Kate (Mitselmakher) Laurence is the CEO, Founder & General Partner of Bloccelerate VC, a Web3 focused venture fund investing in category-defining blockchain companies since 2018. Kate leads the strategy and investments of the fund. She is passionate about bringing about self-sovereignty of money, assets, and data leveraging blockchain technology. Prior to founding Bloccelerate VC, Kate spent ~ 10 years at the world’s largest technology research firm, Gartner (NYSE: IT). While at Gartner, Kate supported leading investors in Silicon Valley including A16Z, Sequoia, KKR around their enterprise technology investments. Kate graduated from Harvard University and is regularly featured on Bloomberg, Forbes, Geekwire, and at the World Economic Forum in Davos. She is also a part of Milken YLC (Milken Leadership Circle).

Sam Yilmaz is the COO, Co-Founder & General Partner of Bloccelerate, Sam is keen on bringing blockchain immutability, auditability, and censorship resistance to bear in the world. Prior to Bloccelerate, he co-founded and served as a managing partner of Decentralized Applications Fund, the first vehicle to raise all of its investment capital in cryptocurrency and invest only in decentralized applications. Previously, he had co-founded and managed BitAngels, growing the network to the world's largest angel group of its time. He adds an edge with his detail-orientation and diligence on legal compliance, economic models, structuring financing rounds, team building, and crafting of partnerships. He is a published author. He has a triple degree bachelors, a masters in engineering, and another one in economics and finance, from Johns Hopkins and Bogazici respectively. He is regularly quoted in Barrons, Yahoo Finance and Bloomberg. He is also YGS member of World Economic Forum.

Brad is the Venture Capital coverage lead for FalconX, a leading digital asset prime broker. As coverage lead, Brad oversees the relationship management and coverage strategy for the venture funds working with FalconX to invest, lend, and borrow liquid digital assets. Brad has been at FalconX for over 3 years and helped build FalconX's institutional client coverage business from 100 clients in 2021 to over 750 institutions globally today. Additionally, in 2022 and 2023, Brad led FalconX's Chapter 11 Practice. In this role, Brad advised and structured over $2.5Bn of balance sheet rotations for Chapter 11 counterparties. Prior to FalconX, Brad worked within the Asset Management division of JPMorgan to help endowments, foundations, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals trade across asset classes.

David Pakman is a Managing Partner at CoinFund, a leading blockchain and crypto-native investment firm based in New York City. At CoinFund, he oversees investments in multi-stage crypto projects, innovative companies, and visionary teams. Before joining CoinFund, David was a Partner at the venture capital firm Venrock, where he focused on investing in and building early-stage consumer and enterprise tech companies. His areas of expertise include consumer products and services, AI, crypto, social/mobile media, and robotics. With a career spanning over two decades, David has been at the forefront of consumer internet entrepreneurship since 1997. He co-founded the Apple Music Group in 1995, worked at N2K, co-founded MyPlay, a trailblazer in digital music lockers, and served as CEO and COO of eMusic for five transformative years.

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 & Company and investment banking team at Rothschild & 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.

Rob Hadick is a General Partner at Dragonfly, a ~$2.5bn crypto focused investment firm. Previously, he helped lead multi-stage investments into crypto companies and protocols at GoldenTree Asset Management ("GTAM"), a ~$50bn multi-strategy hedge fund. Prior to GTAM, Rob invested in and advised fintech, technology, and crypto companies while at Heritage Partners, Goldman Sachs, and PJT Partners. He holds a MBA from Columbia Business School, and a Bachelors in Economics and Political Science from Washington University in St. Louis.

As General Counsel at Blockchain Capital, Joshua serves as an expert in the legal issues governing security tokens, cryptocurrencies, decentralized networks and consumptive use tokens, and has extensive experience analyzing the blockchain industry’s rapidly evolving regulatory landscape. He support the research team in reviewing salient legal questions addressing prospective and current portfolio companies and brings his legal expertise and connections to help forecast the ongoing development of the industry. Joshua led the firm’s process of upgrading its BCAP tokens, the first token issued as a security, to help bring liquidity to BCAP holders and further enhance the BCAP’s compliance with regulatory trading requirements. Joshua also serves as a director on the Board of the Blockchain Association, the industry’s leading regulatory trade association. Joshua received a J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.S. of Business Administration, with a second major in Philosophy, with highest distinction from the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill. He is of the firm belief that there are no fun facts about lawyers.

