Liz Coyne

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Digital Asset Summit 2021, New York City — Blockworks&#8217; Digital Asset Summit 2021 is our flagship US-based institutionally focused crypto <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">conference</a> for asset managers and financial services professionals.



Hosted Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 14 &#8211; 15, this in-person event features leaders from the world of finance and digital assets discussing crypto from the perspective of industry practitioners.



While the event is sold out, we are thrilled to be able to bring you all the main stage content via livestream.



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/#form0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Follow this link and log-in to watch now.</a>

Digital Asset Summit 2021 Live from NYC

Jack Kubinec

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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Backpack, a crypto <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-exchange-solana-spot-trading">wallet and exchange</a> popular among Solana users, has acquired FTX EU for $32.7 million.



In buying the defunct exchange’s European arm, Backpack — which was started by FTX and Alameda alumni — gets access to more than 110,000 former FTX EU users, Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante told me. On top of that, it inherits FTX EU’s European regulatory license that will let European users trade perpetual futures, which are very popular among crypto traders.



Ferrante said the deal was signed back in April of 2024, and Backpack spent the next eight months going through due diligence with regulators. In buying FTX EU, Backpack now becomes responsible for distributing bankruptcy claims to the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-impacts-on-cryptos-future">exchange’s former customers</a>.&nbsp;



Ferrante formerly worked at Alameda Research, the research and trading firm that totally wasn’t commingling bank accounts with FTX. Backpack Wallet co-founder Tristan Yver, who just stepped back from an operational role at the company, was the head of strategy at FTX US.



FTX is tied to Solana because it built its Serum DEX on the network in 2020 and is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-first-vc">widely credited</a> with helping put the network on crypto investors’ radars in Solana’s early days.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Backpack has never been shy about the connection to FTX, and it’s pitching this acquisition partly as a way to get customers their funds back. “FTX EU users have been waiting for their distribution for too long. We believed that we could do it faster and more efficiently,” Ferrante said.



Outside of those connections, this deal feels a bit surprising at first glance, because FTX obviously doesn’t have any staff or proprietary technology that Backpack can access. Backpack also now has to distribute bankruptcy claims, which it didn’t have to do before.&nbsp;



Perhaps the most lucrative part of the deal is FTX’s MiFID II license that lets Backpack offer trading services including perps in Europe. Convincing regulators to reactivate the FTX license — which was suspended after the exchange’s collapse — was part of what took the deal so long to be finalized, Ferrante told me.&nbsp;



Europe is a big trading market, and a large chunk of crypto trading volume comes in the form of perps, Ferrante said in an email. “Yet there are no compliant crypto perpetual futures offerings on the market right now in Europe.”



A Coinbase spokesperson said the exchange bought an EU MiFID II entity last year, and it plans to “expand our derivatives offering from the EU in due course.”



Crypto derivatives were also relevant to the only other FTX post-collapse acquisition: It <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-ledgerx-sale">sold the LedgerX derivatives platform</a> to a Miami-based holding company for $50 million in 2023.



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



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Backpack acquires FTX EU and its 110K former users

Ben Strack

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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Core Scientific got a lot of attention in 2024 for its hosting deals with cloud provider CoreWeave.&nbsp;



But Hut 8’s plans to lease data center space to its own — for now unknown — AI hyperscaler may put it in an even stronger position than its rival, one analyst argues.



Various bitcoin miners embarked on revenue diversification efforts last year — particularly after last year’s Bitcoin halving. This included a focus on building out <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/btc-miners-evolving-revenue-post-halving">HPC verticals</a> to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hut-8-mining-ceo-interview">support AI applications</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/2024-crypto-stock-winners">CORZ stock shot up</a> roughly 300% in 2024 after emerging from bankruptcy and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/core-scientific-relisting-shares-tumble">relisting on the Nasdaq</a> last January.



A Tuesday research note from Benchmark’s Mark Palmer followed the West Feliciana Parish Planning &amp; Zoning Commission <a href="https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/business/25-billion-west-feliciana-data-center-approved/article_d6dce702-cc45-11ef-8ff0-1fd2550a45e5.html">reportedly</a> voting to approve Hut 8’s planned data center construction in Louisiana. It now seeks final approval.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Palmer described this project as a likely “game-changer” for the company, noting: “We believe that HUT’s agreement with the unnamed AI hyperscaler could feature better economics on a per [megawatt] basis than CORZ is slated to realize in its deal.”



The reason, he explains, was startup CoreWeave’s inability to offer support needed for CORZ to tap the project finance market. It instead agreed to provide most of the capital required to build the project.&nbsp;



On the other hand, Palmer explains, Hut 8 having the backing of a large, established AI hyperscaler enables it to access the finance market to raise the $2.5 billion it plans to invest in Phase One of the West Feliciana Parish project.&nbsp;



“The upshot is that HUT wouldn’t face the discount to its economics that CORZ had given CoreWeave’s fronting of the capex for its project,” he added.



Hut 8 shares were trading for ~$24.85 at 1:45 pm ET, while CORZ stock was at ~$14.20. Though both were down more than 6% on the day at that time, Hut 8 had the YTD stock price gain edge on Core Scientific, +17% to -1%. 



Palmer’s price target for Hut 8 stock is $41. It’s safe to say we’ll be monitoring those shares as the miner’s data center project progresses.



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



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Bitcoin miner’s data center project to be ‘game-changer’

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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The so-called “Trump effect” on crypto has materialized — at least for one prominent crypto player — in the form of a stateside hiring spree.&nbsp;



Ripple is seeking new pros across all departments. Roughly three-quarters of its open positions are based in the US, including those in its recently expanded San Francisco and New York offices.



Open roles include a general compliance manager and financial systems lead of enterprise performance management in San Fran, as well as a ​​KYC/due diligence specialist in NYC. Also a bunch of engineers.



The pick-up in hiring <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-appoints-crypto-council-head">reflects optimism</a> in the US market as a new administration steps into power (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-appointments-cantor-fitzgerald-sec">Trump</a>, his <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-nominates-commerce-dept-leader">cabinet nominees</a> and a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-friendly-congress-steps-into-power">pro-crypto Congress</a>).&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">2025 is here and the Trump bull market is real. For Ripple, this is even more personal after Gensler&#39;s SEC effectively froze our business opportunities here at home for years. The optimism is obvious and very deserved. Today: ✅75% of Ripple’s open roles are now US-based, while…&mdash; Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) <a href="https://twitter.com/bgarlinghouse/status/1875939452226564177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 5, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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&#8220;While initial SEC policy shifts could begin within the first few months under new leadership, legislative progress may advance steadily as policymakers prioritize clear frameworks for digital assets,” a Ripple spokesperson told me. “The most immediate impact will likely come through changes in enforcement and by way of offering more regulatory guidance.”&nbsp;



And perhaps less regulatory guidance, in some scenarios. The SEC, under <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-chair-nominee-crypto-past">a new leader</a> (after <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gary-gensler-resigning">Gary Gensler’s departure</a>) could revoke SAB121, for example — guidance deterring some major players from custodying crypto.



Ultimately, Ripple said it’s looking for an end to SEC regulation by enforcement (the company knows all about legal battles <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ripple-fined-civil-penalty-sec-lawsuit">with the SEC</a>). It also seeks “fit-for-purpose frameworks” (rather than applying decades-old regulations) and “clear guidelines for institutional sales and distributions.”&nbsp;



Such aforementioned clarifications would allow the company to significantly expand its US operations, the spokesperson said.&nbsp;



The rep added: “We&#8217;ve already seen this starting to happen, closing as many enterprise deals in the two months post-election as in the previous six months.&#8221;



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



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Ripple’s pre-Trump hiring spree

Casey Wagner

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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We got another expected Biden-era cabinet member resignation today: CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam will step down from his position on Inauguration Day and leave the agency altogether in early February.



Behnam, a Democrat nominated to the commission by Donald Trump in 2017, became acting chair after President Joe Biden was inaugurated. He was later confirmed by the Senate in December 2021.&nbsp;



Trump is expected to name either Caroline Pham or Summer Mersinger, both sitting Republican commissioners, as acting chair later this month. He may or may not opt to bring in a new candidate for Senate approval.&nbsp;



Short-listed names to head the derivatives regulator include Jill Sommers of consultancy firm Potomak Global Partners and Milbank law partner Josh Sterling, according to Reuters.&nbsp;



Former CFTC Commissioner and head of policy at a16z crypto Brian Quintenz is also being considered, a person familiar with the matter told Blockworks. Quintenz served on the commission from 2017 to 2021.&nbsp;



The CFTC, long seen as a lesser player in the financial regulation landscape, took on a more important role in cryptocurrency regulation in recent years. Bipartisan efforts, including the FIT21 bill that passed through Congress last year, attempted to give the CFTC more oversight over crypto markets.&nbsp;



Behnam himself <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/regulation-by-enforcement-unsustainable">advocated</a> for more CFTC authority, particularly with regards to the fact that as it currently stands, the agency does not have explicit, comprehensive authority over crypto derivatives markets.&nbsp;



“The evidence is in our enforcement record, and we even point to the SEC’s enforcement record as well,” Behnam said in 2023 during a Congressional hearing. “We brought 82 cases over about eight years, and [these] 82 cases [came from] an agency that doesn’t have regulatory authority.”&nbsp;



That said, the CFTC was part of the 2023 settlement agreement <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/binance-dismiss-cftc">with Binance</a>, which resulted in a payment of more than $4 billion, one of the largest corporate penalties ever.&nbsp;



&#8220;Binance’s activities <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/binance-cftc-damning-quotes">undermined</a> the foundation of safe and sound financial markets by intentionally avoiding basic, fundamental <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/binance-motion-to-dismiss-cftc-lawsuit">obligations</a> that apply to exchanges, all the while collecting approximately $1.35 billion in trading fees from US customers,&#8221; Behnam said in a statement at the time of the settlement announcement.&nbsp;



Pham and Mersinger — both known for their engagement with the crypto industry in recent years — have dissented from other commissioners regarding crypto enforcement actions. In September the two issued statements against the CFTC’s $175,000 settlement with Uniswap for an alleged illegal leveraged trading offering.&nbsp;



Mersinger <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cftc-uniswap-settlement-dissenting-opinion">claimed</a> that the case against Uniswap “has all the hallmarks of what we have come to know as regulation through enforcement.”&nbsp;



Pham, in her opinion, noted that the agency seems to be treating crypto actors with a scrutiny they would never apply to other industries.&nbsp;



“Applying the logic of the CFTC’s legal argument, it seems that any commercial transaction to purchase a cow, a bushel of oats or a barrel of oil that involves the word ‘financed’ and is delivered in 30 days is a violation of [commodities laws] and needs to be executed on a futures exchange,” Pham wrote. “I am skeptical that the CFTC would try to enforce these statutory provisions outside of DeFi.”&nbsp;



The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to our request for comment on Behnam’s resignation.



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



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Rostin Behnam’s parting ask for crypto rules

Donovan Choy

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">subscribe</a>.



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Before “AI” came to be synonymous with “agents,” there were far humbler AI projects with functional use cases. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-wallets-grass-airdrop">Grass</a> was one such DePIN project on Solana.



The Grass elevator pitch: Big Tech bad because it scrapes your data on the internet for their profit, Grass good because you can now use it to activate your idle internet bandwidth to sell that access.



Rather than buying it from Big Tech, AI companies (or businesses that find it useful to track media sentiment) that want your textual data can now purchase it from you via Grass as an intermediary.



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Grass blew up mid-2024, growing to more than <a href="https://x.com/getgrass_io/status/1837497231274041557">2 million+</a> active nodes in less than a year. These nodes scrape about <a href="https://x.com/Daveeemor/status/1868698451044675897">90TB</a> of data daily (about 445x less than Google), which is then sold to AI companies.



The GRASS token airdropped in October, with multiple major CEX listings and a 380% appreciation since.



That’s impressive considering most tokens see a down-only trend on TGE. It’s even more particularly impressive since GRASS farmers don’t suffer an opportunity cost, i.e., staking capital. The more costless it is to farm something, the higher tendency for a token to dump aggressively, but that hasn’t been the case for Grass.



Based on <a href="https://x.com/alpha_pls/status/1846611190891360467">@Daveeemor</a>, Grass generates about $33 million in annualized revenues, which it plans to eventually share with its node operators and GRASS stakers.



At a $702 million market cap today, that gives GRASS a 21.3x MC/F multiple. If one believes Grass can continue to scale as it did in 2024, that suggests a very attractive token valuation relative to other fee-generating DePIN protocols, like Helium or Akash, which <a href="https://x.com/Daveeemor/status/1868698451044675897">trade</a> at a much higher 265-334x MC/F multiple.



