet & Company, Bank of New York, and Microsoft.
Spencer Bogart is a Partner at Blockchain Capital, the General Partner of Blockchain Capital’s venture funds. Spencer is a fundamental investment analyst with a rare combination of deep experience analyzing cryptocurrencies as well as traditional equity opportunities.

Prior to joining Blockchain Capital, Spencer was a Vice President at Needham & Company, where he authored Wall Street’s first industry report highlighting the use-cases, companies and potential of blockchain technology. He was also the most active Bitcoin analyst on Wall Street writing detailed reports and research on Bitcoin’s fundamental value proposition, price forecast, and technical advancements. Aside from leading all research efforts related to Bitcoin and Blockchain during his time at Needham & Company, Spencer also covered public SaaS, FinTech, and Internet companies, authored reports on those sectors, and issued price targets on companies under coverage.

Prior to Needham & Company, Spencer cut his teeth in the startup world where he helped build a first-of-its-kind proprietary research platform for analyzing Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), which was later acquired by FactSet.

Given his rare combination of skillsets and history of actively publishing reports, Spencer is widely cited throughout the Bitcoin and Blockchain industry and is a regular speaker at industry and startup events. Spencer is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and earned his B.A. in Business Economics from University of California, Santa Barbara.
Gary DeWaal focuses his practice on financial services regulatory matters. He counsels clients on the application of evolving regulatory requirements to existing businesses and structuring more effective compliance programs, as well as assists in defending and resolving regulatory disciplinary actions and enforcement matters. Gary also advises buy-side and sell-side clients, as well as trading facilities and clearing houses, on the developing laws and regulations related to cryptocurrencies and digital tokens.

Previously, Gary was a senior managing director and group general counsel for Newedge, where he oversaw the worldwide Legal, Compliance, Financial Crimes Prevention (including AML) and Regulatory Developments departments. He also worked for the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Division of Enforcement in New York. For several years, Gary taught a course in derivatives regulation as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School. He currently serves as a practitioner faculty and mentor for the State University of New York Buffalo Law School’s New York City Program on Finance & Law.

Gary is frequently quoted in the media for his thoughts on the international financial services industry and has published numerous articles on futures and securities industry issues. He regularly lectures or appears as a speaker at futures and securities industry conferences or in training sessions for international regulators. Gary is the sole author and publisher of Bridging the Week, a blog addressing issues in the financial services industry.
David is EY’s Blockchain Assurance Research Lead in the Americas.

He is a member of the Financial Services Office audit practice in San Francisco, where he has served asset management clients such as hedge funds, private equity and venture capital firms. David has recently developed an expertise around audit and compliance procedures as they relate to funds and exchanges dealing in cryptocurrency.

Before working in industry, he received his PhD from the University of California, Davis in Philosophy with a focus in cognitive science, teaching courses such as Minds, Brains, and Computers. David also taught for Santa Clara University and the University of San Francisco, where he received his Bachelors in Accounting. David is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in the state of California.
Alan Kostrinsky
PwC
Robert Dykes
CEO & Co-Founder, Caspian
Sarah Davidoff
Partner, Ropes & Gray
Jonathan Sands
Founder and Managing Partner, Artist Capital
Alan is a Director in PwC’s Financial Services Practice working in the Capital Markets/Technology team. He has 25 years of experience working in industry on sales, business development and project management and has been working on Regulation SCI implementations and reviews for exchanges, industry utilities and large ATS broker dealers.
Robert has served as Tora CEO for the past 14 years. Prior to that Robert spent eleven years in the enterprise software and high-tech industry in Europe, North America, and Asia. Robert has held executive management positions in several start-up and early stage software companies including WebPartner, a software provider of corporate testing applications, and AudioSoft, a software services company providing online music licensing solutions, which was sold to Macrovision Corporation (NASDAQ: MVSN). Robert started his career at Deloitte working in various positions in audit, consulting and mergers & acquisitions groups. Robert holds a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University.
Sarah Davidoff is a partner in the firm’s asset management practice and a co-head of Ropes & Gray’s Client Program. The world’s largest and most well-known alternative investment managers turn to Sarah for proactive and strategic counseling on issues relating to the formation, structure and operation of their funds. She has particular experience developing first-of-their-kind funds for clients focused on investing in cryptocurrencies. She designs and implements these bespoke investment vehicles, while also navigating the complex, evolving, and often competing regulatory and compliance environment.

In addition, Sarah works with institutional and independent sponsor hedge funds, private equity funds and other alternative asset managers on a variety of matters, including spinouts, reorganizations, seed transactions, hybrid and novel fund structures, structuring compensation and profit-sharing arrangements, designing customized investment vehicles, and launching innovative fund products.
Jonathan Sands is the Founder and Managing Partner of Artist Capital, a NYC-based technology merchant bank. Over the last two decades, Jonathan has launched and helped scale alternative investment firms that now manage north of $11 billion dollars in the venture, growth equity, hedge fund, and cryptocurrency spaces. In addition to bringing institutional backing to entrepreneurial investment platforms, Jonathan has a premier track record of scaling best ideas with financial sponsors. An avid technology investor, both personally and through his affiliated direct investment vehicle, some of Jonathan’s investments include Multicoin, MetaStable, Filecoin, Wish, Grab, Coupang, Aaron’s, Oyo, and MagicLeap. Jonathan also acts as an advisor to the world’s first cryptocurrency index fund, Bitwise.

Jonathan received his MBA from the University of Cape Town, South Africa and pursued postgraduate studies at The Anderson School at UCLA. He also has a Bachelor's degree from Davidson College with studies at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University.
Dan Matuszewski
Circle
Shingo Lavine
Founder and CEO, Ethos.io
Peter Marshall
Founder & CEO, Walden Bridge Capital
Michael Dunworth
CEO, Wyre
Daniel Matuszewski is Head of Trading at Circle Internet Financial. Circle actively makes markets on nearly all major exchanges globally, and provide significant scale in over the counter (OTC) trading with large institutional buyers and sellers of crypto assets.

Prior to working at Circle Daniel traded vol arb for Bay Hill Capital a small hedge fund south of Boston.
Shingo is a globally recognized expert and thought leader in cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies, and is passionate about the intersection of regulatory best practices and blockchain and crypto technology. 

Shingo studied computer science and economics at Brown University, and founded Ethos at age 19. Shingo is highly passionate and knowledgeable about the intersection of blockchain technology, finance and law, and wrote the original Ethos whitepaper "Democratizing Cryptocurrency" which was widely read worldwide. He then led the team that created the Ethos Universal Wallet, a BIP32/39/44 compatible wallet that can securely send, receive, store and review hundreds of coins and tokens, and is rated 4.7 stars on both the Google Play and Apple app store. 

 

Working with Tim Simmons formerly of Citrix and iTrade Shingo built Ethos Bedrock, a programmatic Blockchain Finance Platform designed to bridge the worlds of finance and blockchain. Bedrock uses the Ethos token as "gas" to power its APIs for wallet, transaction construction, verified source of funds, and can enable both self-custody and institutional custody services. 

Previously, Shingo was the co-founder of Jobs University, an online school with over 20,000 students that teaches job skills to help people earn higher income.  Shingo is also an accomplished upright jazz bass player.
Peter Marshall is the Founder & CEO of Walden Bridge Capital. He has a background in investments, financial analysis, marketing and client service, and has been personally investing in the cryptoasset class since early 2014. Prior to founding Walden Bridge Capital, Peter worked at CBRE and Ziegler Capital Management in Chicago. Peter received a BA in Economics from Vanderbilt University, a General Course diploma from the London School of Economics, and a Fintech Certificate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Michael has been involved in the digital asset space since 2012. He's currently the co-founder & CEO of Wyre Payments. Currently the largest cross-border payments platform built on top of the blockchain. Having processed over $1B in payments in their first 18 months, Wyre derives their FX through trading algorithms and crypto liquidity pools in multiple geographies. Delivering efficiencies in the speed of settlement, price, and transparency. Wyre feeds their liquidity by providing one the leading OTC trade desks for the private equity market, asset managers, exchanges, and hedge funds.