What is the current state of crypto VC this year? 🤔

Is the crypto VC market still stuck in “trough of disillusionment “ or are things looking up?

How did this affect deployment pace into companies?

Watch this panel during #BCVCSUMMIT2024 to hear from heavyweights like Brad… pic.twitter.com/o7jiuVzm23

— Kate (Ksenia) Laurence (@K_Laurence_) November 27, 2024

Foobar is the founder of Delegate and Clusters. He studied applied math and published recordsetting research in machine learning at Amazon before entering crypto. Delegate, securing over $800 million of assets, solves the multiwallet security problem by separating cold and hot wallets, powering airdrop and gaming experiences with partners like Yuga, Pudgy, Memeland, and Azuki. Clusters, with over 100,000 paying users, solves the multiwallet identity problem as the first universal naming layer, the next iteration of ENS that works across Bitcoin+Ethereum+Solana and dozens more.

Dariya is the cofounder of Layer3. He started building consumer products at 14, launching top 10 apps and growing Instagram pages to over 3 million followers. With a passion for building distribution networks, he has driven hundreds of thousands of app installs through internet ads. Dariya studied Computer Science and Product Design at the University of Southern California, entered crypto in 2017, and has been building Layer3 since 2021.

Keith Grossman is an accomplished C-suite executive with a track record of leading large organizations through periods of change. He served in leadership positions at reputed firms such as Conde Nast-owned Wired, Bloomberg, Engine and Time magazine before formally stepping into the cryptocurrency space in 2022. Grossman is known for growing media businesses with his infectious passion and zeal for pioneering innovations, such as bringing to market Bloomberg’s award-winning round-the-clock video news service TicToc (since renamed QuickTake) and leading Time magazine into the Web3 world with its TIMEPieces NFT collection.

John D’Agostino is Co-Founder of AIMA DAWG. He is Senior Advisor to Coinbase Institutional and serves on the board of directors of several of the world’s largest digital asset funds. John was head of strategy for the New York Mercantile Exchange, where he helped transition the floor to electronic trading and led the effort to develop the first Middle East energy derivatives exchange in partnership with the Dubai Government. This work, and John’s role, was chronicled as the subject of two NY Times best-selling books, Rigged by local Boston author Ben Mezrich, and The Start Up Of You by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. John received a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Harvard Business School and studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University. He lectures in Fintech at Instead, MIT and Columbia Universities. In 2019, John was named Chair of the United Kingdom’s US Asset Management Working Group by Her Majesty’s Government.

Simon Baksys is the VP of Business Development at LayerZero Labs leading a team focusing on emerging technologies, enterprise, and financial services. Previously, he spent nearly 7 years at Google, leading a variety of efforts, most notably co-founding the Web3 Business Division. Prior to Google, Simon worked in Enterprise Sales at Stack Overflow and owned his own company before that. Simon holds a Bachelor's degree in Marketing & Professional Sales, as well as a minor in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida.

Robert Leshner is the CEO and Co-founder of Superstate, an asset management firm modernizing investing through tokenized financial products. Prior to founding Superstate, Leshner co-founded Compound Labs in 2017, which developed one of the first DeFi applications. Robert is a venture investor at Robot Ventures and co-hosts The Chopping Block, a crypto-native podcast. He is directly responsible for designing smart contracts such as Governor Bravo and the ERC-7246 token standard, Encumber. He has a degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. Additionally, Robert is the former chair of the San Francisco Revenue Bond Oversight Committee and a CFA charter holder.