In Q1 2025, Grass plans to introduce the ability to better capture real-time data with its “Live Context Retrieval” technology, enabling more performant and specific AI models that depend on time-sensitive information such as market trading. 



For more on Grass, see our previous Blockworks research <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/flashnotes/touching-grass">report</a> by Boccaccio.



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



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Reshaping the data layer of AI with Grass

Katherine Ross

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">subscribe</a>.



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There have been, quite frankly, a lot of predictions floating around, which is to be expected.&nbsp;



It’s hard to filter through the noise to pull out ones that are either fun to pay attention to, or have the highest odds of success.&nbsp;



On Empire this week, Jason Yanowitz and Santiago Santos recapped their predictions over the last couple of years and <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/4cddc846-cc72-11ef-9ae7-cb1d9b6b1f2e">gave some forward-looking ones</a>, including a bitcoin price target.&nbsp;



Let’s start with the price target: $150k sometime this year. Not necessarily the biggest prediction, given that we’ve seen Bitwise and Bernstein, in their own calls, say it could go as high as $200,000 before year-end.&nbsp;



With bitcoin (barely) back above $100k, it seems like the bullish vibes are coming back after a fairly bumpy ride at the end of last year. Ledn’s John Glover thinks this first quarter could see a rally up to $125,000, which would get us just under the target given by Yanowitz and Santos.&nbsp;



Sounds like this prediction, if we maintain this course, is a matter of when, not if.&nbsp;



One other prediction that I found feasible, and honestly quite interesting, was about stablecoins. Yanowitz came ready on this one, admitting that he had four different predictions involving stablecoins. The big one, though, is that he thinks this could be the year that we see a big bank, a tech company and a fintech company all launch their own stablecoins.&nbsp;



Focusing specifically on banks, the big hurdle they’ve faced so far is just the lack of regulation in the space. It’s a topic <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoin-report-market-capitalization">we’ve discussed a few times</a> here on Empire, but if we’re set to see an overhaul at the SEC and a change in the way the regulator engages with crypto-curious companies, then Yanowitz’s prediction once again may be a matter of time rather than feasibility.&nbsp;



At the very least, the Empire hosts are not alone. Galaxy also <a href="https://www.galaxy.com/insights/research/crypto-predictions-2025/">predicted</a> that we could see a number of TradFi-backed stablecoin partnerships announced this year.&nbsp;



So, my question then is, who’s first?



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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Bitcoin could hit $125k in Q1: Analyst

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If Solana investors look up from their AI coins, they’ll see a few interesting products slated to launch this year.



Shipping dates can always be delayed of course, but as of now, 2025 is poised to deliver a slew of Solana product launches. Solana Mobile’s Seeker phone tops the list along with the full version of Jump Crypto’s Firedancer client. DePINs, crypto wearable tech, and Jito’s restaking platform are also noteworthy areas expecting new launches.&nbsp;



The most interesting product launch to watch in this newsletter writer’s opinion will be the Solana Seeker, which is the second mobile phone created by Solana Mobile. The new phone is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-mobile-app-season">expected in mid-2025</a>.



Solana Mobile is being built under Solana Labs, which is the original Solana development company where co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal are still employed. Perhaps by virtue of its bona fides, Seeker has drawn several dozen Solana teams to its so-called dApp store.&nbsp;



Seeker orders will partly be driven by interest in token airdrops associated with the phone, which proved to be <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-phones-sold-out">quite lucrative for the last Solana phone</a>. When we last spoke in October, Solana Mobile general manager Emmett Hollyer said the Seeker, currently priced at $500, had garnered 145,000 pre-orders.



A close second to Seeker’s hype could be the full rollout of Firedancer, a Solana validator client being built from the ground up by Jump Crypto. Firedancer is software Solana network validators can run to process transactions and build the blockchain — and it has been spoken of in hallowed terms by Solana faithful since its development began in 2022.&nbsp;



Firedancer was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-firedancer-testnet">revealed to have gone live</a> during the Solana Breakpoint conference in September of 2024, but it currently only runs in non-voting mode, meaning the client still essentially comes with training wheels attached. Nobody really knows if or when Firedancer could go fully live, and the team doesn’t do much press. The client&#8217;s GitHub repository <a href="https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Afiredancer-io%2Ffiredancer+vote++&amp;type=commits&amp;state=open&amp;s=committer-date&amp;o=desc">shows</a> two code commits related to vote transactions over the past month.



Despite a slight <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/daily/issue/post_a2165e15-be7b-4bc1-a65f-fc882f2d7148">apparent dropoff</a> in DePIN interest from crypto’s chattering class, there’s one Solana DePIN launch I have my eyes on for this year. DAWN, a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/two-vaneck-funds-back-depin-dawn">darling of crypto venture</a> that aims to be a decentralized internet service provider, is <a href="https://x.com/MessariCrypto/status/1868953743653585341">slated</a> to launch on mainnet in 2025.&nbsp;



Speaking of sectors seeing declining interest amid the AI explosion, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/jito-releases-code-for-solana-restaking-network">Jito’s restaking platform</a> should launch in around a month, a member of the team told me today.



And there’s one wild card to keep an eye on: fitness tech. Pulse, a Solana-connected fitness tracking bracelet, aims to ship products in Q1. A second iteration of Cudis’ Solana smart ring just began shipping in December (I will note, I had issues with <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-smart-ring-health-tracker">my first Cudis ring</a> rusting, although my second ring has been okay so far. Still, buyer beware).



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Seeker and Firedancer expected to ship Solana products in 2025

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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Bitcoin Inc., which operates the Bitcoin Conference where President-elect Donald Trump <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/on-the-margin-newsletter-trump-crypto-promises">spoke</a> last year, is hosting an industry inauguration celebration later this month.&nbsp;



Co-hosts for the event, dubbed the “Crypto Ball,” are non-profit Stand With Crypto, Exodus and Anchorage Digital. The sponsorship package to co-host the event costs $5 million, according to documents shared with Blockworks. Other sponsorship opportunities range from $150,000 to $1 million. Sponsors include Coinbase, MetaMask and Galaxy Digital.&nbsp;



Bitcoin Inc. has partnered with MAGA Inc. and David Sacks, the incoming Trump Administration’s “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-picks-crypto-czar">crypto czar</a>,” to host the Jan. 17 event. General admission tickets, of which 800 are available, are going for $2,500 apiece.&nbsp;



It’s unclear whether Trump and/or Vice President-elect JD Vance will be in attendance.&nbsp;



“It’s hard to get a direct confirmation at the presidential/vice presidential level but we’re optimistic they will attend and we will definitely be the event to attend for pro-crypto cabinet members and high-level staffers,” a note from Bitcoin Inc. that was shared with Blockworks read.&nbsp;



Given the industry’s level of interest in this election, and Trump’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-appoints-crypto-council-head">apparent support</a>, we weren’t surprised to hear about the party, or who’s involved.&nbsp;



Any Forward Guidance readers have a seat at their table? I just might know a journalist itching for a media invite.



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Celebrate good times, come on

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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Just days into the new year, bitcoin’s price is back to six figures. The asset’s price rose above $102,400 on Monday morning. It hovered around $101,750 at 2 pm ET — up nearly 9% from a week ago.&nbsp;



Crypto is so far seeing its own “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/market-movement-q1-2025">January effect</a>” — a term alluding to the potential rise of stock prices during the year’s first month. CoinGlass data shows bitcoin saw price gains — albeit slight ones — during each of the month’s first five days. That hasn’t happened since 2018.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1138" height="1292" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/COINGLASS-JANUARY.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-95931" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/COINGLASS-JANUARY.png?w=1138 1138w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/COINGLASS-JANUARY.png?w=264 264w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/COINGLASS-JANUARY.png?w=902 902w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/COINGLASS-JANUARY.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/COINGLASS-JANUARY.png?w=226 226w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/COINGLASS-JANUARY.png?w=230 230w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/COINGLASS-JANUARY.png?w=193 193w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/COINGLASS-JANUARY.png?w=70 70w" sizes="(max-width: 1138px) 100vw, 1138px" /></figure>



You know by now about BTC’s historic rise to an all-time peak of $108,000 a little over a month after Trump’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/donald-trump-declared-president-2024-election">election win</a>. Then there was what some called a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/eoy-price-updates-and-outlook">“healthy” correction</a> fueled by hawkish Fed vibes and profit-taking, with BTC dropping below $92,000 on Dec. 30.&nbsp;



Grayscale product and research head Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary noted <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-bull-market-drawdowns">temporary drawdowns</a> during bull markets are common, pointing out the FTSE/Grayscale Crypto Sectors Market Index’s 6% decline in December.



“However, strong demand from US-listed Bitcoin ETPs and treasuries like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/microstrategy-btc-purchase-recap">MicroStrategy&#8217;s</a> may support bitcoin’s price,” she said when asked about the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/eoy-price-updates-and-outlook">outlook for January</a>.&nbsp;



The US bitcoin ETFs welcomed $908 million in net new assets on Friday — rebounding from a combined $940 million worth of outflows over the previous four trading days, Farside Investors <a href="https://farside.co.uk/btc/">data</a> shows.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">I would have predicted a rough patch for the btc ETFs given the drop below $100k (overdue for a breather) but no, they roared back with nearly $1b Friday, which lifted the 1W to positive net. Good sign. The scoring was spread around too, Dream Team-style- also a good sign. <a href="https://t.co/krmKS0wKm2">pic.twitter.com/krmKS0wKm2</a>&mdash; Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1876266559846658323?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 6, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



96% of financial advisers <a href="https://x.com/bitwiseinvest/status/1875240461092474926?s=51&amp;t=jj3FXH_4rQaOer9kcKNJsg">surveyed</a> by Bitwise received a crypto-related question from clients in 2024. This finding jibes with the expected ongoing wealth manager-fueled <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/2025-btc-adoption-wave">capital influx</a> into the crypto segment.



As for Sharif-Askary’s mentioning of treasuries, MicroStrategy’s latest bitcoin buy (on Dec. 30-31) was 1,070 BTC for roughly $100 million. Though smaller than its BTC buys in previous weeks, the company also just revealed targeting a $2 billion capital raise via perpetual preferred stock offerings to acquire more BTC.



On that note, Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich just <a href="https://x.com/gerovich/status/1875777564184342786">noted</a> his company plans to boost its BTC holdings (currently at 1,762 BTC) to 10,000 BTC in 2025. Then there’s KULR Technology Group, which said Monday it bought an additional $21 million worth of bitcoin.



Also set for January, of course, is Trump’s inauguration. And with members of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-friendly-congress-steps-into-power">the 119th Congress</a> sworn in last week, hearings on the president-elect’s cabinet nominees are <a href="https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/01/05/senate-majority-leader-warns-no-clarity-on-trump-cabinet-picks-as-hearings-due-to-begin/">expected to kick off</a> soon.&nbsp; Confirmation hearing happenings, and subsequent signals on the pace and extent of future crypto regulatory clarity, could impact BTC price throughout the month, Sharif-Askary told me.



“Delays or restrictive policy announcements may dampen sentiment,” she said, before adding: “Macro factors — including Federal Reserve signals on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fed-dovish-hawkish-2024-conduct">interest rates</a> and market responses to a stronger US dollar — could also play a role.”



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BTC hits milestone as possible big month begins

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">subscribe</a>.



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In 2017, investor John Pfeffer <a href="https://medium.com/john-pfeffer/an-institutional-investors-take-on-cryptoassets-690421158904">published</a> “An (Institutional) Investor’s Take on Cryptoassets,” a seminal paper on long-term investments of crypto tokens.



In retrospect, Pfeffer’s original thesis was way ahead of its time. It laid the formative groundwork for investor thinking around magic internet money, and made many prescient predictions that still hold up today.



Pfeffer argued that the equilibrium long-term outcome would be one dominant crypto asset as a monetary store of value, with bitcoin as the likely candidate. He projected BTC’s market cap within a range of $4.7 to $14.6 trillion ($260k-$800k per BTC).



There are many reasons Pfeffer believes bitcoin would be cemented as the dominant SOV, but key to the thesis is that BTC carries the least technological risk. For ETH to beat BTC at the SOV game requires massive intellectual coordination across a multiyear roadmap with lots of technical upgrades subject to delays and/or risk of failures.



As Hasu put it on an old <a href="https://youtu.be/SFTvhVGx_DU">Uncommon Core</a> podcast, “nothing happening in bitcoin is actually the best thing that can happen to bitcoin.”