Michael additionally serves as a soundboard for a number of companies & platforms, that are aiming to adapt themselves to this innovative industry.
Greg Cipolaro
Matt Perona
Seth Altman
Director of Hedge Fund & Family Office MG Stover & Co.
Andrew J. Beal
Seth Altman is the Director of Hedge Funds and Family Offices for MG Stover & Co. and joined the firm in August 2016.

He began his career at Deloitte & Touche in New York City where he audited banks, broker-dealers and alternative investment funds. In 2007, Mr. Altman was hired by the multi-billion-dollar hedge fund Glenview Capital Management as a staff accountant in their finance department. He ventured back to public accounting in 2009 becoming an audit manager at Rothstein Kass. In his time at Rothstein Kass he was an integral part of improving the best practices and the integration of the Denver RK and KPMG Offices. In 2015, Mr. Altman joined Lazarus, a hedge fund based in Denver, as their Chief Financial Officer. At Lazarus, he was in charge of the day-to-day operations of the funds and general partner/management company.
Karl Cole-Frieman
Co-Managing Partner, Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP
Lewis Chong
Partner, Harneys
Bart Mallon
Co-Managing Partner, Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP
Cynthia Pedersen
Cohen & Co
Prior to co-founding Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP, Karl Cole-Frieman was General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Standard Pacific Capital, LLC ("Standard Pacific"), an SEC registered hedge fund manager in San Francisco with offices in New York, Hong Kong, and a sub-advisor in Tokyo. In addition to managing the Legal and Compliance Departments at Standard Pacific, Karl was also responsible for Human Resources, IT, General Administration, as well as certain operations and strategic matters for Standard Pacific's credit strategy. Before joining Standard Pacific, Karl was Associate General Counsel of Sagamore Hill Capital Management, L.P., a multi-strategy hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut, with an office in London. Prior to that, he was Vice President and Associate General Counsel at JPMorgan Chase & Co. ("JP Morgan"), where he was lead counsel for Loan Trading and Distressed Debt, and actively involved in the Loan Syndications and Trading Association. During his tenure at JPMorgan and predecessor firm, Hambrecht & Quist, Karl also supported the M&A, Corporate Finance and Private Equity Groups. He began his career in 1997 as an Associate in the Litigation Department of Shearman & Sterling.

Karl lives with his wife, Wanda, and twins, Isaac and Taylor, in Oakland, CA, where he enjoys running and biking, and is a Crossfit Level 1 Trainer.
Lewis is a partner in Harneys’ Investment Funds Department. He advises on a variety of Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands funds matters, including advising United States, European and emerging markets managers on the establishment of new funds and the restructure of existing funds as well as advising managers and funds subject to, or affected by, litigation. 
 
He spends most of his time in North America and is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is admitted to practice Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands law and has also been issued a practitioner of foreign law permit by the Law Society of British Columbia in Canada. Lewis is the only person practising Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands law in the Pacific time zone. 
 
Lewis is also a senior editor of The Offshore Funds Blog, a Harneys blog dedicated to explaining how offshore funds work and why investment managers use them. Lewis is recommended by IFLR 1000 and Legal 500.
Mr. Mallon is a Co-Managing Partner and co-founder of Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP, a boutique law firm focused on the investment management industry.  The firm provides comprehensive legal support to investment managers and the practice supports both emerging and well established managers.  Mr. Mallon’s practice is focused on the legal, regulatory and compliance aspects of launching pooled investment vehicles domestically and offshore.  He also works with established managers on all aspects of their business including counterparty documentation, investor matters, employment and routine business matters.  Many firm clients are focused on non-traditional strategies including investment in the cannabis sector, use of AI in a trading strategy and investment into cryptocurrency and other digital assets.

In addition to regular speaking engagements, Mr. Mallon also created and maintains the prominent industry legal blog – Hedge Fund Law Blog.   Mr. Mallon has a BA from the University of Washington and a JD from Emory University School of Law and lives in San Francisco.
Cynthia communicates with clients daily regarding their complex tax questions on investment strategies and how those strategies may fit into their long-term goals. Her areas of specialty include taxation of hedge funds, international tax compliance, tax compliance for tax-exempt organizations and ultra-high-net-worth estate succession planning. Cynthia’s background as an attorney, and specifically as an estate planner, makes her a vigilant advisor when it comes to tax issues for high-net-worth individuals considering changes to their business structures and investments. In addition, she is responsible for firmwide tax research pertaining to a broad range of issues that influence alternative investment fund managers and investors. Cynthia is also actively involved in the firm’s Cryptocurrency Practice.
Nick Gustafson
Senior Trader, Circle
Michael S. Dicke
Co-Chair, Securities Enforcement, Partner, Securities Litigation, Fenwick & West LLP
Reuben Bramanathan
Product Lead, Coinbase Asset Management
Joe Eagan
COO, Polychain Capital
Nick Gustafson is a Senior Trader at Circle. Based in New York, he works on the Circle Trade OTC trading desk, a leading market maker and liquidity provider of crypto assets for institutions and large individual investors. Nick has over a decade of trading experience across JP Morgan, UBS, Macquarie Group and Jefferies. He entered the crypto space in 2017, joining Kraken where he was the head trader on the US OTC desk.
Mike Dicke is a partner in Fenwick’s litigation practice group and is the co-chair of the firm’s Securities Enforcement group. His practice focuses on conducting internal investigations for public company boards and audit committees, and the representation of individuals and entities in SEC, Department of Justice, and other law enforcement and regulatory investigations and litigation.  

In addition, Mike currently is assisting numerous cryptocurrency clients in developing compliant token offerings and compliant token exchanges.  He also is representing several crypto exchanges in various state and federal investigations, and several token issuers in SEC investigations. 

Prior to joining Fenwick & West, Mike served as the Associate Regional Director for Enforcement in the SEC’s San Francisco’s regional office, from 2008 to 2014. As head of enforcement for the region, Mike oversaw all of the office’s attorneys and accountants in the investigation and litigation of federal securities law violations in six states. While at the SEC, Mike conducted and supervised hundreds of investigations and litigation involving financial reporting and accounting fraud, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), insider trading, offering frauds, and misconduct by investment advisers, investment companies, and broker-dealers.
Reuben led the creation of Coinbase Index and is responsible for the management of Coinbase's funds. He is a former lawyer who has advised clients on legal and regulatory aspects of bitcoin and blockchain technology since 2014. He wrote and lectured the world's first postgraduate course on the Regulation of Digital Currency, at the University of Nicosia in 2015, and co-authored the industry-leading legal research paper The Blockchain Token Securities Law Framework in 2016.
Joe has been Chief Operating Officer at Polychain Capital since October 2017. Prior to that, Joe was a Principal at Investcorp where his team helped launch of 14 different emerging hedge funds. He also has experience managing risk arbitrage portfolios at both Amber Capital and Naufal Capital. Joe holds a B.A. from Georgetown University.
Jacob Decker
VP, Financial Institutions, Woodruff Sawyer
John Burnett
Co-founder, Head of Business Development & Strategy, Omniex
Lindsay Chamings
Managing Director, Andersen Tax
Matt Jennings
CEO, Kingdom Trust
Jacob Decker is Vice President, Director of Financial Institutions for Woodruff-Sawyer.  Woodruff-Sawyer is a privately-held, independent insurance brokerage headquartered out of San Francisco offering a full suite of commercial insurance products/services including executive liability, employee benefits, surety and property & casualty. 2018 marks Woodruff Sawyer’s 100th year operating as an independent commercial insurance brokerage in the Bay Area.

Prior to joining Woodruff-Sawyer, Jacob spent three years as a Financial Institution Underwriter for Chubb and ten years at a global brokerage firm managing the executive liability practice in San Francisco.  He brings this underwriting and brokerage perspective to the analysis of executive risks and the development of tailored risk management solutions and is primarily focused on emerging FinTech/Blockchain based financial service companies.  Jacob designs, implements and manages complex executive liability insurance programs (D&O, E&O, EPL, Fiduciary, etc.) for companies of all sizes, from start-ups to global enterprises.