Lewis Rinaudo Cohen is the Co-Chair of Cahill’s globally recognized Digital Assets and Emerging Technology practice group, and focuses on the use of blockchain, crypto assets and tokenization across all aspects of the capital markets and all areas of economic activity. With the emergence of blockchain technology, Lewis early on identified the important role this technology would play across not only the financial markets but virtually all aspects of the commercial landscape, and is deeply committed to advising clients in this area. Lewis’ career-long experience has spanned the full-spectrum of matters from large-scale traditional initial public equity and debt offerings and a wide range of securitization and other structured financing transactions to advising on legal issues relating to the launch of new blockchain-based decentralized projects. Over Lewis’ career, he has represented issuers, underwriters, banks and others on a wide range of traditional capital market transactions. Lewis is a frequent public speaker on the topic of blockchain and the financial markets, and for many years has been included in as a “Band 1” practitioner by leading independent firm, Chambers and Partners USA, and is widely regarded as one of a handful of the top lawyers in the blockchain space in the United States today. Prior to co-founding a leading law firm focused on blockchain technology, Lewis was a partner in the New York office of two AmLaw Global 25 firms.

Kate (Mitselmakher) Laurence is the CEO, Founder & General Partner of Bloccelerate VC, a Web3 focused venture fund investing in category-defining blockchain companies since 2018. Kate leads the strategy and investments of the fund. She is passionate about bringing about self-sovereignty of money, assets, and data leveraging blockchain technology. Prior to founding Bloccelerate VC, Kate spent ~ 10 years at the world’s largest technology research firm, Gartner (NYSE: IT). While at Gartner, Kate supported leading investors in Silicon Valley including A16Z, Sequoia, KKR around their enterprise technology investments. Kate graduated from Harvard University and is regularly featured on Bloomberg, Forbes, Geekwire, and at the World Economic Forum in Davos. She is also a part of Milken YLC (Milken Leadership Circle).

The inventor of the legendary proportional-fair scheduling algorithm, David has redefined the landscape of cellular technology, with billions of users worldwide benefiting from its unparalleled speed. It's no exaggeration to say that if you're experiencing the lightning-fast connectivity of 3G, 4G, or 5G, you're already utilizing the revolutionary technology developed by David Tse. For this and his many other contributions to wireless communications, he received the IEEE Claude E. Shannon Award and the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, the two top awards in the information sciences. Named after the pioneers of the information age, previous recipients of these awards include Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman (inventors of public-key cryptography) and Andrew Viterbi (co-founder of Qualcomm Inc. and pioneer of CDMA technology).

Steven Goldfeder captains Offchain Labs as the company’s CEO. Offchain Labs is a company in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space that built Abritrum, a layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution. Goldfeder is also one of the authors of the book Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies. Goldfeder completed his undergraduate studies at New York’s Yeshiva University, subsequently earning his Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton. He completed an internship at Google in the software engineering department and worked as a research intern at one of Microsoft’s subentities, Microsoft Research.

Azeem Khan is the co-founder of Morph, an Ethereum Layer 2. He consults for the UNICEF Crypto Fund and serves as a Venture Partner at Foresight Ventures. Additionally, he contributes to Forbes Digital Assets and writes as a columnist for CoinDesk.

Muneeb Ali is the co-founder of Stacks, a Bitcoin L2. He builds and invests in Bitcoin applications through Trust Machines. Muneeb received his Ph.D. and Masters in Computer Science from Princeton University, where his Ph.D. thesis was nominated for the ACM SIGCOMM dissertation award. Muneeb gives guest lectures on Bitcoin & crypto at Princeton and his research publications have over 1,900 citations. He is one of the main characters in the book Life After Google and was a technical advisor to the HBO show Silicon Valley.

Willem is an engineer and lifelong entrepreneur from Belgium, where he researched cryptography (authenticated encryption) and electrical engineering, and was a national mathematics medalist. He formed the thesis of the Spiderchain whiteboarding in the halls of Spangler while doing his MBA at Harvard, and continues to be a menace to whiteboards across the world with his cryptographic scribbles.