Turning to Ethereum, ETH bulls today tend to argue the superiority of ETH to BTC on a multi-prong level: Its use as a means of payment within the EVM ecosystem buttresses its value as a SOV (on top of its deflationary effects following <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/eip-1559-is-live-thanks-to-ethereums-london-hard-fork">EIP-1559</a>).



But it’s not clear why that alone would make ETH a valuable SOV.



Pfeffer argued that crypto participants would simply convert their preferred “store of value via the payment rail at the time of payment in the exact amount needed and for as little time as possible.” He likened this to retailers converting bank deposits to physical cash for payments only at times of need.



Pfeffer also presciently argued that Ethereum’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/0xresearch-newsletter-ethereum-tps">scaling solutions</a> — such as L2s and the move to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-switches-to-proof-of-stake-after-7-years-of-work">proof-of-stake</a> — would be “bullish for adoption/users but bearish for token value/investors.” This has turned out to be exceptionally spot-on in light of Crypto Twitter’s constant caterwauling about the lack of ETH’s price appreciation in the last year.



So what is ETH worth?&nbsp;



Today, Pfeffer’s landmark thesis is being <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7278030654078943233/">revisited</a> via a newly-published paper by Triton liquid fund, which he co-authored.



The paper’s conclusion: Ethereum is a technological marvel, but ETH’s risk-adjusted upside is a difficult projection to make.



One could try to value ETH as a cash-flow asset. But Ethereum’s constant innovation around its protocol and tokenomics makes a DCF analysis “incredibly difficult to do accurately.”



Even so, the paper makes an attempt based on generous assumptions that issuance is net-neutral, plus with an average growth rate of 5%. No matter what discount rate one uses, though, “ETH appears highly overvalued today as a cash flowing asset at $400b.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdyBnSGFp1FmGGjrqjJ2wrsZoIA77PyYRFXSFtHQCrHOD4i7j7sd5gF9POrzyj2ythpS9ts6gquQVfggLdenvjv8MlARAb7NBXqB1Pfl0uV0hNOmqdueR6WH8eXleKuW61HWXm_Jw?key=oVgGb96GsTGcMS5NlXgT4fiJ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7278030654078943233/">Triton</a></figcaption></figure>



One could then turn to the “monetary premium” argument for ETH. But contrary to ETH bulls, ETH is not money — it’s not even the de facto unit of account in the EVM ecosystem (the US dollar is). Case in point: Base, Ethereum’s largest L2, started <a href="https://x.com/jessepollak/status/1870508320030851123">offering</a> last month the use of USDC for gas costs rather than ETH.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">&quot;Monetary premium&quot; is insane because it appears to be one of the most legitimately powerful concepts with the potential to gigafry economics but is exclusively regurgitated by literal turbonormies who unironically want to like &quot;justify an absurd valuation&quot; instead of just saying…&mdash; Gwart (@GwartyGwart) <a href="https://twitter.com/GwartyGwart/status/1872777669059699066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 27, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Even if ETH was treated as the primary medium of exchange onchain, trying to justify ETH’s ~$400+ billion valuation based on “monetary premium” is an exercise laced with wishful thinking. The paper estimates Ethereum’s onchain “GDP” at about $2.8 billion (annualized based on the past six months), making it about 1000x overvalued by its current valuations.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdJT3W4iJTbzsNndepkuLuJ0eoD6HJH1CEMnFqJ8EdGoFPqOIPzRFk8T-VPVmhm7HvaQ0kQvnVmenMRp11BMy2r1bjA_7xAmU1c5Q5nktjpKAVZmf8KOnGqzELhLKCRTePPeh1mVA?key=oVgGb96GsTGcMS5NlXgT4fiJ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7278030654078943233/">Triton</a></figcaption></figure>



The strongest argument for ETH as an investable asset points to it as the dominant internet-native commodity and productive onchain asset. Holding ETH is not like holding gold bars or oil — one can stake it in DeFi to accrue a yield.



Yet, the paper questions that a 3% yield from Lido outweighs the inherent volatility of ETH for it to be used as an “internet bond.”&nbsp;



In conclusion: “At $400b today and given its current trajectory, it is difficult to justify ETH as a rational investment on a risk-adjusted long-term horizon, no matter which lens you use to value it…BTC still holds its position as a sound risk-adjusted bet that it can grow into its role as a non-sovereign store of value.”



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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What is ETH worth?

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">subscribe</a>.



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It’s SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s last month in office. A new SEC is on the horizon, one that’s potentially far more crypto-friendly.&nbsp;



Here’s the thing: That doesn’t mean that the old actions (aka lawsuits) taken by the SEC just disappear overnight. It’s unfortunately not that simple. But what happens next is a loaded question right now.&nbsp;



Haynes Boone’s Matthew Frankle does think there’s a possibility that we will see some of the cases dropped as the regulator recalculates how it plans to approach crypto.&nbsp;



Frankle said he’s “taking a guess here, but I suspect that many of them will be dropped to the extent they can drop, right? I mean sometimes they actually can&#8217;t be dropped, but to the extent they could be dropped, I think probably they will be unless there’s … underlying fraud, and that&#8217;s what they&#8217;re going after.”



Tie that into Frankle’s belief that crypto will still be a big priority for the SEC and there’s potential for a totally different dialogue around regulation by this time next year.



A crypto-friendly regulator doesn’t mean less regulation, Frankle was careful to explain.&nbsp;



“I don’t think it’ll be less, I think it’ll be smarter,” he told me. “We&#8217;re going to get some regulations, but it&#8217;s going to be to clarify things rather than to tell people, ‘hey, what you&#8217;re doing is wrong, and by the way, there&#8217;s no way you can do it right.’ That&#8217;s the big issue, right? You have these big players out there … [that] want to do it the right way, and the SEC is telling them, essentially, there is no way to do it.”



But if you had your heart set on Jan. 20 being the day everything changes, you might need to adjust your expectations. Frankle expects that it’s going to take some time, and we obviously need to see the new head of the SEC confirmed before we can really see the changes play out.&nbsp;



Perhaps this is the year crypto learns patience.&nbsp;



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Current SEC crypto lawsuits could be dropped, lawyer says

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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Lightspeed put together an anonymous survey and circulated it to Solana founders to get an honest peek into what they think of other ecosystems, VCs, startups and more.



The questions included a range of choices and a write-in slot that has been edited for grammar and clarity.&nbsp;



The results from our 42-founder poll:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXctoMvEG_kaH-bXrI5Tu4uvvXvEfU-_VdFBSCC97Aw4NKZHHWZ_zifaeiST2KLKibYGU2y3sRap1d78p4f8iG1fQnj5LXcLrxTWIH9cHn-IsVCOt5EUZEr4Js6WH--akMmNubTQUw?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Founders also said:</h2>



“None. If not solana, I wouldn&#8217;t be in crypto.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdxEIUOoxBadzShlODZY16e8Zi1lVaUDbef5kdtdljYF0iRPwkuXJEBezFAwIUHwLdyFPK9nCLIrK05GbRjs7IfaQMDgkKWzb-cApDxAHk9dj3p8iTh8iKaBwzeKwyZuvBR5cTLzw?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeE3rhNXBxlK8H8audVjRQTbG0HhYiNW85beu5r1hb7ENSD-uZw4H5Nk1ta33vQqd3V_HPZcrOoZx5MC60kcaMpLTI5n4WPgwhYF4OzmipqywlYZotw0IA9XnjTcaSIB9mFvPX7CA?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Founders also said:</h2>



“Unfair to choose a single one”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdVMsi33are-XX3MVqNU8s6Fb5joNbBnvl2GusL1AX_wxmLZ9kBPdrO33Lf4KL9vbPJYeJrogXcN-weszAZN6bM30qRFj_hEvOzVxDtvmOCJ-LZeTyZOwna2G_3FyKOP3KVnV1L?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Founders also said:</h2>



“Asia-based VCs who only ape in based off who the lead is”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXenMRRxT5F4aX7cswCdLM25QFqZC6bNGR5AZLN52rmC-Mc2Wt6s5CnwiNJSqSFtPVsKcAv-nSsLylD-j23gcIVmZpnhY6Qshk2zzhPxDoCcPQpFBvwaGGDcRbJEX0LD7Ke_b0OH?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Founders also said:</h2>



“I don’t know, either way, doesn&#8217;t really matter”



“Not a fan of this question, feels like it&#8217;s trying to provoke rather than inform”



“Exists, I am a part of it, but not &#8220;at the expense of non-cabal projects&#8221; because I invest a lot of time and money into &#8220;non-cabal projects&#8221; as well. It&#8217;s a two-way street &#8212; you give and you receive.”



“Does not exist and I am a part of it”



“There&#8217;s a network of personal relationships that have formed naturally during the early days and bear market. Folks who valued working together and helping solana over the years naturally have a tighter network now. Some of these people (individuals include folks from the OG solana labs team) have gone on to find a large voice and following. This is natural. Almost all of the surviving teams have also been funded by VCs and solana ventures money. Those are facts, but there&#8217;s no ill intent in my opinion. Solana Foundation is doing a great job at actively dispersing the resulting effects and supporting people throughout the wider ecosystem (see Superteam, etc). In my opinion, Toly specifically is doing a great job at shouting out builders without discrimination but rather based on 1) what they&#8217;re building being cool 2) earnestness”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcOSX2_PSc_xW9ia9sYXEESKNp_5jqVM7b2_I-TLiTdp_9AdMwina7lZSssFDSAKWu0au7fw_egdd6foRJYyH271AsSbuYq_FfDhmebsiDrEO5P3R7gKmxp0T2YE1uNa2BBNZV36A?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Founders also said:</h2>



“Need much more blockspace ASAP. 5x demand + 2x price appreciation = need 10x bigger blocks to maintain the same cost for app builders!”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXemCz_z5OQzfiCA2jGG-MWQ64BR3IomejWasDuGdemc3r0mmOlFtdJhsTPV-KpoTP0-rJOb2yA0oCijOj_22ofwCqfYOblVwWyN6kl-vgo4mP7Y60BG7ClZL13NX1MX-7tJwvF9bg?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXek7HxxQZjxBHXXAB3vAPEUvqDOnmaKwRt3cGBwHq6Z5yoZBzL5UKQ44t8bvFnqoSRloatXAD4P9abt1zxqXLVs1U1dr09KK1LcIvVAtLrxDy_VONk4RtsOHZkPAdl3lfzimjRE-A?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeKpV-nGdAYI79sx7lksGwsWcuHLGqL2QxV6s02i5fLn2x5qc5IXdcIilIxTL1QEZxc7-ahzixRKqPFsWlchlA6MB90bQDnm__ofYjRlEYksGrk6f2lI5vD4MrFHqc6Z7lYO9kJ?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Founders also said:</h2>



“The one that does not accelerate”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeliVTDJ9tMHuxjccNyrJf_nY5K5DFrWxStGsaQi93-wftyRhxvGoGE0AhO5fTmU3cfJ5_rCzbPw80piXS1bgIW54MksTTX-pemHuDtTN07wbJtCbRPDdGQ-he7Vjg-FcC4776lgA?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Founders also said: </h2>



“SocialFi, DeSci, and gaming are all equally terrible”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXey3679njzrzqFIdPF2ZLbn3wIZ58jfbiKzne883PzpLcBNcKPhe57tHKpTbmP7f8eJxy8kJIExlhGegGWLEQ1zieI6IyURe6a6or9BaErDkrkXekut0MQZw5CH63tBN-TGl8OW7A?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf_IZ5kublvbG5khv5O-TbKSPBkewl1wRbpk5TZb1OZUGCeng0UmMmTM5Os53gWJ3c8gnyIicRLa8DXMJZJZ_fkDjE4RkNLW-Kph362kLlHDuepx-FUKxb38KhmB6bosYkzX_fH0A?key=nKIpr1J-gOoWEtn9ycTklgFC" alt=""/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Founders also said:</h2>



“FTX was both the best in the early days and the worst lol.”



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



There’s a lot to dig into here, but there are a couple findings I found immediately interesting: Other founders don’t think highly of pump.fun, yet they think memecoins are mostly good for the ecosystem. And, Base and Sui appear to be by far the most alluring Solana competitors. 



As a journalist, it can be difficult to get founders to be candid with me on the record. This was a helpful exercise in learning what Solana founders really believe — at least in the aggregate.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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We surveyed 42 Solana founders. Here’s what they said.

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



You already know a bunch of pro-crypto political candidates won their elections in November. Today marks the start of seeing what that will mean.



Well, sort of. The Republican-led House gathered just hours ago to begin voting on whether to re-elect Mike Johnson as its speaker. So there’re some other things to deal with before crypto-related matters take center stage.