Specialties: Public & Private Directors & Officers Liability. Bespoke E&O solutions for lending institutions, investment banking, asset management, venture & private equity, insurance companies and broker-dealers.
John Burnett is Co-founder, Head of Business Development & Strategy at Omniex, the institutional investment and trading platform for crypto-assets.

Prior to starting Omniex, Mr. Burnett was a Managing Director at State Street Bank within the Emerging Technologies Center. As State Street’s global lead for all blockchain and crypto-assets initiatives, John led all internal and external efforts including strategy for the newly emerging crypto-asset class.

Previously he was a Director at American Express where he was focused on competitive and marketplace strategy. John led AMEX’s initial deep-dive analysis into bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in 2013 on behalf of AMEX’s CEO and Board of Directors. Previously he was in management consulting at both Booz Allen Hamilton and Opera Solutions, a firm founded by former McKinsey partners focused on data and analytics for financial services companies. In his last years in consulting he led business development efforts to create new capabilities in data and analytics for target and existing clients.

John holds a BA and MA in Economics from UC Santa Barbara and an MBA from Tuck school at Dartmouth.
A member of the Andersen Tax Alternative Investment Funds Services group Lindsay works with alternative investments, including hedge funds, private equity funds, venture funds, cryptocurrency funds, and fund of funds and related management companies. She has more than 15 years of experience ranging from financial services taxation, ASC 740, and international tax.  Lindsay has extensive experience in federal partnership taxation. Her experience includes advising hedge funds, private equity and alternative investment companies on the U.S. tax implications of their domestic and international operations. Prior to Andersen Tax, Lindsay worked in KPMG's and Rothstein Kass'  Alternative Investment practice.
Matt Jennings is the CEO at Kingdom Trust, where he has propelled the company into the digital asset market as the first qualified custodian of cryptocurrencies. In 2009, Matt co-founded SBG 1320, LLC, the parent company of Kingdom Trust. A Certified General Real Estate Appraiser and licensed agent, Matt manages a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio. Matt’s interest in investing in real estate and other alternative assets led him to co-found Kingdom Trust.
Sam McIngvale
Product Lead, Coinbase Custody
Michael Fitzgerald
CEO, Digital Asset Custody Company (DACC)
James Radecki
Global Head of Business Development at Cumberland
Rob Margolis
VP Sales, LedgerX
Mike has over 20 years of financial services industry experience, holding senior positions in Prime Brokerage as a Managing Director at both Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. Most recently Mike was the Chief Operating and Compliance Officer of Ararat Capital.
Jim Radecki is the Global Head of Business Development at Cumberland, a DRW Company and a global leader in cryptoassets. Prior to joining Cumberland, Jim was Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, where he served as Global Co-Head of GS Global Prime Services Clearing, Global Head of Sales for GS Global Prime Services Clearing, and Midwest Regional Manager for GS Global Prime Services.

Over the course of his career in the financial industry, Jim has held several key leadership positions, including North American Regional Risk Manager for ING Barings, the Global Director of Risk Management for the Global Futures and Options Clearing business, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer at Mercury Trading/ Summit Securities,), and Controller at First Financial Group.

Jim is former member of the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe), The Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX), Eurex, and is a CPA. Jim earned a BA in Accounting from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1985.
Rob Margolis is Vice President and Head of Sales for LedgerX. LedgerX is an institutional trading and clearing platform that received the first regulatory approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to trade and clear derivatives on Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

Prior to LedgerX, Rob was an equity derivatives sales/trader and fixed income trader within the Investment Management Division of Goldman Sachs, where he specialized in both single stock risk management and municipal bonds.

Rob graduated from Villanova University with a B.B.A. in Finance and a minor in Real Estate.
P. Bart Stephens
Co-founder & Managing Partner, Blockchain Capital
Corey McLaughlin
Co-President, Investment Industry Services, Cohen & Company
Bart Stephens is Co-founder and Managing Partner of Blockchain Capital, the first venture capital fund to invest exclusively in the blockchain technology sector and the first to raise a venture fund through an ICO. Blockchain Capital is the pioneer and most established VC firm in the Blockchain sector with more than 75 portfolio companies across four funds. Prior to Blockchain Capital, Bart was Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Stephens Investment Management, LLC (SIM), a family owned and operated hedge fund and venture capital firm. Bart and his brother and Co-Founder, Brad, invented the term and pioneered “Nanocap” investing – venture capital style investing in the public markets focused on sub micro-cap equities.

Bart has a background as both an operating entrepreneur and a venture capitalist. Prior to co-founding SIM, Bart was Executive Vice President, Venture Capital for Ivanhoe Capital Corporation (ICC), an international investment firm.

Before joining ICC, Bart was a founding investor and Head of Corporate & Business development for Oncology.com. Oncology.com grew to become the internet’s largest cancer related web site before being sold to Pharmacia (now Pfizer) in 2001.

Prior to Oncology.com, Bart spent more than two years with E*TRADE, an early internet innovator in online financial services. While at E*TRADE, he held senior positions focused on product marketing, business development and corporate development.

Bart earned a B.A. in Political Science from Princeton University.
As co-president of Cohen & Company’s Investment Industry Services Division, Corey is responsible primarily for strategy and development of the private funds practice, including profitability, growth, training and retention, and strategic and tactical initiatives.

Corey also works directly with clients in the investment industry to provide accounting, auditing, investors’ representative, attestation and consulting services to a wide variety of entities. His clients include commodity pools, hedge funds, commodity trading advisors, investment advisers, introducing brokers and other operating entities. Corey also has significant expertise auditing and consulting funds that trade cryptocurrencies. Corey currently serves as the Treasurer for the Mid-Atlantic Hedge Fund Association, and is a frequent presenter on alternative investment topics.

In 2011 Corey was awarded the SmartCPA distinction, which recognizes enterprising accountants for their leadership, accomplishment, innovation, and success. Corey graduated from Towson University in 1996 with a B.S. in Accounting. He is a Certified Public Accountant with the rights to practice in numerous states. He is a member of MACPA and AICPA.
Featured Keynote Speaker
Matthew Goetz
CEO, BlockTower Capital
Matthew is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BlockTower Capital, a leading institutional cryptocurrency investment firm bringing professional trading and portfolio management to an emerging digital asset class.

Previously, he served for 11 years at Goldman Sachs, managing and leading many areas of the Firm’s investment management practice, including most recently as Head of its U.S. Not-for-Profit Institutions business.  Earlier in his career, Matthew was an engineer at Sargent & Lundy, where he focused on multi-disciplinary projects across structural, mechanical and electrical engineering in the energy sector.  He currently serves on the Advisory Board for the University of Illinois Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, and for two non-profits in education and micro-enterprise development.

Matthew earned a B.S. in Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an M.B.A. from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Panel Speakers
Matt Stover
CEO, MG Stover & Co.
Matt Stover founded MG Stover & Co. in 2007 after many years of public accounting with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Spicer Jeffries LLP.  During his public accounting career, Matt provided audit and tax services to a diverse client base including large multi-national billion dollar companies as well as the million dollar start-up funds. Matt’s audit experience was primarily focused on the securities industry; hedge funds, private equity, commodity pools, mutual funds, broker-dealers, and investment advisors. He managed all phases of the audit engagements including planning, budgeting, supervision, review and preparation of financial statements.

Matt graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BBA in accounting and earned a certificate in international business from Thames Valley University in London, England. He is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a FINRA Series 27 license. Matt is also a member of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and a Director for Help For Children.
Past Keynote Speakers
Mark W. Yusko
CEO & CIO, Morgan Creek Capital Management
Mark Yusko is the Founder, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management. Prior to forming Morgan Creek, Mr. Yusko was President, Chief Investment Officer and Founder of UNC Management Company, the Endowment investment office for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from 1998 to 2004. Throughout his tenure, he directly oversaw strategic and tactical asset allocation recommendations to the Investment Fund Board, investment manager selection, manager performance evaluation, spending policy management and performance reporting. Total assets under management were $1.5 billion ($1.2 billion in endowment assets and $300 million in working capital). Until 1998, Mr. Yusko was the Senior Investment Director for the University of Notre Dame Investment Office where he joined as the Assistant Investment Officer in October of 1993. He worked with the Chief Investment Officer in all aspects of Endowment Management.