Sreeram Kannan was a professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, when he started working for its blockchain research lab in 2017. It was there while working at the lab that he founded his company, EigenLabs, the organization behind EigenLayer – a blockchain protocol considered a pioneer in a well-known trend in the Ethereum ecosystem known as restaking. He was a postdoctoral scholar at University of California, Berkeley and a visiting postdoc at Stanford University between 2012-2014 before which he received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering and M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.

Nicole Valentine is the FinTech Director of the Milken Institute’s Finance pillar with over a decade of financial services, international Mergers & Acquisitions, technology, and innovation experience. As the FinTech Director, Nicole explores market innovation and developments, analyzes alternative regulatory approaches, and offers policy recommendations to facilitate FinTech’s responsible development. Her work engages and educates policymakers and stakeholders to improve access to capital, financial inclusion, transparency, and compliance. In 2023, Nicole was appointed to become a member of the CFTC GMAC (Global Markets Advisory Committee) Digital Assets Market Subcommittee. Nicole is also a member of the Goldman Sachs Sustainable Investing Group Inclusive Growth Corporate Network.

ohn R. Selby (Jack) is a technology, finance and independent film entrepreneur. His primary role is as Managing Director at Peter Thiel’s family office, Thiel Capital, in Los Angeles, California. He is also Founder and Managing Partner at AZ-VC, the largest venture capital firm in Arizona. As a “PayPal Mafia” member, Jack co-founded, along with Peter, Clarium Capital Management, a macro hedge fund after selling PayPal to eBay in October 2002. At PayPal, Jack joined as an original employee and later served as a Corporate Officer/Senior Vice President, overseeing the company’s international and corporate operations. As an active technology investor and advisor, Jack is involved with notable companies such as SpaceX, Palantir, Affirm, Myeloid Therapeutics, Kisbee Therapeutics, Resonance Medicine, Paradox and many more. As an independent producer, Jack’s film credits include Windfall, Silk Road, Freeheld, Bernie, Act of Valor as well documentaries Fastball, Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope, One the Line: The Richard Williams Story, and many more.

Michael Loeb is a serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Loeb.nyc. After starting his career at Time, Inc., Michael co-founded the Synapse Group with then partner, Jay Walker. Under Michael’s direction, Synapse grew to become the largest seller of consumer magazine subscriptions worldwide, with its revolutionary and patented Continuous Service Model. Michael and Jay went on to form and incubate Priceline.com together at Synapse, leveraging a shared team of operators and capital. When Synapse Group was sold to Time Warner in 2006, Michael formed Loeb Enterprises with partner, Rich Vogel to ideate and develop new business concepts. The largest of those ventures was ScriptRelief, a pharmacy discount provider that has a membership in excess of 12 million Americans. In 2019, Loeb Enterprises rebranded to Loeb.nyc and boasts a portfolio of over 18 direct investments, most of which execute from Loeb.nyc headquarters in Manhattan. Under Michael’s visionary leadership, Loeb.nyc has established a new model for startup investments. By pairing exceptional strategic and executional talent with passionate founders, Loeb.nyc significantly de-risks startup launches. Michael sits on the board of several non-profit organizations and is an avid philanthropist. He currently resides in New York City with his wife and children.

Jon advises on a broad variety of transactional and regulatory matters that support leading innovators in the fintech and technology industries, with focus on blockchain and cryptocurrency. He has experience in venture financings, cross-border M&A and leveraged finance transactions and other general corporate matters. Prior to joining Fenwick, Jon was an associate at two leading international law firms. Jon is a licensed CPA and previously worked at PwC as an auditor. While attending law school, Jon served as an associate editor for the Journal of Corporate & Financial Law.