But it appears they will eventually, with crypto market structure and stablecoin legislation <a href="https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2024/12/hill-scalise-wants-to-pass-crypto-overhaul-stablecoin-bill-in-first-100-days-00194218">expected</a> to gain attention in the coming months. As mentioned yesterday, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/republican-nominees-for-house-committees">Rep. French Hill</a> tapped Allison Behuniak — staff director of the House Financial Services Committee’s digital assets subcommittee — to serve as the committee’s policy director.



Stand With Crypto put the <a href="https://x.com/standwithcrypto/status/1874854081438871925">final tally</a> at 298 crypto-friendly legislators in the 119th Congress. The organization also hosted a coffee gathering Friday in an effort to “build camaraderie among the pro-crypto legislators, policymakers and community members.”



Coinbase chief policy officer Faryar Shirzad was apparently in attendance, <a href="https://x.com/faryarshirzad/status/1875171965465764035">posting</a> a coffee pic to X. Two days earlier, he shared the following expectation for the new year:



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">2025 will be a huge and positive year for crypto policy, but an even bigger year for updating the financial system and building the on-chain ecosystem. Happy new year, and let’s get to work! <a href="https://t.co/hHxMm4O3m1">https://t.co/hHxMm4O3m1</a>&mdash; Faryar Shirzad 🛡️ (@faryarshirzad) <a href="https://twitter.com/faryarshirzad/status/1874515792173334650?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



When I <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/harris-trump-crypto-stances-coinbase">interviewed Shirzad</a> in October (prior to elections), he measured the industry’s 2024 success by seeing virtually no candidates push an anti-crypto message.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“Because I don’t think it has any resonance,” he explained at the time. “I think you can fit every anti-crypto voter in the country all in a single bus — maybe even a single minivan.”&nbsp;



One X user <a href="https://x.com/BalistrariaFund/status/1875223309530603924">warned</a> this morning that it’s one thing to “talk the talk” in a pre-election survey. Keeping the pressure on the lawmakers — letting them know “they are constantly being watched and scrutinized” — is the next step.



That’s a good idea for industry players, sure. But the optimism around these politicians following through seems to be rooted in something real. 



As Blockchain Association CEO Kristin Smith said in a Nov. 6 X <a href="https://x.com/KMSmithDC/status/1854191005353873851">post</a> when describing the biggest post-election takeaway: “There is zero electoral upside to being anti-crypto.”



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



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Crypto-friendly Congress steps into power

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



The latest crypto M&amp;A deal makes more sense when considering the segment’s evolution in 2024.&nbsp;



Digital asset prime broker FalconX bought trading firm Arbelos Markets in a bid to become one of the market’s largest crypto derivatives dealers.



FalconX, in a Thursday news release, noted the institutional market’s significant growth over the past year, “driven by positive regulatory momentum along with the growth of ETF and derivatives markets.”



The company added: “Similar to traditional asset classes, crypto derivatives will continue to scale to be many multiples of spot markets.”&nbsp;



After bitcoin ETFs launched in January, the SEC <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-approves-cboe-nyse-options-btc-etfs">approved options</a> — contracts representing the right to buy or sell them at a certain price for a specific period of time — on the biggest of those products, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT).&nbsp;



Industry watchers told me options would spur a more <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/on-the-margin-newsletter-btc-etf-options">robust ecosystem</a> around the spot ETFs, enhancing liquidity and price discovery. The tool essentially <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-etf-options-trading-begins">attracts institutional investors</a> looking to better manage their bitcoin exposures as market conditions fluctuate.



Michael Klena, a partner at advisory firm Architect Partners, called this FalconX purchase “a logical progression in the market” as more demand and supply fosters more deals.



The institutional trading spurred by regulatory changes (ETF approvals) and expected crypto-friendly frameworks “means the larger firms are now able to move more aggressively to acquire and be confident not to get in the crosshairs of the regulators,” he said. On the supply side, there are a number of newer crypto derivatives firms (i.e. Arbelos, D2X and One Trading), but no one dominant player.



Another point: “Derivatives are a higher-margin product than spot trading, so firms will look to expand their offering as trading fees are compressed,” Klena said, noting the same thing happened in equity trading.&nbsp;



We saw Cboe Global Markets <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cboe-sees-need-to-move-quickly-in-crypto-following-exchange-acquisition">close its acquisition</a> of ErisX in 2022. Coinbase, that same year, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-acquires-regulated-futures-exchange-to-expand-derivatives-offerings">bought</a> derivatives exchange FairX. “But timing was a bit early on those deals due to the not-yet-seen regulatory clarity,” Klena told me. “We are now hearing firms saying that timing is looking better.”



Alongside the advent of crypto ETFs and pending regulatory clarity, Arbelos Markets CEO Joshua Lim in a statement labeled growing acceptance of crypto as a diversifier in portfolios as yet another reason this is a “critical moment” for this combination to occur.



You may recall BlackRock’s recent <a href="https://www.blackrock.com/institutions/en-zz/literature/whitepaper/bii-investment-perspectives-december-2024.pdf">guidance</a> that a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/2025-btc-adoption-wave">1-2% allocation to BTC</a> is “reasonable.”



We saw <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/m-a-deals-shifting-tide">a flourish</a> of crypto M&amp;A deals right after the election. Klena anticipates more deals to come around derivatives trading and infrastructure.



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



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How 2024 set up the latest crypto M&A deal

Macauley Peterson

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



As of Dec. 30, 2024, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/mica">MiCA</a> officially went into force, marking a turning point for the European Union&#8217;s approach to crypto assets.



Despite the euro’s prominence in TradFi — accounting for 20-30% of global FX reserves, SWIFT transactions and trade flows — it represents less than 0.5% of global stablecoin circulation.



Patrick Hansen, an industry expert and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/circle">Circle&#8217;s</a> EU policy lead, expects this to change. He emphasized MiCA’s significance as “the world’s most comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto assets.”



“The EU has a unique opportunity to position itself as a global hub for crypto innovation,” Hansen told Blockworks.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Why the euro lags in stablecoins</h2>



Hansen attributes the disparity in onchain euros compared to dollars to several factors:



1. Dollar-dominated liquidity: &#8221;Network effects created around US dollar stablecoins were just impossible to catch up for euro stablecoins. European users interacting with global crypto markets choose whatever is cheapest and most liquid.&#8221; 



2. Historical negative interest rates: &#8221;For a long time in the euro area, negative interest rates put the stablecoin business model into question.&#8221; 



3. Regulatory uncertainty: Until MiCA, euro stablecoins lacked a dedicated regulatory framework, deterring <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/micar-foreign-stablecoins-advantage-in-europe">institutional players</a>.



MiCA addresses this third point by creating a clear framework for stablecoins. Hansen notes that the entry into force has already attracted institutional interest, with major European banks and other players <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/robinhood-eyes-eu-expansion">exploring</a> or launching euro stablecoin products. He highlights Circle’s launch of EURC under <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-first-stablecoin-issuer-eu-compliant">MiCA-compliant</a> conditions, with reserves fully managed by a French-regulated entity, noting that “we’ve seen 60-70% growth in EURC supply, driven by launches on multiple blockchains.”



MiCA mandates stablecoin issuers hold reserves proportional to tokens circulating in the EU. Circle uses a &#8220;dynamic rebalancing&#8221; model to comply, Hansen explained.



“If we see the number of USDC held in the EU increase, we increase the European reserves accordingly,” he said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Emerging use cases for onchain euros</h2>



Hansen sees two main drivers for euro stablecoin adoption: regulated crypto capital markets and stablecoins’ real-world applications.



&#8220;Only stablecoins authorized under EU rules will ultimately be used as trading pairs in regulated crypto markets,” Hansen said. “I’d not be surprised to see significant growth in this area.”



This change has driven crypto exchanges to <a href="https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/18126423130122">delist USDT</a> as trading pairs for customers in the EU. 



Corporate use cases, such as cross-border payments and tokenized financial instruments, are gaining traction, according to Hansen. &#8221;Corporate suppliers in the euro area will inherently demand euro-denominated assets for risk management,” he said. 



However, while MiCA offers a solid foundation, Hansen cautions that it’s only &#8220;version 1.0&#8221; and must evolve to address emerging challenges. He also warns that the EU’s Travel Rule (TFR), which requires additional user verification for certain transactions, could create friction — particularly for self-custody wallets.



Ultimately, MiCA’s success will depend on whether it can balance fostering innovation with protecting consumers and creating a competitive local market.



As Hansen put it, &#8220;only time (and the market) will tell whether MiCA can achieve its goals.”



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



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Can MiCA spark a euro stablecoin renaissance?

David Canellis

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Disrupting money and finance is big business. And business is good.



Look no further than SEC filings to find out just how much cash is made on the frontlines of the crypto revolution.



I spent the morning compiling 2024 insider stock sales for the top 60 or so companies in the S&amp;P 500 (as well as a few other notables) and compared them to Coinbase and MicroStrategy.



From those firms — ranging from Apple and Nvidia to Costco and Walmart, to Palantir and Morgan Stanley — about 500 insiders, executives, investors and other major shareholders reported selling a combined $36.9 billion in company stock.



Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos was responsible for more than one-third of that total ($13.4 billion).&nbsp;



Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg followed with $2.5 billion, and Palantir co-founders Alexander Karp and Peter Thiel respectively cashed in $1.9 billion and $1.5 billion, either themselves directly or through trusts and funds in their names.



Still, four crypto execs found themselves in the top 25: Coinbase head honcho <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-stake-sale-brian-armstrong">Brian Armstrong</a> placed eighth with $636 million and MicroStrategy alpha bull <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/michael-saylor-offloads-mstr">Michael Saylor</a> came 13th with $410.8 million.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcyTCYdPh3E6T4s0YIrZZVmqjnRZDPPwqHrYifaHrWAEwYtUZwwrzW9a6_h17MEjFg1DiW0uyE5iJWd7ecwfBDFIU7V4pZdh1VAYcfBUi_3ygLdME7rS2yplISZCTzOvCdJ8f0Usw?key=GWxgBr4s90_BqfzY10_jT82j" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">*Totals may include sales by entities of which they are a beneficial owner</figcaption></figure>



Coinbase co-founder <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/fred-ehrsam-sells-coinbase-shares">Fred Ehrsam</a> took 22nd place with $203.8 million, a figure that counts COIN shares sold by his trust, as well as by his fund Paradigm.



Next after Ehrsam was Emilie Choi, Coinbase’s chief operating officer who <a href="https://www.coinbase.com/en-nl/blog/welcome-emilie-choi-coinbase-vice-president-of-corporate-and-business-development">joined</a> the firm from LinkedIn in 2018, with $186.4 million.&nbsp;



That’s $3.4 million more than JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon, and $22.6 million more than Apple and Alphabet CEOs Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai combined.



All those sales helped put Coinbase at seventh overall for insider selling last year (for the analyzed companies, at least).



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Amazon: $13.5 billion.</li>



<li>Walmart: $4.84 billion.</li>



<li>Palantir: $4.14 billion.</li>



<li>Meta: $2.72 billion.</li>



<li>Nvidia: $2 billion.</li>



<li>Salesforce: $1.27 billion.</li>



<li>Coinbase: $1.25 billion.</li>



<li>Oracle: $842 million.</li>



<li>Apollo: $630.6 million.</li>



<li>Intuit: $593.9 million.</li>



<li>MicroStrategy: $567.8 million.</li>



<li>Netflix: $528.3 million.</li>
</ol>



As for this year, I’d watch for MicroStrategy to flip Coinbase — should Saylor’s bitcoin plan really start to pay off.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



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Coinbase, MicroStrategy execs among largest stock sellers last year

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Speakers

Mohamed A. El-Erian is the President of Queens’ College, the University of Cambridge. Since 2014, he has served as Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO where he formerly served as chief executive and co-chief investment officer. He is Chair of Gramercy Fund Management, a columnist for Bloomberg View, and a contributing editor at the&nbsp;Financial Times, He serves on two corporate boards and several advisory committees and non-profit boards.



Dr. El-Erian first joined PIMCO in 1999 and was a senior member of PIMCO’s portfolio management and investment strategy group. He rejoined the company at the end of 2007 after serving for two years as president and CEO of Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard’s endowment and related accounts. Before coming to PIMCO, Dr. El-Erian was a managing director at Solomon Smith Barney/Citigroup in London and before that, he spent 15 years at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. where he served as Deputy Director before moving to the private sector.