Mr. Yusko received his Bachelor of Science Degree, with Honors, in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Business Administration in Accounting and Finance from the University of Chicago. Mr. Yusko is an Advisory Board member of a number of private capital partnerships and alternative investment programs and has served as a consultant on alternative investments to a select group of institutions. Mr. Yusko is an Investment Committee member of the MCNC Endowment, President and Chairman of the Investment Committee of The Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Foundation at the University of Notre Dame, and President and Head of the Investment Committee of the Morgan Creek Foundation.
Olaf Carlson-Wee
Founder and Managing Member, Polychain Capital
Tim Draper
Founder, Draper Associates
Tim Draper founded Draper Associates, DFJ and the Draper Venture Network, a global network of venture capital funds. The firms’ investments include Baidu, Focus Media, YeePay, KongZhong, Skype, Hotmail, Tesla, SolarCity, Coinbase, Ledger, Robinhood, Athenahealth, Box, TwitchTV, SpaceX, Cruise Automation, Carta, Planet, PTC and many others.

He is a leading spokesperson for Bitcoin, Blockchain, ICOs and cryptocurrencies, having won the Bitcoin US Marshall’s auction in 2014, investing in over 50 crypto companies, and having led investments in Coinbase, Ledger, Tezos, and Bancor, among others.

He created viral marketing, a marketing method for exponentially spreading an electronic service from customer to customer, instrumental to the successes of Hotmail and Skype and other applications, particularly effective for mail and communications applications. Arguably, social media, crowdsourcing and growth hacking are all outgrowths of viral marketing. 

He is regularly featured on all major networks as a proponent for entrepreneurship, innovative governance, free markets and Bitcoin, and has received various awards and honors including the World Entrepreneurship Forum’s “Entrepreneur of the World,” and is listed as one of the top 100 most powerful people in finance by Worth Magazine, the top 20 most influential people in Crypto by CryptoWeekly, #1 most networked VC by AlwaysOn, #7 on the Forbes Midas List, and #48 most influential Harvard Alum.

In promoting entrepreneurship, he created Draper University of Heroes, a residential and online school based in San Mateo, Ca to help extraordinary people accomplish their life missions. The school created entrepreneurs that built 350 companies including crypto leaders, QTUM, Spacecash, DataWallet and Credo. He started Innovate Your State, a non-profit dedicated to crowdsource innovation in government, and BizWorld, a non-profit that teaches young children how business and entrepreneurship work. 

He served on the California State Board of Education, and led a movement for Local Choice in schools culminating in becoming proponent for a statewide initiative for School Vouchers. He also led a statewide initiative to create competitive governance with Six Californias, followed by an initiative for Three Californias.

Tim Draper received a Bachelor of Science from Stanford University with a major in electrical engineering and a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School. He has two honorary doctorates from The International University and Trinity College of Dublin.
John Howard Burbank, III
Founder & Chief Investment Officer Passport Capital, LLC
Mr. John Howard Burbank, III serves as the Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Passport Capital, LLC, which he founded in August 2000. He received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and earned his BA in English Literature from Duke University.
Past Speakers
Cory Johnson
Chief Market Strategist, Ripple
Cory is the Chief Market Strategist of Ripple. Prior to Ripple, Cory worked as a hedge fund portfolio manager at Kingsford Capital Management and journalist at Bloomberg and CNBC covering high-growth technology companies.

Earlier in his career Cory ushered in many startups, including theStreet.com, the Industry Standard, SLAM and Vibe magazines.
Marco Santori
President & Chief Legal Officer, Blockchain
Marco is the President and Chief Legal Officer of Blockchain, the world's largest wallet and leading software platform for digital assets. Known as the "Dean of Digital Currency Lawyers," Marco is a recognized authority in the law and policy of block chain technologies. As a Partner at both Cooley LLP and Pillsbury Winthrop, he counseled banks, broker-dealers, exchanges, wallets, payment providers, and other companies making new and exciting uses of distributed ledger technology. Marco counseled his clients primarily on the money transmission and securities laws, including anti-money laundering regulations.

Marco is an author of the SAFT Project Whitepaper, responsible for the first self-regulatory effort for token sales (also known colloquially as ICOs). He is an advisor to the International Monetary Fund, the Blockchain Ambassador to the State of Delaware, and was the Chairman of the Regulatory Affairs Committee of the Bitcoin Foundation. He has been quoted by Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Coindesk, Washington Post, The New Yorker, Wired, Entrepreneur.com and Crain's New York Business.
Jim Calvin
Deloitte
Jim Calvin has more than 30 years of experience specializing in financial transactions, compensation planning, wealth transfer, insurance products, corporate, partnership, and international taxation. He has been with Deloitte member firms in Boston, New York, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Calvin joined the firm in 1986 and has been a partner since 1995. He is the author of the forthcoming Bloomberg BNA Portfolio, “Taxation of Cryptocurrencies;” and the author of the RIA/WGL treatise, “Regulated Investment Companies.”
Mary Conway
Partner, Davis Polk
As a partner in Davis Polk’s Tax Department, Ms. Conway focuses on investment management matters, including the formation and operation of private equity funds, hedge funds, mutual funds and other pooled investment vehicles. Her practice includes partnership matters and international tax matters.
Ari Paul
BlockTower Capital
Ari Paul is co-founder and CIO of BlockTower Capital. He was previously a portfolio manager for the University of Chicago's $8 billion endowment, and a derivatives market maker and proprietary trader for Susquehanna International Group (SIG). Ari earned a BA in political science from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the University of Chicago with concentrations in economics, entrepreneurship, strategic management, and econometrics & statistics. Ari is a CFA charterholder.
Donald R. Wilson, Jr.
Founder and CEO, DRW
Donald R. Wilson, Jr. is the founder and CEO of DRW, a principal trading firm with more than 800 employees at its Chicago headquarters and offices in Austin, Houston, London, Montreal, New York and Singapore.  
Don started in the industry in 1989, focusing on capturing opportunities in the markets through technology, research and risk management, and founded DRW in 1992 while trading in the Eurodollar options pit at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. DRW has since expanded into real estate investment, venture capital and cryptoassets.

Don is an influential leader in the financial futures industry and in 2010 founded the FIA Principal Traders Group. He is co-founder and board member of Eris Exchange, a designated contract market which trades an interest swap futures contract, and is the co-inventor of the Eris Exchange’s intellectual property. He is co-founder and board member of Digital Asset Holdings, a company which leverages distributed ledger technology to improve the settlement of financial instruments.

An early adopter in cryptoassets, DRW established Cumberland as a bitcoin trading desk in 2014. Today, Cumberland is one of the world’s largest providers of liquidity in all cryptoassets and a leader in the crypto ecosystem.

Don holds an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Chicago, where he is now a trustee. He also sits on the board of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Foundation. An avid competitive sailor, Don is the founder of the Chicago Match Race Center and served as chairman of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Chicago.
Kirstan Barnett
Element Capital Group
Kirstan Barnett is co-founder of Element Capital Group, LLC, a full-service advisory company for the digital asset economy, and Chief Operating Officer and a member of the Investment Committee Element Digital Asset Management LLC, advisor to the Element Digital Funds. Ms. Barnett has over twenty years of executive experience in corporate finance, asset management, emerging markets and the start-up company space. For over a decade she was the partner of a top-tier SEC registered hedge fund with over $10 billion aum and in institutional investor base. As its first General Counsel, she built out its legal and compliance structure, directed all regulatory and media matters, led high-stakes litigation teams and initiated an operational risk infrastructure review. An active early stage investor, Ms. Barnett serves on the Investment Committee of Castor Ventures, an early stage venture fund focused on investments affiliated with her alma mater, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the Founder of SheGives, a philanthropic foundation focused on effective altruism. Ms. Barnett holds a BA from the University of New Hampshire, a JD from Georgetown University Law School and an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.
Michael Bucella
Partner & Global Head of Strategic Partnerships, BlockTower Capital
Michael Bucella is a Partner and Global Head of Strategic Partnerships for BlockTower Capital, a leading institutional cryptocurrency investment firm bringing professional trading and portfolio management to an emerging digital asset class.

Prior to BlockTower, Michael spent nearly a decade with Goldman Sachs. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2008 as part of the Firm’s Asset Management division (GSAM), where he focused on investment strategies, markets and institutional investors globally. Most recently, Michael worked in the Securities Division where he ran the Multi-Asset Sales & Trading business in Canada and led efforts to expand this strategy globally. Previous to this role, he led the Institutional Global Equities business, also in Canada.

Michael earned a BS in Finance, Economics & Accounting from Fordham University. He is a member of Fordham University’s President’s Council and involved in multiple charitable organizations, with recent philanthropic endeavors involving several independent trips to aid the relief efforts in Puerto Rico.
Bobby Cho
Global Head of Trading, Cumberland
Bobby Cho is the global head of trading at Cumberland , a DRW Company, and one of the largest liquidity providers in cryptocurrencies. Previously, Bobby was director of trading at itBit Trust Company where he was responsible for their crypto asset trading and custody business. Prior to his role at itBit, Bobby was vice president of trading and a municipal securities principal at Digital Currency Group (f/k/a SecondMarket) where he assisted in the creation of one of the first cryptocurrency broker-dealers. Bobby is also a mentor to Plug and Play, a Sunnyvale based global innovation platform. He is a graduate of Villanova University.
Lee Schneider
Debevoise & Plimpton
Lee A. Schneider is global General Counsel at Block.One, the world’s largest blockchain developer and author of the EOSIO software. Schneider is responsible for all of the company’s legal affairs and will be involved in its proactive regulatory and compliance initiatives.

He joined Block.One after leading the blockchain practices at two major international firms, most recently McDermott Will & Emery. While at McDermott, Lee led both the Fintech and broker dealer practices.

Lee has been recognized as one of the leading voices in blockchain related regulation and compliance, and has played a role in structuring several of the largest and most successful blockchain-related projects.

Schneider co-hosts Appetite for Disruption, a bi-weekly FinTech podcast with former SEC Commissioner Troy Paredes, and has contributed to the global-leading guidance, “A Securities Law Framework for Blockchain Tokens” developed by Coinbase.

Mr. Schneider holds a Juris Doctor degree from American University’s Washington College of Law and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of Michigan.
Julie Kim
General Counsel & CCO, Passport Capital
Ms. Kim serves as the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Passport Capital, an SEC-registered investment adviser based in San Francisco. She oversees all legal and compliance matters for the firm. Before joining Passport, Ms. Kim practiced with the law firms of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. Ms. Kim’s practice focused on representing hedge funds, private equity funds and registered investment advisers.

Ms. Kim graduated from Cornell Law School where she earned a J.D., cum laude, and was an Editor of the Cornell Law Review. She earned her B.A. in Philosophy with Distinction in All Subjects from Cornell University. She is a member of the State Bar of California and the State Bar of New York.
Tara Bogard
Kingdom Trust
Tara Bogard has over 15 years of experience in the customer service industry. Her passion for helping others is the driving force behind her hard work and dedication. At Kingdom Trust, Tara specializes in developing and implementing growth opportunities within and between organizations and new business strategy and solutions.
Alexander Pack
Director, Bain Capital Ventures
Alexander is a Director at Bain Capital Ventures, where he founded and leads its Network Investing initiative to invest in experimental finance opportunities and disruptive fundraising models. He invests in cryptoassets, investment funds, and technology startups across sectors.

Previously, Alexander was a Partner at AngelList and began his investing career at Arbor Ventures, an Asia-based early stage VC firm, where he started its blockchain practice.
Laura Shin
Crypto Journalist
Laura Shin hosts the crypto-focused podcasts Unchained: Big Ideas From the Worlds of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency and Unconfirmed: Insights and Analysis From the Top Minds in Crypto. Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Stanford University and has a master of arts from Columbia University’s School of Journalism.
Nolan Bauerle
CoinDesk
Nolan Bauerle is the director of research at CoinDesk. His work with Bitcoin and blockchain technology began in 2013 after convincing the Canadian Senate Banking Committee to study Bitcoin, helping select witnesses, and drafting the report. As the report was tabled in Parliament, it was simultaneously hashed into Bitcoin’s blockchain.
Sara Silverstein
Executive Editor, Business Insider
Sara is the host of Business Insider's cryptocurrency show "the bit" and co-host of Business Insider's "The Bottom Line." You can also see Sara on CNBC's "The Filthy Rich Guide".

Sara has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with a concentration in analytical finance and a bachelor's in mathematics from the University of Colorado.

Before joining Business Insider, Sara worked as a producer for Bloomberg Television. Prior to that she spent five years as a senior portfolio analyst at a hedge fund.
Michael Sonnenshein
Managing Director, Grayscale Investments
Michael Sonnenshein joined Grayscale Investments in January 2014. As Managing Director, he is responsible for overseeing the daily operations and growth of the Grayscale business, spanning sales, operations, product development, and investor relations. With $2+ Billion in assets under management, Michael is responsible for maintaining many of the firms’ key client relationships including family offices, hedge funds, and other institutions as well as forming strategic partnerships and evaluating service providers.

Prior to joining Grayscale, Michael was a financial advisor at JP Morgan Securities, covering HNW individuals and institutions. He also worked in a similar capacity at Barclays Wealth, providing coverage to middle-market hedge funds and institutions. Michael earned his Bachelor of Business Administration from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and his Master of Business Administration from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University. He holds his Series 7 and 66 licenses.
Bá Minuzzi
Co-Founder & Managing Partner AUSUM Ventures
Bárbara is a former real-estate entrepreneur and financial advisor to UHNW families in Brazil. She has singlehandedly raised over $250M for real estate and high tech companies in Latin America and the United States, and co-manages over $200M in assets through private banking. 

Bá is best known in the tech industry as the founder of BABEL Ventures, the first venture firm in Silicon Valley to have a Latina as founder and solo GP, with a $30M early stage fund focused in biotech. She has been lauded her for "Breaking all the rules" and "Rocking male-dominated Silicon Valley" by various mainstream publications. Bárbara is based in SF, where she leads BABEL Ventures and recently partnered up with Jeremy Gardner, together they co-founded Ausum Ventures with their first fund being: Ausum Blockchain Fund - focusing on social change through blockchain technology.
Adam White
Coinbase
Adam White is the Vice President and General Manager of GDAX, the largest digital currency exchange in the U.S. In this role he is responsible for day-to-day operations and leading the strategic direction of the business.

Adam previously worked as a consultant at Bain & Co. and served as an officer in the United States Air Force. Adam has testified before Congress as an expert witness in the payments space and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Optical Engineering from the University of California, Davis.
Marcos Veremis
Managing Director, Cambridge Associates LLC
Marcos is currently a Managing Director in Cambridge Associates’ Arlington, VA office after working in the firm’s Boston and London offices for over 10 years. Marcos works mainly with endowments and foundations and has expertise in constructing customized alternative investment portfolios including hedge funds and venture capital. He is also coordinating the firm’s research in the crypto/blockchain space.
 
MBA, Columbia Business School
MA in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences, Columbia University
BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), Oxford University
Matthew Johnson
Co-Founder & Head of Product, Digital Asset Custody Company
Matthew is the Co-founder and Head of Product at Digital Asset Custody Company. He is a finance and technology executive with twenty years experience in technology leadership. Matthew has co-founded several technology startups with focuses as varied as fin-tech, human resources, and games. In addition to more entrepreneurial pursuits, he has worked with some of the largest hedge funds in the world revolutionizing their technology stacks. Prior to co-founding DACC Matthew worked in technology leadership roles at York Captial Management, Hazeltree, Trafelet & Company, Bank of New York, and Microsoft.
Spencer Bogart
Blockchain Capital
Spencer Bogart is a Partner at Blockchain Capital, the General Partner of Blockchain Capital’s venture funds. Spencer is a fundamental investment analyst with a rare combination of deep experience analyzing cryptocurrencies as well as traditional equity opportunities.