Dr. El-Erian served as Chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council from December 2012 to January 2017. He has published widely on international economic and finance topics. His 2008 book,&nbsp;When Markets Collide, was a&nbsp;New York Times&nbsp;and&nbsp;Wall Street Journal&nbsp;bestseller, won the&nbsp;Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year, was named a book of the year by&nbsp;The Economist,&nbsp;and one of the best business books of all time by the&nbsp;Independent&nbsp;(UK). He was named to Foreign Policy’s list of “Top 100 Global Thinkers” for four years in a row. Since 2014, he has been serving on the jury for the&nbsp;Financial Times/McKenzie Book of the Year award. His latest book, published in January 2016,&nbsp;The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability and Avoiding the Next Collapse, is a New York Times bestseller.



Dr. El-Erian has served on several boards and committees, including the U.S. Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, the International Center for Research on Women, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the IMF’s Committee of Eminent Persons and the New York Fed’ Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets. He is currently a board member of Barclays, Under Armour, the NBER (Executive Committee), Berggruen Institute (Executive Committee), and several educational institutions. In 2018, he was just appointed to the IMF’s External Advisory Group on Surveillance and MIT’s Visiting Committee for the Department of Economics. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Investcorp external committee and government advisory committees. Since 2007, he has been chair of Microsoft’s Investment Advisory Board and co-chairs the Capital Campaign for the University of Cambridge and its Colleges..



Recognized for his philanthropic contributions, particularly in the areas of education and health, Dr. El-Erian has received several awards, including lifetime achievement from the 57357 Hospital for Children/Egyptian Cancer Network where he is the Honorary Chair. Other recognition’s include the ABNA, Arab Banker of the Year, ACCESS Arab-American of the Year Award, Africa Investor’s Capital Markets Personality of the Year, Fixed Income Analysts Society’s Hall of Fame, Foreign Policy’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers” (4 years in a row), Investment News’ “Icon and Innovator,” Linked-In top 3 “voices” among its “influencers” (2016 and 2017), Louise Bloin Foundation Creative Leadership Award, Middle East Institute’s Visionary Award, Orange County Business Journal’s most influential personalities (multiple times), Ukleja Center’s Nell and John Wooden Ethics in Leadership award, and Worth magazine’s “100 Most Powerful People in Finance” (multiple years).



Dr. El-Erian holds a master’s degree and doctorate in economics from Oxford University and received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University.

Mohamed El-Erian

Michael Novogratz is the Founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital. He was formerly a Partner and President of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Prior to Fortress, Mr. Novogratz spent 11 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was elected Partner in 1998. Mr. Novogratz served on the New York Federal Reserve’s Investment Advisory Committee on Financial Markets from 2012 – 2015. Mr. Novogratz serves as the Chairman of The Bail Project and has made criminal justice reform a focus of his family’s foundation. He also sits on the Board of Overseers at NYU Langone Medical Center and is a board member of Princeton Varsity Club and Jazz Foundation of America. Mr. Novogratz received an AB in Economics from Princeton University and served as a helicopter pilot in the US Army.

Mike Novogratz

Anatoly Yakovenko is the co-founder of Solana and CEO of Solana Labs. He has almost two decades of experience building high-performance operating systems, including leading OS development at Qualcomm and holding engineering roles at Dropbox and Mesosphere. Yakovenko has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Anatoly Yakovenko

Caitlin Long

Shervin Pishevar is a serial entrepreneur and investor who has been instrumental in creating or championing eleven groundbreaking industries, including Hyperloop, the On-Demand Economy, Ride Sharing, Cloud Computing, Cloud Kitchens, the Sharing Economy, App Stores, Social Gaming, Social Networking, Quantum Computing and AI,and New Cities–Network States industries.

Shervin Pishevar

Brad is the CEO of Ripple and a member of the Board of Directors. Prior to Ripple, Brad served as the CEO of file collaboration service Hightail. From 2009 to 2012 he was President of Consumer Applications at AOL and prior to that he held various executive positions at Yahoo! from 2003 to 2008, including Senior Vice President. Earlier in his career, Brad helped to pioneer the VoIP industry as CEO of Dialpad Communications. He has previously held several board positions at companies including <a href="http://ancestry.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ancestry.com</a> and Tonic Health (acquired by R1 RCM).

Brad Garlinghouse

Dan Tapiero is a renowned macro-focused investor with over 25 years of investing and entrepreneurial experience. He is the Founder, CEO and CIO of 1Roundtable Partners (1RT) and 10T Holdings (10T), which collectively manage over $1.4 billion of investments in 24 active companies across the Digital Asset Ecosystem (DAE). 1RT is a growth equity fund focused on mid-to-late stage companies in the DAE. Dan serves on several boards including Ledger, LEDN, Futureverse, and Quicknode. Before founding 1RT and 10T, Dan was Managing Partner of DTAP Capital Advisors, a global macro investment fund that he founded in 2003. He is Co-Founder of Gold Bullion International (GBI), a physical precious metals platform for the wealth management industry. GBI expanded into the cryptocurrency business through its integration with Uphold (fka Bitreserve) in 2014. Prior to GBI, he was formerly Co-Founder of the Agricultural Company of America (AGCoA), one of the largest farmland REITs in the U.S. at the time of its sale to the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) in 2013. Previously, from 1992-2012, Dan was a macro-focused portfolio manager and analyst at Duquesne Capital Management, SAC Capital Advisors, Tiger Management and Steinhardt Management Co. Dan graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University, where he earned his B.A.'90 and M.A.'91 in European History. Dan has been on the Board of Trustees of the Lawrenceville School for the past 15 years and currently leads the Investment Committee for its endowment.

Dan Tapiero

Kristin is the CEO of the Blockchain Association, the Washington, D.C.-based trade association representing more than 100 of the industry’s leading companies. She also serves as a board member of the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web. Kristin serves as a liaison between policymakers and the cryptocurrency industry to assist in the creation of legislation and regulation that promotes the growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem in the U.S. She is also a leading, public voice advocating for the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry through top-tier media interviews, op-eds and letters to the editor, and global speaking engagements. Kristin is a renowned voice for the industry, having been featured on Fortune’s 2020 40 under 40 list, CoinDesk’s 2021 50 people who defined the year in crypto, and CoinTelegraph’s 2022 top 100 Influencers in Crypto and Blockchain. Prior to leading the Blockchain Association, Kristin helped blockchain and technology companies achieve their public policy objectives in Washington. She served as a Senate and congressional aide on Capitol Hill for nearly ten years, much of which was spent focusing on technology policy.

Kristin Smith

Wiley Nickel is the U.S. Representative of the 13th District of North Carolina, a 50/50 toss-up district in Raleigh and surrounding metro area. Wiley serves on the Financial Services Committee and the Digital Assets Subcommittee, and has been a champion for expanding the group of pro-crypto Democrats. He led the way to secure support from 71 House Democrats on FIT21 and was the Democratic lead on the Congressional Review Act to overturn SAB121. Prior to being elected to Congress, Wiley served as a North Carolina State Senator, attorney, and worked for two White House administrations.

Wiley Nickel

Amy is the head of emerging markets equity, a member of the Morgan Stanley Investment Management Operating Committee, the Morgan Stanley Investment Management Equity Technology Council, the Morgan Stanley Innovation Council and the Morgan Stanley Arts and Culture Committee. She manages digital asset initiatives at MSIM and has held roles in equity and FX trading, portfolio management support, product development and strategy.



Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 2001, Amy managed business development at Arc Worldwide. She has over 25 years of financial services experience.

Amy Oldenburg

Pascal Gauthier is the Chairman &amp; CEO of Ledger, a tech company that specializes in developing secure consumer devices for storing and managing cryptocurrencies and NFTs.



He began his career at Kelkoo, later acquired by Yahoo, and was COO at Criteo, where he played a key role in the company's pivot to advertising and global expansion. Pascal Gauthier also worked as a Venture Partner at Mosaic Ventures, a London-based VC firm, and is non-executive chairman of Kaiko, a leading digital data analytics provider.&nbsp;



Since he became Chairman &amp; CEO of Ledger in 2019, Pascal Gauthier has expanded the company's product line with Ledger Live, an intuitive digital asset management app, and a next-generation consumer device, Ledger Stax. He is committed to driving ownership and security in the cryptocurrency industry.

Pascal Gauthier

Eric Peters leads both Coinbase Asset Management and One River Asset Management. Coinbase Asset Management is a premier institutional digital asset manager and SEC-registered investment adviser operating as an independent business and wholly owned subsidiary of Coinbase. The firm was founded in January 2021, as One River Digital Asset Management, and was acquired by Coinbase in March 2023. One River Asset Management is an innovative alternative-investment manager operating volatility, trend, and inflation strategies. The team leverages its macro/fundamental perspective and quantitative capabilities to build/deliver unique diversifiers for client portfolios. Prior to founding One River in 2013, Eric served as Chairman of Grant Capital Partners, a discretionary global macro hedge fund. Over the course of his career, Eric has held various positions that include portfolio manager for Peloton Partners, proprietary trader for both Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse, and Founder and Chief Executive Officer of a TH Lee Putnam funded technology firm. Eric travels extensively, exchanging ideas, debating policy, and identifying investment opportunities with many of the world’s top investment managers, economists, strategists, political consultants, academics, scientists, and business leaders. The content of those discussions often finds its way into his weekly investment letter - wknd notes - which is read by investment professionals who directly deploy over $1trln in alternative assets. Eric holds a B.A. in Business Economics from Brown University.

Eric Peters

Mike Cagney is a co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Figure, a leader in applying blockchain technology to markets such as lending, payments and exchanges. Mike is also the Co-Founder of the Provenance Blockchain, a public, open source blockchain built for financial services. Previously, Mike was CEO, Chairman and Co-Founder of SoFi, a leading marketplace lender providing student loan refinancing, mortgages and personal loans, as well as a range of banking and wealth management services. He also was Co-Founder and managing member of Cabezon Investment Group, a global macro hedge fund, in addition to serving as a Non-Executive Chairman of ReFlow Services, a tax and liquidity solution for mutual funds. Prior to Cabezon and ReFlow, Mike served as Founder and CEO of Finaplex, a leader in wealth management software that was sold to Broadridge (NYSE: BR). Prior to Finaplex, Mike was Senior Vice President and Head Trader for the proprietary trading and financial products group at Wells Fargo Bank. Mike holds an M.S. management degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Sloan Fellow. He also holds a M.S. in Applied Economics and a B.A. in Economics from UC Santa Cruz.

Mike Cagney

As the Global Head of Digital Assets at BNY, Caroline Butler leads all global commercial digital assets initiatives across the bank. With a focus on delivering value to clients, Caroline is responsible for overseeing the digital asset platform strategy, new product development and delivery, and go-to-market efforts for all digital asset products and services across the enterprise. Based in New York City, Caroline serves on the board of directors for BNY’s European bank board, Access Fintech, and the International Securities Services Association (ISSA). Previously, Caroline was Global Head of Custody Services for BNY, where she led the development of the industry’s first digital asset custody platform for traditional and digital assets from a global systemically important bank. Caroline’s global professional experience spans a range of investment services and trading businesses, centered on running and transforming businesses with expertise in equities, futures and options clearing, and securities services.

Caroline Butler

Sergey Nazarov is the co-founder of Chainlink, the standard for high-quality onchain data and secure cross-chain interoperability, powering leading tokenized assets and unifying global markets onchain.



The Chainlink standard has securely enabled over $17 trillion in transaction value, powering onchain finance across banking, tokenization, DeFi, global trade, and other major sectors. Sergey has worked in the blockchain industry since 2014, when he founded one of the earliest tokenization platforms, along with tools for composing and supporting live smart contracts. His work in capital markets dates back to 2016, when he demoed one of the first-ever "smart bonds," which used oracle infrastructure to connect existing Swift messaging standards to blockchain networks. Sergey continues to collaborate with major market infrastructure providers and institutional banks such as Swift, DTCC, Fidelity International, ANZ, and many others, giving him a unique perspective on what’s required to accelerate the global adoption of blockchain technology and tokenized assets.

Sergey Nazarov

Sandy Kaul is senior vice president, Franklin Templeton, providing advisory consulting for the firm and thought leadership as part of the Franklin Templeton Institute. She delivers actionable intelligence and insights on the future of the investment and wealth management industry for the firm and its clients. Ms. Kaul has cultivated deeply informed insights and has an extensive background in driving market leading research, thought leadership and predictive models centered on the evolution of the investment and wealth management industry. She identifies and champions opportunities to address industry advancements and drive transformation, with a focus on innovative distribution trends and digital disruption. She delivers strategic insights to inform the firm's decision-making on partnerships and investments, including within Franklin Templeton's growing digital asset business. Ms. Kaul has over 25 years of well-rounded industry experience and is a frequent speaker at industry events and a widely published author. She combines her unique blend of sell-side, buy-side and consulting insights to drive her research and thought leadership around what constitutes best practices and where innovation is occurring. Ms. Kaul joined Franklin Templeton in 2022 from Citi, where she served as Managing Director and Global Head of Business Advisory Services, and launched and built out the Citi's Business Advisory Services practice, a market leading provider of industry thought leadership spanning Citi's Markets and Global Wealth organizations. Ms. Kaul rejoined Citi in 2009, after originally starting her career there in 1985 as a Futures Research Analyst covering the soft commodities markets with Citi's predecessor firm, Shearson Lehman Brothers. She joined Commodities Corporation/Goldman Sachs Asset Management in 1995 as a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) and Portfolio Manager. After managing money for nearly six years, Ms. Kaul shifted her attention to consulting where she led the strategy practice within the Financial Services division of the renowned dot.com firm, Scient, and then went on to become a Partner at the capital markets niche management consulting firm m.a.partners/Detica. Ms. Kaul holds a bachelor's degree in history and political science from Colgate University.

Sandy Kaul

Bill Barhydt has been an entrepreneur and pioneer in Internet technologies for 30 years. Bill is the founder and CEO of Abra, a leading investment platform for high net worth investors and institutions including trading, custody, high yield interest accounts, borrowing and lending. Before starting Abra, Bill spent 15 years working on mobile money and financial inclusion projects throughout the world and consulted to many governments, aid agencies and telecoms on mobile banking deployments. Bill started Boom Financial (Digicel) to bring mobile banking and microfinance to every corner of the world, which led Bill to Bitcoin in 2011. Bill started his career working in R&amp;D at the CIA and NASA and also spent several years working at Goldman Sachs in bond trading and Fixed Income markets. As an early team member of Netscape, Bill was involved in building core infrastructure that helped grow the consumer Internet we all know and use everyday.

Bill Barhydt

ERIC BALCHUNAS is Senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, where he leads the ETF and fund research and contributes to Bloomberg Opinion. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences, as well as the co-creator of the Bloomberg podcast Trillions and Bloomberg TV’s ETF IQ. Eric is author of The Bogle Effect (2022) and The Institutional ETF Toolbox (2016). Eric holds a bachelor's degree in Journalism and Environmental Economics from Rutgers University.

Eric Balchunas

Kyle Samani is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital, a thesis-driven cryptofund that invests in tokens and companies reshaping entire sectors of the global economy. Prior to Multicoin Capital, he co-founded Pristine (Upskill, 2017), an enterprise software company that enables deskless workers with solutions for smart glasses. Based in Austin, Texas, Samani is widely recognized as a thought leader on blockchain and cryptoeconomics. He holds degrees in Finance and Management from NYU Stern and has been programming since he was 10 years old. Follow him on Twitter @KyleSamani.

Kyle Samani

Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio. Prior to founding SkyBridge in 2005, Scaramucci co-founded investment partnership Oscar Capital Management, which was sold to Neuberger Berman in 2001. Earlier, he worked in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs &amp; Co. In 2022, Scaramucci was ranked #47 in Cointelegraph’s Top 100 Influencers in Crypto and Blockchain. In 2016, he was ranked #85 in Worth Magazine’s Power 100: The 100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance. In 2011, he received Ernst &amp; Young’s New York Financial Services “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award. Anthony is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a board member of the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation. He is the author of five books. Scaramucci served on President Donald J. Trump’s 16-person Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee, and in 2017 briefly served as Chief Strategy Officer of the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank and White House Communications Director. Scaramucci, a native of Long Island, New York, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Tufts University and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.

Anthony Scaramucci

David Mercer is the Chief Executive Officer of LMAX Group, a global, high-growth financial technology company based in London. A former City banking executive and currency specialist, he joined LMAX Group in 2011 and after a successful management buyout, rapidly built LMAX Group into the leading operator of institutional FX and cryptocurrency exchanges with offices in 11 countries and global client base. An outspoken industry commentator, David is a long term champion of the UK’s fintech sector and passionate about supporting entrepreneurship in the UK.

David Mercer

Colleen Sullivan is Co-Head of Ventures at Brevan Howard Digital. Prior to joining Brevan Howard Digital, Colleen co-founded and served as CEO of CMT Digital, where she was also a partner with the broader CMT Group and commenced activities in the crypto industry in 2013. Prior to starting CMT Digital, Colleen co-founded Sullivan Wolf Kailus, a boutique law firm that specializes in hedge fund, private equity, venture capital, digital assets, and other alternative investment products. Colleen also previously practiced law in the Investment Funds and Derivatives group at Sidley Austin LLP and, at age 25, co-founded a company called iOptions Group LLC, which developed hedging and monetization strategies for holders of employee stock options. Ms. Sullivan currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Chamber of Digital Commerce.

Colleen Sullivan

Robert Mitchnick serves as the Head of Digital Assets for BlackRock. He is a member of the Corp Exec-COO Executive team. Rob is responsible for driving BlackRock's digital assets strategy, including working with internal business units to develop and execute on strategic initiatives around digital assets. Prior to joining BlackRock, Robbie spent time at CPP Investment Board in Public Markets and Private Investments, and at Ripple. During his time at Ripple, Robbie co-authored 'A Fundamental Valuation Framework for Cryptoassets' along with John Bates Clark medal winner Susan Athey. Robbie has BA &amp; BCOM degrees from Queen's University and an MBA from Stanford, where he graduated as an Arjay Miller Scholar and the Robichek Award winner in Finance. He holds a Blockchain Technologies Certification from MIT Sloan and is a CFA Charterholder.

Robbie Mitchnick

Gautam Sharma is CEO &amp; CIO of BH Digital, Brevan Howard’s crypto asset management division. Gautam previously led principal investments at Brevan, including overseeing Alan Howard’s family office strategic businesses in crypto &amp; fintech. Prior to this, Gautam spent over 4 years at Steadview Capital, a tech-focused growth stage fund, and 5 years at McKinsey &amp; Co., focused on fintech &amp; digital banking transformations.

Gautam Sharma

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

Matthew Sigel

Steven Goldfeder, CEO of Offchain Labs, is a key blockchain innovator who developed Arbitrum—the largest and most advanced Ethereum tech stack—authored "Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies," and pioneered multi-party computation, shaping the future of blockchain interaction for consumers and institutions alike.

Steven Goldfeder

Sadie Raney is the co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of quant digital asset hedge fund Strix Leviathan and the Chief Executive Officer of Eve Wealth, a female-founded financial services network that provides women with the resources and opportunities to grow their financial well-being. Sadie also helped found Makara, one of the first SEC-registered automated investment advisors in crypto, which spun out of Strix Leviathan in 2021 and was acquired by Betterment in 2022.



Prior to founding Strix Leviathan in 2018, Sadie served as Financial Controller for Blue Box, a cloud computing startup, where she helped lead the finance and administration team through the company’s acquisition by IBM. She has also served in financial controller roles at MTR Western and Aramark and as a Senior Financial Analyst at Grand Bank Yachts. She began her career at Deloitte.



Sadie serves as an advisor to Franklin Payroll and Jetson, and is an advisory board member for Veriledger. She is also a mentor for the Barcelona Technology Transfer Group at IESE Business School and a member of the Female Founders Alliance. She was listed as one of&nbsp;Hedge Fund Journal’s&nbsp;50 Leading Women in Hedge Funds in 2023 and was featured in&nbsp;100 Women in Finance’s&nbsp;100WFinTech Changemaker series.



Sadie holds a B.A. from Pepperdine University and an M.B.A. from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, during which she attended the IE Business School in Madrid for an International MBA exchange.

Sadie Raney

William joined Marshall Wace in May 2022 to oversee Fintech and Digital Assets investments for MW Digital Finance Fund.



Prior to joining Marshall Wace, William worked at Candy Capital, a family office where he was responsible for various investments across the technology sector. Prior to Candy Capital, William worked for HSBC and Greyspark Partners, were he was heading Fintech Investment Advisory. William is also an active seed investor across digital assets and fintech.

William Benattar

Matt Hougan is one of the world’s leading experts on crypto, ETFs, and financial technology. He is Chief Investment Officer for Bitwise Asset Management, a pioneer in cryptoasset index funds with more than $1.2 billion in assets under management. He was previously CEO of ETF.com, where he helped build the world’s first ETF data and analytics system, the leading ETF media site, and the world’s largest ETF conference, Inside ETFs. Hougan is co-author of both “A Comprehensive Guide to Exchange-Traded Funds” and “Cryptoassets: The Guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies for Professional Investors” from the CFA Institute’s Research Foundation. He is a crypto columnist for Forbes, and a three-time member of the Barron’s ETF Roundtable.

Matt Hougan

Jonah Van Bourg is a professional crude oil and cryptocurrency trader with 18 years of experience managing trading teams and running risk in volatile markets. Most recently, he was Global Head of Crypto and Precious Metals Trading at DRW. Prior to this, Jonah spent 7 years as a partner and oil trader at Vitol. In his early career, he ran the global oil trading desk at Goldman Sachs. Jonah graduated with a BA in Economics and Statistics from Columbia University.

Jonah Van Bourg

MacKenzie&nbsp;Sigalos is an award-winning journalist who is a cross-platform contributor to CNBC, NBC, and MSNBC, where her reporting is featured on digital, broadcast and streaming networks, as well as CNBC’s social platforms. Her international and domestic field reporting has included coverage in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and multiple cities across the U.S.&nbsp;MacKenzie&nbsp;is also a founding co-host and contributor on Crypto World.



Previously,&nbsp;MacKenzie&nbsp;spent five years at CNN in New York and Hong Kong, where she had varied beats, writing and producing for a range of TV business and news programs, including Fareed Zakaria’s weekly foreign affairs program and Anderson Cooper’s daily news hour.

MacKenzie Sigalos

Avi Felman is a Principal and Head of Digital Assets Trading at&nbsp;GoldenTree&nbsp;Asset Management. Mr. Felman is also a General Partner of&nbsp;GoldenChain, a wholly owned subsidiary of&nbsp;GoldenTree&nbsp;that manages the Firm’s funds focused on digital assets. Mr. Felman is one of the longest tenured traders in digital assets and has held several prominent positions, including most recently as Co-Portfolio Manager and Head of Trading for&nbsp;BlockTower&nbsp;Capital where he grew the flagship fund portfolio from $40mm at time of joining to over $800mm. Previously, Mr. Felman was Lead Trader at Wave Financial where he co- led the development of the first SEC-regulated Bitcoin fund and he also was responsible for the derivatives strategy and trading execution. Prior to joining Wave Financial, Mr. Felman founded Ledger Capital, a firm focused on cryptocurrency trading and investments. Mr. Felman received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering&nbsp;from&nbsp;Washington University.

Avi Felman

Catherine Gu is a Senior Director as Visa’s Global Head of CBDC and Tokenization, leading Visa’s digital currency program, building blockchain tokenization solutions with financial institutions, central banks and global technology companies. She also leads Visa’s crypto protocol team, collaborating with external blockchain partners to drive research and infrastructure exploration. Prior to Visa, Catherine worked at J.P. Morgan and hedge fund asset management company Man Group. She spent 2 years on stablecoin research while studying at Stanford University with Prof. Dan Boneh. She also worked at 2 crypto startups: Anchorage and Gauntlet. Catherine read Engineering at Stanford University, and Economics at the University of Cambridge.

Catherine Gu

Ben Forman is the Founder and Managing Partner of ParaFi.



Ben founded ParaFi in 2018 as one of the earliest investment firms focused on the blockchain and digital asset ecosystem. Prior to founding ParaFi, Ben spent the first 10 years of his career in institutional investing roles at leading asset managers including KKR and TPG. While at KKR, Ben served as a Director in the credit business, investing across a wide array of industry sectors and parts of the capital structure, including distressed special situations, private credit, and opportunistic and liquid credit. Ben also led KKR's blockchain research as part of the firm's Innovation and Disruption Council beginning in 2016.



Prior to KKR, Ben served as a Vice President with TPG’s former credit business, Sixth Street Partners. As one of the first investment professionals to join the platform, Ben helped scale its private credit vehicle, TPG Specialty Lending, which went public in 2014. Earlier in his career, Ben was a member of the private equity team at Littlejohn &amp; Company and investment banking team at Rothschild &amp; Co.



Ben has a passion for capital markets, behavioral economics and game theory, all of which drew him to the blockchain space. He grew up playing chess competitively and continues to play actively to this day (peak ELO 1871). He graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania.&nbsp;

Ben Forman

Kevin Yedid-Botton is a Partner of ParaFi, leading the firm’s quantitative strategies and technology development.