Prior to joining Blockchain Capital, Spencer was a Vice President at Needham & Company, where he authored Wall Street’s first industry report highlighting the use-cases, companies and potential of blockchain technology. He was also the most active Bitcoin analyst on Wall Street writing detailed reports and research on Bitcoin’s fundamental value proposition, price forecast, and technical advancements. Aside from leading all research efforts related to Bitcoin and Blockchain during his time at Needham & Company, Spencer also covered public SaaS, FinTech, and Internet companies, authored reports on those sectors, and issued price targets on companies under coverage.

Prior to Needham & Company, Spencer cut his teeth in the startup world where he helped build a first-of-its-kind proprietary research platform for analyzing Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), which was later acquired by FactSet.

Given his rare combination of skillsets and history of actively publishing reports, Spencer is widely cited throughout the Bitcoin and Blockchain industry and is a regular speaker at industry and startup events. Spencer is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and earned his B.A. in Business Economics from University of California, Santa Barbara.
Gary DeWaal
Katten Muchin Rosenman
Gary DeWaal focuses his practice on financial services regulatory matters. He counsels clients on the application of evolving regulatory requirements to existing businesses and structuring more effective compliance programs, as well as assists in defending and resolving regulatory disciplinary actions and enforcement matters. Gary also advises buy-side and sell-side clients, as well as trading facilities and clearing houses, on the developing laws and regulations related to cryptocurrencies and digital tokens.

Previously, Gary was a senior managing director and group general counsel for Newedge, where he oversaw the worldwide Legal, Compliance, Financial Crimes Prevention (including AML) and Regulatory Developments departments. He also worked for the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Division of Enforcement in New York. For several years, Gary taught a course in derivatives regulation as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School. He currently serves as a practitioner faculty and mentor for the State University of New York Buffalo Law School’s New York City Program on Finance & Law.

Gary is frequently quoted in the media for his thoughts on the international financial services industry and has published numerous articles on futures and securities industry issues. He regularly lectures or appears as a speaker at futures and securities industry conferences or in training sessions for international regulators. Gary is the sole author and publisher of Bridging the Week, a blog addressing issues in the financial services industry.
David Byrd
Americas Blockchain Assurance Research Lead, Ernst & Young LLP
David is EY’s Blockchain Assurance Research Lead in the Americas.

He is a member of the Financial Services Office audit practice in San Francisco, where he has served asset management clients such as hedge funds, private equity and venture capital firms. David has recently developed an expertise around audit and compliance procedures as they relate to funds and exchanges dealing in cryptocurrency.

Before working in industry, he received his PhD from the University of California, Davis in Philosophy with a focus in cognitive science, teaching courses such as Minds, Brains, and Computers. David also taught for Santa Clara University and the University of San Francisco, where he received his Bachelors in Accounting. David is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in the state of California.
Alan Kostrinsky
PwC
Alan is a Director in PwC’s Financial Services Practice working in the Capital Markets/Technology team. He has 25 years of experience working in industry on sales, business development and project management and has been working on Regulation SCI implementations and reviews for exchanges, industry utilities and large ATS broker dealers.
Robert Dykes
CEO & Co-Founder, Caspian
Robert has served as Tora CEO for the past 14 years. Prior to that Robert spent eleven years in the enterprise software and high-tech industry in Europe, North America, and Asia. Robert has held executive management positions in several start-up and early stage software companies including WebPartner, a software provider of corporate testing applications, and AudioSoft, a software services company providing online music licensing solutions, which was sold to Macrovision Corporation (NASDAQ: MVSN). Robert started his career at Deloitte working in various positions in audit, consulting and mergers & acquisitions groups. Robert holds a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University.
Sarah Davidoff
Partner, Ropes & Gray
Sarah Davidoff is a partner in the firm’s asset management practice and a co-head of Ropes & Gray’s Client Program. The world’s largest and most well-known alternative investment managers turn to Sarah for proactive and strategic counseling on issues relating to the formation, structure and operation of their funds. She has particular experience developing first-of-their-kind funds for clients focused on investing in cryptocurrencies. She designs and implements these bespoke investment vehicles, while also navigating the complex, evolving, and often competing regulatory and compliance environment.

In addition, Sarah works with institutional and independent sponsor hedge funds, private equity funds and other alternative asset managers on a variety of matters, including spinouts, reorganizations, seed transactions, hybrid and novel fund structures, structuring compensation and profit-sharing arrangements, designing customized investment vehicles, and launching innovative fund products.
Jonathan Sands
Founder and Managing Partner, Artist Capital
Jonathan Sands is the Founder and Managing Partner of Artist Capital, a NYC-based technology merchant bank. Over the last two decades, Jonathan has launched and helped scale alternative investment firms that now manage north of $11 billion dollars in the venture, growth equity, hedge fund, and cryptocurrency spaces. In addition to bringing institutional backing to entrepreneurial investment platforms, Jonathan has a premier track record of scaling best ideas with financial sponsors. An avid technology investor, both personally and through his affiliated direct investment vehicle, some of Jonathan’s investments include Multicoin, MetaStable, Filecoin, Wish, Grab, Coupang, Aaron’s, Oyo, and MagicLeap. Jonathan also acts as an advisor to the world’s first cryptocurrency index fund, Bitwise.

Jonathan received his MBA from the University of Cape Town, South Africa and pursued postgraduate studies at The Anderson School at UCLA. He also has a Bachelor's degree from Davidson College with studies at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University.
Dan Matuszewski
Circle
Daniel Matuszewski is Head of Trading at Circle Internet Financial. Circle actively makes markets on nearly all major exchanges globally, and provide significant scale in over the counter (OTC) trading with large institutional buyers and sellers of crypto assets.

Prior to working at Circle Daniel traded vol arb for Bay Hill Capital a small hedge fund south of Boston.
Shingo Lavine
Founder and CEO, Ethos.io
Shingo is a globally recognized expert and thought leader in cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies, and is passionate about the intersection of regulatory best practices and blockchain and crypto technology. 

Shingo studied computer science and economics at Brown University, and founded Ethos at age 19. Shingo is highly passionate and knowledgeable about the intersection of blockchain technology, finance and law, and wrote the original Ethos whitepaper "Democratizing Cryptocurrency" which was widely read worldwide. He then led the team that created the Ethos Universal Wallet, a BIP32/39/44 compatible wallet that can securely send, receive, store and review hundreds of coins and tokens, and is rated 4.7 stars on both the Google Play and Apple app store. 

 

Working with Tim Simmons formerly of Citrix and iTrade Shingo built Ethos Bedrock, a programmatic Blockchain Finance Platform designed to bridge the worlds of finance and blockchain. Bedrock uses the Ethos token as "gas" to power its APIs for wallet, transaction construction, verified source of funds, and can enable both self-custody and institutional custody services. 

Previously, Shingo was the co-founder of Jobs University, an online school with over 20,000 students that teaches job skills to help people earn higher income.  Shingo is also an accomplished upright jazz bass player.
Peter Marshall
Founder & CEO, Walden Bridge Capital
Peter Marshall is the Founder & CEO of Walden Bridge Capital. He has a background in investments, financial analysis, marketing and client service, and has been personally investing in the cryptoasset class since early 2014. Prior to founding Walden Bridge Capital, Peter worked at CBRE and Ziegler Capital Management in Chicago. Peter received a BA in Economics from Vanderbilt University, a General Course diploma from the London School of Economics, and a Fintech Certificate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Michael Dunworth
CEO, Wyre
Michael has been involved in the digital asset space since 2012. He's currently the co-founder & CEO of Wyre Payments. Currently the largest cross-border payments platform built on top of the blockchain. Having processed over $1B in payments in their first 18 months, Wyre derives their FX through trading algorithms and crypto liquidity pools in multiple geographies. Delivering efficiencies in the speed of settlement, price, and transparency. Wyre feeds their liquidity by providing one the leading OTC trade desks for the private equity market, asset managers, exchanges, and hedge funds.

Michael additionally serves as a soundboard for a number of companies & platforms, that are aiming to adapt themselves to this innovative industry.
Greg Cipolaro
Matt Perona
Seth Altman
Director of Hedge Fund & Family Office MG Stover & Co.
Seth Altman is the Director of Hedge Funds and Family Offices for MG Stover & Co. and joined the firm in August 2016.