Kevin’s career is rooted in technology and financial markets. Prior to joining ParaFi in 2019, he was a Managing Director at Reality Shares, an ETF asset management firm, responsible for quantitative strategies and strategic initiatives. Kevin previously served as a portfolio manager for a family office, investing tactically behind technology opportunities across private and public markets. Previously, Kevin was also the CEO and CTO of Tenzar Technologies, a high-performance computing company.



Kevin holds a B.S. in Applied Physics from Emory University, with a concentration in computational physics, quantitative finance, and machine learning.

Kevin Yedid-Botton

Mike is the Co-Founder and CEO of BitGo and Internet Pioneer. At BitGo, Mike Belshe drives product and business strategy for delivering security, compliance, and custodial solutions for blockchain-based currencies. Prior to BitGo, Mike was one of the first engineers dedicated to building Chrome at Google. He is creator of the SPDY protocol and lead author of HTTP/2.0—the internet protocol responsible for loading web pages today. In 2003, Mike co-founded Lookout Software—an email search company acquired by Microsoft—and has held management positions at several startups, including Netscape, Good Technology, and Critical Path. He is also an inventor with over 10 technology patents.

Mike Belshe

Zach Abrams

Brian Quintenz is the Head of Policy for a16z crypto, where he helps to translate between the crypto and policy communities.



Brian has long stood out as an innovative thinker in crypto and DeFi and was one of the earliest leaders in Washington to recognize the value of crypto. Brian initially joined a16z crypto as a senior advisor. In December 2022, he moved to the full-time role leading its policy team.



Prior to joining a16z, he was nominated by both Presidents Obama and Trump to serve as commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and, in August 2017, was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He also led the agency’s Technology Advisory Committee, which hosted the most comprehensive set of public crypto-related policy discussions and briefings of any federal financial regulator. During his service, the CFTC oversaw the listing of the first U.S. regulated Bitcoin and Ether futures contracts on derivatives exchanges, and the rapid expansion of DeFi. All the while, he was a champion for tailored, risk-calibrated regulation.



Prior to his appointment to the CFTC, Brian was the Founder and Managing Principal of Saeculum Capital Management, LLC where he developed and implemented Saeculum’s long term, momentum-based investment process for both traditional discretionary accounts as well as a managed-futures, commodity pool hedge fund.



Brian began his career on Capitol Hill, where he worked for 6.5 years and served as senior policy aid to a Member of Congress. He received his B.S. from Duke University and M.B.A. from Georgetown University.

Brian Quintenz

Leah Wald is currently the President and Chief Executive Officer of Sol Strategies, a publicly traded holding company committed to the continued development of the Solana blockchain and ecosystem through its private equity and financial markets activities. She is a seasoned entrepreneur specializing in alternative asset management with deep expertise in disruptive technologies. As the Co-Founder and former CEO of Valkyrie Investments, she led the firm in becoming a leading player in the digital asset sector, launching innovative investment vehicles including Bitcoin ETFs and amassing over $1.3B AUM. Valkyrie Funds LLC, the investment advisory business of Valkyrie Investments Inc., was acquired by CoinShares (Nasdaq Stockholm: CS; USOTCQX: CNSRF).

Leah Wald

With 7 years of experience across investment banking, hedge funds, and private equity, Guy has built a strong foundation in the financial sector. Prior to founding Ethena, he spent 6 years at Cerberus Management, a firm with $60 billion in assets under management, where he focused on investing in financial services businesses across the capital structure.

Guy Young

Joseph is the CIO at Monetary Macro, principal of FedGuy.com, author of the bestselling book "Central Banking 101," and previously a senior trader on the Federal Reserve’s Open Markets Desk. Joseph writes widely on the mechanics of the financial system and his work has been featured in Barrons, Bloomberg, Financial Times and many other media outlets. Earlier in his career, Joseph was a credit analyst and in another life he practiced law. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University, a J.D. from Columbia Law School, and an MSc. in Financial Economics from Oxford University.

Joseph Wang

Austin Campbell

Rich Widmann is the Global Head of Strategy for Web3 at Google Cloud and a founding member of Google’s Web3 business. Since the launch of Google Cloud’s Web3 efforts, the team has launched a robust suite of developer products and tools leveraged by Web3 developers across a number of the largest protocols in the ecosystem. In addition, Rich has led several Alphabet-wide initiatives aimed at broadening Google’s exposure to Web3, including efforts which enabled Google to custody cryptocurrency.&nbsp; More recently, he led the effort to execute the first-ever stablecoin payment for services at Google.



Prior to Google, Rich was a litigator and member of the firm’s regulatory and white-collar investigations team, where he helped investigate and recover millions of dollars stolen in connection with the FIFA World Cup bribery schemes. Rich’s experience in handling federal regulatory investigations led him to the world of cryptocurrency, where he began representing founders in the Ethereum ecosystem in high-stakes regulatory engagements and litigation.



Rich has held director-level roles at two regulated institutions, including a cryptocurrency custodian and a nationally chartered bank. Rich is an adjunct professor at Northwestern Pritzker University School of Law where he teaches a JD/MBA course on cryptocurrency technology and regulations.&nbsp;



&nbsp;Richard holds a Juris Doctorate from Northwestern University School of Law, a Master's from the University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor’s degree in History from the College of New Jersey. Before he practiced law, he was a middle school English teacher in Philadelphia with Teach for America.

Rich Widmann

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

Antonio Juliano

Carlos Domingo is co-founder and CEO of Securitize. Carlos has 25+ years of experience in innovation and digital transformation, including having also founded SPiCE VC, the first truly liquid, inclusive and transparent tokenized VC on the blockchain. Previously, Carlos was CEO of Research &amp; Development for Telefonica (one of the largest telecom companies in the world), as well as CEO of New Business and Innovation for Telefonica Digital. Carlos holds a PhD in computer science, speaks English, Spanish and Japanese, and is based in Miami.

Carlos Domingo

As the Head of Digital Assets Strategy for T. Rowe Price, Blue is responsible for developing and leading the implementation and execution of T. Rowe Price’s digital asset strategy across the universe of cryptographic tokens, coins, protocols and blockchain technologies. Blue has more than 20 years of buy and sell-side markets experience. Prior to joining T. Rowe Price in 2022, she was a Managing Partner at Dunamis Trading, a market-neutral crypto fund, where she spent four years focused exclusively on crypto investing. Before moving into crypto in 2018, her background was in emerging markets credit, rates, and FX with Lehman Brothers, Elliott Management, and TD Securities. Blue holds an undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College, an MBA from Duke University, and she performed her graduate studies in International Economics and Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS and the London School of Economics. She is a mother of three and her favorite dinosaur is the triceratops.

Blue Macellari

Ray co-founded L1D and currently acts as the CEO/CIO. Ray has an investment background in venture, hedge funds and interest rate trading. Ray holds a BEng from UCL and an MSc in Finance from Imperial College. He previously acted as the CIO of Bellegarde Capital AG an independent investment group with activities focused in fintech, blockchain and other alternative investments. Also previously at Swiss Capital (StepStone Group) responsible for the firm’s macro outlook, macro hedge funds and event driven coverage. From 2005 to 2011 Ray was part of Harcourt Investment Consulting AG, a USD 6 bn fund of hedge funds firm in Zurich, and responsible for USD 2 bn of investments (rates, macro and distressed). He started his career at Bloomberg LP in London and subsequently left the firm to trade interest rates for a London based proprietary group.



Ray holds a BEng from University College London (UCL) and an MSc in Finance from Imperial College.

Ray Hindi

Vance Spencer is the co-founder of<a href="https://framework.ventures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> Framework Ventures,</a> one of the largest VC firms in the blockchain industry. Under the leadership of Vance and his co-founder Michael, Framework was arguably the first VC firm to <a href="https://decrypt.co/16943/why-framework-ventures-is-going-all-in-on-defi" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“go all in”</a> on the emerging Decentralized Finance (“DeFi”) ecosystem, notching up major early investments in several multi-billion dollar apps and networks like Chainlink, Aave, Synthetix, The Graph, and more. Over the last year, the firm has raised $400M for its third fund, and has also expanded into additional maturing verticals like web3 gaming, real world assets, and social crypto. Before Framework, Vance and his co-founder Michael launched and sold Hashletes, a digital collectible startup with official licensing from the NFL. Prior to entering the crypto space, Vance worked at Netflix in Los Angeles and Tokyo, where he was part of the team responsible for the relaunch of the Japan business, eventually joining the team leading corporate development for most of northern Asia.

Vance Spencer

Chris Perkins serves as Managing Partner and President of CoinFund, driving day-to-day excellence and enterprise-scale by bridging the gap between cryptocurrency-native investing and traditional ﬁnance. He also advocates for the interests of the crypto ecosystem through his appointment to the CFTC’s Global Markets Advisory Committee and its&nbsp; Digital Asset Markets Subcommittee. He has also testified before Congress on crypto market structure design.



Chris is the co-inventor of the Composite Ether Staking Rate (CESR), which is the first interest rate benchmark of its kind in the crypto industry.



Prior to joining CoinFund, Chris served as Global Co-Head of Futures, Clearing and Foreign Exchange Prime Brokerage (FXPB) businesses at Citi. In this capacity, he was responsible for delivering leading listed derivative electronic and voice execution, comprehensive central clearing and #1 ranked OTC Clearing and FXPB services to top institutional clients.



Prior to joining Citi in 2008, Chris served as the U.S. Head of Derivatives Intermediation at Lehman Brothers.&nbsp; An Iraq war veteran, Chris served in the U.S. Marine Corps for nine years, achieving the rank of Captain. Chris is the co-founder of Veterans in Digital Assets (VIDA) and Veterans on Wall Street (VOWS) (<a href="http://www.veteransonwallstreet.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">www.veteransonwallstreet.com</a>),&nbsp; two international initiatives focused on veterans’ employment and empowerment. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Naval Academy, with distinction, and a Master of Arts degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University.&nbsp; He is a member of the Economic Club of New York.

Chris Perkins

Michelle Noyes joined AIMA in 2012 as Chief Operating Officer of AIMA's New York office, and became the Association's Head of Americas in 2017. She also co-chairs AIMA’s Digital Asset Working Group (AIMA DAWG). Previously, she was Head of International Sales and Investor Relations for BRZ Investimentos, one of the largest independent asset managers in Brazil. While in Sao Paulo, she also served as the Brazil representative for AIMA and established the AIMA Brazil network. Michelle holds a B.A. and M.A. from New York University and is a CAIA Charterholder.

Michelle Noyes

Sid Powell is the CEO &amp; Co-Founder of Maple Finance and with his Co-Founder Joe Flanagan founded Maple in 2019. Sid comes from a background in debt capital markets and institutional banking. During his career in traditional finance, he participated in $3BN+ of corporate bond issuance,and served as Treasurer for a commercial lending company in Australia. Maple has originated more than $5b in institutional lending since inception and currently holds over $550m in assets on the platform. We aim to be the global leader in tokenized private credit and first choice for institutional borrowers.

Sid Powell

Jim Bianco is President and Index Manager at Bianco Research Advisors. He is also the President of Bianco Research LLC. Since 1990, Jim’s commentaries have offered a unique perspective on the global economy and financial markets. Unencumbered by the biases of traditional Wall Street research, Jim has built a decades long reputation for objective, incisive commentary that challenges consensus thinking.



 Jim appears regularly on CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business, and is often featured in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Grants Interest Rate Observer, and MarketWatch. Jim has a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Marquette University (1984) and an MBA from Fordham University (1989).

Jim Bianco

Santiago Roel Santos (CryptoPunk #9159) is an investor focusing at the intersection of DeFi and the Web3 metaverse (NFTs/gaming). Most recently was a Partner at ParaFi Capital, one of the largest crypto funds specializing in DeFi. Prior to that, he was at Sageview Capital investing in Internet and software and, before that, at JP Morgan investment banking. Santiago began investing in crypto in 2012.

Santiago Roel Santos

Marco is the Chief Legal Officer at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange. Marco is a recognized authority in the law and policy of blockchain technologies. Prior to his move to Kraken, Marco was the Chief Legal Officer of Blockchain.com, as well as a Partner at both Cooley LLP and Pillsbury Winthrop, where he counseled banks, broker-dealers, exchanges, digital 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, a self-regulatory effort to curb Initial Coin Offerings. 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.

Marco Santori

Sébastien Derivaux is a chef and co-founder of <a href="https://www.steakhouse.financial/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Steakhouse Financial</a>, a boutique consulting business that helps DeFi protocols thrive. Sébastien focuses on Real-World Assets (RWA), having begun leading the RWA efforts at MakerDAO in 2020, and Asset-Liability Management. He holds a PhD in Data Science from Strasbourg University. Read more of his thoughts on the <a href="https://cryptobanking.network/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Crypto Banking Network</a>.