He began his career at Deloitte & Touche in New York City where he audited banks, broker-dealers and alternative investment funds. In 2007, Mr. Altman was hired by the multi-billion-dollar hedge fund Glenview Capital Management as a staff accountant in their finance department. He ventured back to public accounting in 2009 becoming an audit manager at Rothstein Kass. In his time at Rothstein Kass he was an integral part of improving the best practices and the integration of the Denver RK and KPMG Offices. In 2015, Mr. Altman joined Lazarus, a hedge fund based in Denver, as their Chief Financial Officer. At Lazarus, he was in charge of the day-to-day operations of the funds and general partner/management company.
Andrew J. Beal
Karl Cole-Frieman
Co-Managing Partner, Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP
Prior to co-founding Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP, Karl Cole-Frieman was General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Standard Pacific Capital, LLC ("Standard Pacific"), an SEC registered hedge fund manager in San Francisco with offices in New York, Hong Kong, and a sub-advisor in Tokyo. In addition to managing the Legal and Compliance Departments at Standard Pacific, Karl was also responsible for Human Resources, IT, General Administration, as well as certain operations and strategic matters for Standard Pacific's credit strategy. Before joining Standard Pacific, Karl was Associate General Counsel of Sagamore Hill Capital Management, L.P., a multi-strategy hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut, with an office in London. Prior to that, he was Vice President and Associate General Counsel at JPMorgan Chase & Co. ("JP Morgan"), where he was lead counsel for Loan Trading and Distressed Debt, and actively involved in the Loan Syndications and Trading Association. During his tenure at JPMorgan and predecessor firm, Hambrecht & Quist, Karl also supported the M&A, Corporate Finance and Private Equity Groups. He began his career in 1997 as an Associate in the Litigation Department of Shearman & Sterling.

Karl lives with his wife, Wanda, and twins, Isaac and Taylor, in Oakland, CA, where he enjoys running and biking, and is a Crossfit Level 1 Trainer.
Lewis Chong
Partner, Harneys
Lewis is a partner in Harneys’ Investment Funds Department. He advises on a variety of Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands funds matters, including advising United States, European and emerging markets managers on the establishment of new funds and the restructure of existing funds as well as advising managers and funds subject to, or affected by, litigation. 
 
He spends most of his time in North America and is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is admitted to practice Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands law and has also been issued a practitioner of foreign law permit by the Law Society of British Columbia in Canada. Lewis is the only person practising Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands law in the Pacific time zone. 
 
Lewis is also a senior editor of The Offshore Funds Blog, a Harneys blog dedicated to explaining how offshore funds work and why investment managers use them. Lewis is recommended by IFLR 1000 and Legal 500.
Bart Mallon
Co-Managing Partner, Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP
Mr. Mallon is a Co-Managing Partner and co-founder of Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP, a boutique law firm focused on the investment management industry.  The firm provides comprehensive legal support to investment managers and the practice supports both emerging and well established managers.  Mr. Mallon’s practice is focused on the legal, regulatory and compliance aspects of launching pooled investment vehicles domestically and offshore.  He also works with established managers on all aspects of their business including counterparty documentation, investor matters, employment and routine business matters.  Many firm clients are focused on non-traditional strategies including investment in the cannabis sector, use of AI in a trading strategy and investment into cryptocurrency and other digital assets.

In addition to regular speaking engagements, Mr. Mallon also created and maintains the prominent industry legal blog – Hedge Fund Law Blog.   Mr. Mallon has a BA from the University of Washington and a JD from Emory University School of Law and lives in San Francisco.
Cynthia Pedersen
Cohen & Co
Cynthia communicates with clients daily regarding their complex tax questions on investment strategies and how those strategies may fit into their long-term goals. Her areas of specialty include taxation of hedge funds, international tax compliance, tax compliance for tax-exempt organizations and ultra-high-net-worth estate succession planning. Cynthia’s background as an attorney, and specifically as an estate planner, makes her a vigilant advisor when it comes to tax issues for high-net-worth individuals considering changes to their business structures and investments. In addition, she is responsible for firmwide tax research pertaining to a broad range of issues that influence alternative investment fund managers and investors. Cynthia is also actively involved in the firm’s Cryptocurrency Practice.
Nick Gustafson
Senior Trader, Circle
Nick Gustafson is a Senior Trader at Circle. Based in New York, he works on the Circle Trade OTC trading desk, a leading market maker and liquidity provider of crypto assets for institutions and large individual investors. Nick has over a decade of trading experience across JP Morgan, UBS, Macquarie Group and Jefferies. He entered the crypto space in 2017, joining Kraken where he was the head trader on the US OTC desk.
Michael S. Dicke
Co-Chair, Securities Enforcement, Partner, Securities Litigation, Fenwick & West LLP
Mike Dicke is a partner in Fenwick’s litigation practice group and is the co-chair of the firm’s Securities Enforcement group. His practice focuses on conducting internal investigations for public company boards and audit committees, and the representation of individuals and entities in SEC, Department of Justice, and other law enforcement and regulatory investigations and litigation.  

In addition, Mike currently is assisting numerous cryptocurrency clients in developing compliant token offerings and compliant token exchanges.  He also is representing several crypto exchanges in various state and federal investigations, and several token issuers in SEC investigations. 

Prior to joining Fenwick & West, Mike served as the Associate Regional Director for Enforcement in the SEC’s San Francisco’s regional office, from 2008 to 2014. As head of enforcement for the region, Mike oversaw all of the office’s attorneys and accountants in the investigation and litigation of federal securities law violations in six states. While at the SEC, Mike conducted and supervised hundreds of investigations and litigation involving financial reporting and accounting fraud, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), insider trading, offering frauds, and misconduct by investment advisers, investment companies, and broker-dealers.
Reuben Bramanathan
Product Lead, Coinbase Asset Management
Reuben led the creation of Coinbase Index and is responsible for the management of Coinbase's funds. He is a former lawyer who has advised clients on legal and regulatory aspects of bitcoin and blockchain technology since 2014. He wrote and lectured the world's first postgraduate course on the Regulation of Digital Currency, at the University of Nicosia in 2015, and co-authored the industry-leading legal research paper The Blockchain Token Securities Law Framework in 2016.
Joe Eagan
COO, Polychain Capital
Joe has been Chief Operating Officer at Polychain Capital since October 2017. Prior to that, Joe was a Principal at Investcorp where his team helped launch of 14 different emerging hedge funds. He also has experience managing risk arbitrage portfolios at both Amber Capital and Naufal Capital. Joe holds a B.A. from Georgetown University.
Jacob Decker
VP, Financial Institutions, Woodruff Sawyer
Jacob Decker is Vice President, Director of Financial Institutions for Woodruff-Sawyer.  Woodruff-Sawyer is a privately-held, independent insurance brokerage headquartered out of San Francisco offering a full suite of commercial insurance products/services including executive liability, employee benefits, surety and property & casualty. 2018 marks Woodruff Sawyer’s 100th year operating as an independent commercial insurance brokerage in the Bay Area.

Prior to joining Woodruff-Sawyer, Jacob spent three years as a Financial Institution Underwriter for Chubb and ten years at a global brokerage firm managing the executive liability practice in San Francisco.  He brings this underwriting and brokerage perspective to the analysis of executive risks and the development of tailored risk management solutions and is primarily focused on emerging FinTech/Blockchain based financial service companies.  Jacob designs, implements and manages complex executive liability insurance programs (D&O, E&O, EPL, Fiduciary, etc.) for companies of all sizes, from start-ups to global enterprises.

Specialties: Public & Private Directors & Officers Liability. Bespoke E&O solutions for lending institutions, investment banking, asset management, venture & private equity, insurance companies and broker-dealers.
John Burnett
Co-founder, Head of Business Development & Strategy, Omniex
John Burnett is Co-founder, Head of Business Development & Strategy at Omniex, the institutional investment and trading platform for crypto-assets.

Prior to starting Omniex, Mr. Burnett was a Managing Director at State Street Bank within the Emerging Technologies Center. As State Street’s global lead for all blockchain and crypto-assets initiatives, John led all internal and external efforts including strategy for the newly emerging crypto-asset class.

Previously he was a Director at American Express where he was focused on competitive and marketplace strategy. John led AMEX’s initial deep-dive analysis into bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in 2013 on behalf of AMEX’s CEO and Board of Directors. Previously he was in management consulting at both Booz Allen Hamilton and Opera Solutions, a firm founded by former McKinsey partners focused on data and analytics for financial services companies. In his last years in consulting he led business development efforts to create new capabilities in data and analytics for target and existing clients.

John holds a BA and MA in Economics from UC Santa Barbara and an MBA from Tuck school at Dartmouth.
Lindsay Chamings
Managing Director, Andersen Tax
A member of the Andersen Tax Alternative Investment Funds Services group Lindsay works with alternative investments, including hedge funds, private equity funds, venture funds, cryptocurrency funds, and fund of funds and related management companies. She has more than 15 years of experience ranging from financial services taxation, ASC 740, and international tax.  Lindsay has extensive experience in federal partnership taxation. Her experience includes advising hedge funds, private equity and alternative investment companies on the U.S. tax implications of their domestic and international operations. Prior to Andersen Tax, Lindsay worked in KPMG's and Rothstein Kass'  Alternative Investment practice.
Matt Jennings
CEO, Kingdom Trust
Matt Jennings is the CEO at Kingdom Trust, where he has propelled the company into the digital asset market as the first qualified custodian of cryptocurrencies. In 2009, Matt co-founded SBG 1320, LLC, the parent company of Kingdom Trust. A Certified General Real Estate Appraiser and licensed agent, Matt manages a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio. Matt’s interest in investing in real estate and other alternative assets led him to co-found Kingdom Trust.
Sam McIngvale
Product Lead, Coinbase Custody
Michael Fitzgerald
CEO, Digital Asset Custody Company (DACC)
Mike has over 20 years of financial services industry experience, holding senior positions in Prime Brokerage as a Managing Director at both Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. Most recently Mike was the Chief Operating and Compliance Officer of Ararat Capital.
James Radecki
Global Head of Business Development at Cumberland
Jim Radecki is the Global Head of Business Development at Cumberland, a DRW Company and a global leader in cryptoassets. Prior to joining Cumberland, Jim was Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, where he served as Global Co-Head of GS Global Prime Services Clearing, Global Head of Sales for GS Global Prime Services Clearing, and Midwest Regional Manager for GS Global Prime Services.

Over the course of his career in the financial industry, Jim has held several key leadership positions, including North American Regional Risk Manager for ING Barings, the Global Director of Risk Management for the Global Futures and Options Clearing business, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer at Mercury Trading/ Summit Securities,), and Controller at First Financial Group.

Jim is former member of the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe), The Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX), Eurex, and is a CPA. Jim earned a BA in Accounting from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1985.
Rob Margolis
VP Sales, LedgerX
Rob Margolis is Vice President and Head of Sales for LedgerX. LedgerX is an institutional trading and clearing platform that received the first regulatory approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to trade and clear derivatives on Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

Prior to LedgerX, Rob was an equity derivatives sales/trader and fixed income trader within the Investment Management Division of Goldman Sachs, where he specialized in both single stock risk management and municipal bonds.

Rob graduated from Villanova University with a B.B.A. in Finance and a minor in Real Estate.
P. Bart Stephens
Co-founder & Managing Partner, Blockchain Capital
Bart Stephens is Co-founder and Managing Partner of Blockchain Capital, the first venture capital fund to invest exclusively in the blockchain technology sector and the first to raise a venture fund through an ICO. Blockchain Capital is the pioneer and most established VC firm in the Blockchain sector with more than 75 portfolio companies across four funds. Prior to Blockchain Capital, Bart was Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Stephens Investment Management, LLC (SIM), a family owned and operated hedge fund and venture capital firm. Bart and his brother and Co-Founder, Brad, invented the term and pioneered “Nanocap” investing – venture capital style investing in the public markets focused on sub micro-cap equities.

Bart has a background as both an operating entrepreneur and a venture capitalist. Prior to co-founding SIM, Bart was Executive Vice President, Venture Capital for Ivanhoe Capital Corporation (ICC), an international investment firm.

Before joining ICC, Bart was a founding investor and Head of Corporate & Business development for Oncology.com. Oncology.com grew to become the internet’s largest cancer related web site before being sold to Pharmacia (now Pfizer) in 2001.

Prior to Oncology.com, Bart spent more than two years with E*TRADE, an early internet innovator in online financial services. While at E*TRADE, he held senior positions focused on product marketing, business development and corporate development.

Bart earned a B.A. in Political Science from Princeton University.
Corey McLaughlin
Co-President, Investment Industry Services, Cohen & Company
As co-president of Cohen & Company’s Investment Industry Services Division, Corey is responsible primarily for strategy and development of the private funds practice, including profitability, growth, training and retention, and strategic and tactical initiatives.

Corey also works directly with clients in the investment industry to provide accounting, auditing, investors’ representative, attestation and consulting services to a wide variety of entities. His clients include commodity pools, hedge funds, commodity trading advisors, investment advisers, introducing brokers and other operating entities. Corey also has significant expertise auditing and consulting funds that trade cryptocurrencies. Corey currently serves as the Treasurer for the Mid-Atlantic Hedge Fund Association, and is a frequent presenter on alternative investment topics.

In 2011 Corey was awarded the SmartCPA distinction, which recognizes enterprising accountants for their leadership, accomplishment, innovation, and success. Corey graduated from Towson University in 1996 with a B.S. in Accounting. He is a Certified Public Accountant with the rights to practice in numerous states. He is a member of MACPA and AICPA.

Sponsors

Founding Symposium Sponsors
Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP, headquartered in San Francisco, is a premier boutique investment management law firm, providing top-tier, responsive, and cost-effective legal solutions for financial services matters. The firm has been instrumental in structuring the launches of some of the first cryptocurrency hedge funds and provides a full suite of legal services to the cryptocurrency community including: fund formation, regulatory compliance and consulting, counterparty documentation, seed deals, due diligence, employment and compensation matters, and routine business matters. The firm also publishes the prominent Hedge Fund Law Blog which focuses on legal issues that impact the hedge fund and cryptocurrency community.

http://www.colefrieman.com

In 2017 Arthur Bell merged with Cohen & Company to support the entire investment community and to solidify our position as a top provider of audit, tax and advisory services for public and private funds. Before the crypto boom when other firms were uncertain about the viability of digital assets, Cohen & Company was in the unique position—with in-house cryptography experience and investment industry expertise—to roll up our sleeves and be one of the first accounting firms to establish controls and processes required to effectively work in this evolutionary sector of alternative investments. By working with over 85 cryptocurrency funds, we have significant and particular expertise with digital asset exchanges and ICOs. Our client base also includes hedge funds, commodity pools, private equity, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, investment advisers, fund service providers, high net worth individuals, trusts, and foundations.

http://www.cohencpa.com

MG Stover & Co is a full service fund administration firm built by former auditors and fund operators to deliver world class solutions to the global alternative investment industry. By partnering with our clientele, we become an institutional extension of their management team while delivering a boutique experience. We empower investment managers by reducing their operational cost, enhancing their reporting capabilities and exceeding investor expectations. MG Stover & Co has proven expertise in customizing administrative solutions for our clients and executing our responsibilities with the highest standard of service and integrity.

http://www.mgstover.com

Harneys is a leading international offshore law firm. Our investment funds practice advises on all aspects of the life of a Cayman or BVI fund including formation, restructuring and closure. We pride ourselves on being able to offer bespoke services to our clients whether institutional or boutique managers. Our size, collegiate atmosphere and flexible teams allow us to work across departments and offices. We do the work in the location that is most suitable to the client, and are able to provide time zone and language-appropriate service to clients around the world. Our funds team also publishes The Offshore Funds Blog which explains how offshore funds work and why investment managers use them.

http://www.harneys.com

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If you have any questions, please email us at events@blockworksgroup.io.