Sébastien Derivaux

James Seyffart is a research analyst within Bloomberg Intelligence (Bloomberg's Research Department), focusing on the broader asset management industry with specialized expertise in the coverage of Funds like ETFs, Mutual Funds and Hedge Funds. He also aids colleagues in digital asset research and their overlap with traditional financial markets. This overlap gives him particular expertise in the area digital asset funds. Professionally, he's been covering Crypto and particularly attempts to launch digital assets ETFs since at least 2017.



James is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA®), a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA®) and a member of their New York societies/chapters. He has a B.S. in Finance and Accounting from The College Of New Jersey (TCNJ)

James Seyffart

Ali Hennessy is Head of Nasdaq’s ETF listings business, where she is responsible for developing and executing the strategic vision for Nasdaq’s ETP business. Prior to taking on this role, she led business development for Nasdaq ETF Listings which included managing relationships with existing clients as well as prospecting new issuers. Prior to joining Nasdaq, Ali spent several years at State Street Global Advisors where she worked on the Institutional ETF Sales team, marketing the SPDR ETF lineup to Asset Managers.

Ali Hennessy

Michael Anderson is the co-founder of<a href="https://framework.ventures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> Framework Ventures,</a> one of the largest VC firms in the blockchain industry. Under the leadership of Michael and his co-founder Vance, Framework was arguably the first VC firm to <a href="https://decrypt.co/16943/why-framework-ventures-is-going-all-in-on-defi" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“go all in”</a> on the emerging Decentralized Finance (“DeFi”) ecosystem, notching up major early investments in several multi-billion dollar apps and networks like Chainlink, Aave, Synthetix, The Graph, and more. Over the last year, the firm has raised $400M for its third fund, and has also expanded into additional maturing verticals like web3 gaming, real world assets, and social crypto. Before Framework, Michael and his co-founder Vance launched and sold Hashletes, a digital collectible startup with official licensing from the NFL. Before entering the crypto space, Michael served as a product manager at both Snapchat and Dropbox, where he helped build out their monetization platforms.

Michael Anderson

Michael Bucella co-founded Neoclassic Capital in 2024 after spending 6 years as a general partner at BlockTower Capital, a US-based institutional digital asset investment firm, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures. Michael joined BlockTower Capital shortly after the firm’s founding in 2017, leading the strategic expansion of the firm across multiple strategies (hedge funds, venture capital, credit, DeFi, and co-investments). Michael began his career in the financial services industry in 2008, spending nearly 10 years at Goldman Sachs in New York. From 2008 to 2010, he served within Goldman Sachs Asset Management (“GSAM”), as a member of the cross-asset solutions team supporting the firm’s largest institutional clients. From 2010 through 2017, Michael served as Vice President in the Securities Division, where he led the global equities business in Canada working with the largest pension plans and asset managers in the region. He then developed and led the cross-asset business across Canada and was a founding member of the Multi-Asset Platform desk at Goldman Sachs, where he continued to head Canada, while leading the global expansion of the business. Michael serves on the Board of Directors for Nasdaq-listed TeraWulf Inc. (“WULF”). He also serves as a mentor to the University of Toronto’s Creative Destruction Labs accelerator’s blockchain stream, since its inception in 2018. Michael is a frequently featured guest on CNBC, Bloomberg and other financial media networks. Michael holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance &amp; Accounting from Fordham University and is a member of the Fordham University President’s Council.

Mike Bucella 

Lekker Capital is a global macro hedge fund with a particular focus on the emerging digital asset industry. Prior to founding Lekker, Quinn served as the Head of Capital Markets for two institutional lending businesses in the digital asset ecosystem, most recently at Maple Finance. Quinn spent five years in fixed income and capital markets at Guggenheim Partners in New York before his full-time foray into crypto.

Quinn Thompson

Robert&nbsp;Leshner&nbsp;is the CEO and Co-founder of Superstate, an asset management firm modernizing investing through tokenized financial products. Prior to founding Superstate,&nbsp;Leshner&nbsp;co-founded Compound Labs in 2017, which developed one of the first DeFi applications.&nbsp;Robert is a venture investor at Robot Ventures and co-hosts&nbsp;The Chopping Block,&nbsp;a crypto-native podcast. He is directly responsible for designing smart contracts such as Governor Bravo and the ERC-7246 token standard, Encumber.&nbsp;



 He has a degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. Additionally,&nbsp;Robert is the former chair of the San Francisco Revenue Bond Oversight Committee and a CFA charter holder.

Robert Leshner

Matt Homer is the General Partner of The Department of XYZ. He also serves as a board member at Gemini Trust Company and Standard Custody &amp; Trust. Prior to launching The Department of XYZ, Matt led blockchain investments at Nyca Partners.



A two-time former regulator, Matt most notably served as the primary regulator for many leading digital asset firms in the United States. As&nbsp; Executive Deputy Superintendent at the New York State Department of Financial Services, he oversaw the licensing and supervision of digital asset firms and was responsible for the Department’s broader innovation agenda as well.



Matt previously worked for Plaid, one of the world’s most successful fintech unicorns, and started his career as a strategy consultant at Deloitte. He has also held roles at at the FDIC and US Agency for International Development and has advised institutions such as the UN Capital Development Fund, the World Bank, and the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance. Matt holds a masters from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Matt Homer

Alex Thorn is a Managing Director and Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy Digital. At Galaxy, Alex leads a team of researchers dedicated to understanding and unpacking developments in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, producing insights for internal and external audiences. Prior to joining Galaxy Digital, Alex spent 12 years at Fidelity Investments, mostly recently co-managing Avon Ventures, the early-stage crypto venture fund affiliated with FMR LLC, the parent company of Fidelity Investments. Before that, Alex was Director of Blockchain Research at Fidelity Center for Applied Technology where he directed technology experimentation and published research on the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem, and held several roles in Legal and Compliance functions before that. Alex has a B.A. in Political Science from Vanderbilt University.

Alex Thorn

Pranav Kanade is a seasoned finance professional with over 11 years of industry experience, currently serving as a Portfolio Manager for VanEck's Digital Assets Alpha Fund. Prior to joining VanEck, Pranav served as a Credit Portfolio Manager at Millennium Management where he worked closely with a team of 6 investment professionals. He was also the founding member and Head of Research for the Liquid Credit investing business at Angelo, Gordon &amp; Co. Additionally, Pranav held the role of Managing Director/Research Analyst at Hutchin Hill Capital, where he focused on Technology and Energy. Pranav began his career at UBS in credit research during the European credit crisis. He holds a BS in Finance and Accounting with a specialization in Entertainment, Media, and Technology from New York University.

Pranav Kanade

James is General Partner – Fund Manager &amp; VP of Operations at Republic. Prior to this, James worked in a wide variety of investing, business building and operating roles across the Alan Howard ecosystem. Originally hired into Brevan Howard, his focus was Principal Investing across Crypto, Web3, Fintech &amp; Frontier Technologies.



James was also one of the founding team at WebN Group, the well-known incubator for Fintech &amp; Web3 innovation, where over 18 months significant equity value was created. Twinstake, TruFin, Libre, Geometry and Soter are a few of those companies. Due to James’s extensive experience, he additionally spent 6 months restructuring, realigning and putting into place operational policies and scaling procedures at Elwood, a market leading EMS &amp; PMS provider backed by Goldman Sachs, Citi Bank, and Barclays.



Having been heavily involved in Web3 &amp; Digital Assets Markets for over 8 years, James started his career with ~15 years of investment banking experience across multi-asset trading, derivative, sales and structuring desks at top tier banks. His deep understanding of the intersection between digital assets, financial technologies and traditional finance has been crucial to creating robust investment thesis’s, venture builds and implementing operational policies, scalable processes and go-to-market strategies in portfolio companies.



Outside of work, James is an advisor to various companies, including Saltford FC and has published numerous quantitative, financial and regulatory papers across both traditional and digital markets, most recently for the Digital Economic Initiative. As a qualified Chartered Financial Analyst®, James holds a Masters in Finance (Distinction) &amp; graduated with an Honours Degree in Economics from Durham University.

James Newman

Ian De Bode

Jack O'Holleran is a veteran entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of SKALE Labs, the core team behind the SKALE Network, a blockchain scalability platform that enables developers to build and deploy Ethereum applications quickly and cost-effectively. With over two decades of experience in enterprise software and blockchain technologies, Jack is a recognized expert in blockchain and decentralization. Prior to co-founding SKALE Labs in 2018, Jack founded several successful startups, including IncentAlign, a digital currency platform, and Aktana, the global leading machine learning/AI platform for the life science industry. He also held numerous senior roles at Good Technology, which was later acquired by Motorola, where he continued to serve as an executive. Throughout his career, Jack has been a driving force behind the development of innovative solutions that improve scalability, security, and user experience. Jack has been actively involved in the cryptocurrency industry since early 2013, and he is committed to creating a more open, transparent, and decentralized world by leveraging the transformative power of blockchain technology. Under his leadership, SKALE Labs has emerged as a leader in the blockchain industry, providing an innovative solution that enables developers to build and deploy decentralized applications quickly and cost-effectively. Jack earned his BS from the University of Nebraska, where he was a two-time letterman for the Nebraska Football team and twice named to the Academic All-Conference first team. He is a proud father of three young children and resides in San Francisco.

Jack O'Holleran

Ryan is the co-founder of Syncracy Capital — a thesis-driven hedge fund making high conviction, concentrated investments in the secular winners of the cryptoeconomy. Prior to founding Syncracy Ryan was a Senior Research Analyst at Messari.

Ryan Watkins

Rajeev Bamra serves as the global Head of Strategy for Digital Economy at Moody's Ratings, based in New York. A seasoned executive and thought leader, he plays a pivotal role in shaping the intersection of traditional finance and evolving digital economy within the rating agency. In his current position, Rajeev leads the strategy and operations group, driving key decisions at Executive and Senior Leadership levels, and ensuring Moody's readiness for the digitalization of the global economy. Rajeev serves as a significant catalyst in embedding the concept of digitalization, encompassing digital currencies, decentralized technologies, AI, Quantum, innovative product design and emerging digital risks like Cybersecurity, into the fabric of Moody's ecosystem.



His visionary leadership extracts the maximum potential from the evolving digital economy, steering the innovation agenda and operational planning for the organization. As a recognized thought leader, Rajeev has authored research papers and thought leadership documents on digital economy infrastructure development, leveraging transformative technologies such as blockchain and AI across various sectors. Actively representing Moody's at events, panels, webinars, and podcasts, Rajeev helps optimize stakeholder relations relations to underscore Moody's commitment to digital finance and innovation. His visionary leadership and strategic acumen continue to propel Moody's into the forefront of the evolving digital economy.

Rajeev Bamra

Chris is the Director of Research and Business Development at Cumberland Labs, a pioneering venture studio and incubator, backed by the partners of DRW and Cumberland. He founded Georgia Tech Blockchain and has mentored and worked with several student blockchain organizations, including Harvard and Cornell Blockchain. Previously, he worked at Genesis, GSR, and Chicago Trading Company as a trader, and has advised multiple protocols building in DeFi.

Chris Newhouse

As Head of Digital Assets Research and Portfolio Manager for the VanEck Smart Contract Leaders Fund, Mr. Sigel helps guide VanEck’s digital assets strategy and sits on the investment committee of the firm’s private funds. He produces frequent research on Bitcoin, smart contract platforms, and emerging markets adoption of digital asset. Prior to VanEck, Mr. Sigel  worked as a research analyst and portfolio strategist at CLSA, an analyst and portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein (where he covered technology and other sectors under Cathie Wood), and a journalist at Bloomberg, CNBC and NHK Japan Broadcasting, where he covered finance. Mr. Sigel is a CFA Charterholder and has a BA from Harvard University.

Michael Selig

Jeff Park is the Head of Alpha Strategies and Portfolio Manager at Bitwise Asset Management, one of the world’s largest crypto-specialist asset managers. Bitwise provides a range of investment solutions, along with industry-leading research and a nationwide team of relationship managers, to help clients navigate the opportunities in crypto. Prior to Bitwise, he was a Partner at Corbin Capital Partners, a multi-billion alternative asset management firm that specializes in multi-strategy hedge fund and opportunistic credit investing, where he led the firm’s digital asset investing efforts.  Before Corbin, Jeff was a Senior Associate at the Harvard Management Company focused on US Corporate Credit, and before that, was an Exotic Equity Derivatives trader at Morgan Stanley in New York.  He is a graduate of Stanford University with a B.A. in Economics and International Relations, and is a CFA charterholder since 2013.

Jeff Park

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