Jonathan Lenzner was named chief of staff to the Director in December 2021. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Lenzner served as the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland. As the chief federal law enforcement official in Maryland, Mr. Lenzner oversaw the investigation and litigation of all criminal and civil cases brought in Maryland on behalf of the United States. He previously served as the first assistant U.S. attorney and also created the office’s first-ever Civil Rights Unit. From 2013 to 2018, Mr. Lenzner led a national risk advisory, corporate investigations, and crisis management firm in Washington, including three years as its CEO. He also led its adjunct law practice. His clients included Fortune 500 companies, universities, investors, nonprofit entities, and public officials. As an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland from 2010 to 2013, Mr. Lenzner focused on public corruption, financial crimes, narcotics trafficking, and sex trafficking cases. During his tenure, he investigated corruption within a government agency, prosecuted a violent drug trafficking crew, and successfully tried the leaders of a complex bank fraud scheme. Mr. Lenzner also served for six years as a prosecutor in the New York County District Attorney’s Office, working in the Sex Crimes Unit and in the Major Economics Crime Bureau. Prior to law school, Mr. Lenzner was a press secretary for a member of Congress and for a congressional committee. He graduated from the Cardozo School of Law, of which he is a member of the Board of Overseers.

Elad Roisman is a member of the Corporate Governance and Board Advisory Practice and the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) Practice. Prior to joining Cravath, Mr. Roisman was a Commissioner and Acting Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Mr. Roisman represents clients on a broad range of complex regulatory and strategic matters. His practice includes advising public and private companies and other SEC registrants on disclosure, compliance, ESG and general corporate law matters. He counsels clients on mergers and acquisitions, capital market transactions and strategic initiatives, as well as on SEC and congressional investigations, exams and inquiries. In addition, Mr. Roisman applies his deep knowledge of market structure regulation to advise fintech companies, exchanges, trading intermediaries and other financial institutions. Mr. Roisman was appointed to the SEC after serving as Chief Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, where he helped shepherd major legislation, conducted congressional oversight and investigations, and helped set committee agenda. Previously, he served as Counsel to then SEC Commissioner Daniel M. Gallagher, Chief Counsel at NYSE Euronext and as a corporate lawyer in private practice in New York. Mr. Roisman is a frequent speaker, published author and thought leader in the areas of market structure, public company disclosure, corporate governance, ESG, fintech, early-stage companies, digital assets and securities regulation. Mr. Roisman grew up in Israel and New England. He received a B.A. cum laude from Cornell University in 2003 and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 2006.

Greg Xethalis is a Partner and General Counsel of Multicoin Capital Management LLC, a thesis driven investment firm focused on digital asset and blockchain systems. Since 2021, Greg has managed the legal and policy functions for the firm and works with its portfolio companies on legal and policy strategy. Prior to joining Multicoin, Greg was a partner in the Investment Management and FinTech practices at Chapman and Cutler LLP. with 11 years of experience counseling clients on digital asset matters, with a focus on asset managers and CeFi institutions. Greg’s practice also involved representation of traditional equity, debt and commodity asset managers, with a specialty in novel registered products. Greg is a member of the Board of the Fordham Law Alumni Association and Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke University School of Law, where he teaches Fintech and Blockchain Law and Policy.

Gerald currently serves as in house Counsel at Sei Labs, the fastest Layer 1 protocol building the parallelized EVM. Previously Gerald was GC and COO at Nation.io, a governance and fundraising solution on Solana, and has served as fractional GC or advisor to numerous projects in the web3 space.

Gary Wachtel is Offchain Labs’ General Counsel and Secretary, where he leads the company’s Legal Team. Mr. Wachtel focuses his practice on blockchain infrastructure, payments and financial technology law matters and regulatory issues. Prior to joining Offchain Labs, Mr. Wachtel was in-house counsel at Circle Internet Financial and Discover, and before that he was an associate in Mayer Brown LLP’s banking and finance group. Mr. Wachtel received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Muhlenberg College and a juris doctor from University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. He is admitted to practice in both Illinois and Connecticut.

Stephan is as much an engineer as he is a lawyer. He works with world-leading web 3.0 founders on a broad spectrum of corporate and regulatory matters, and advises projects on decentralization efforts, scaling, and governance.

Faryar Shirzad is Chief Policy Officer at Coinbase, where he leads the company’s engagement with policymakers around the world and has become a trusted source for thought leadership in the global crypto policy space. Under Shirzad’s leadership, Coinbase has become a driver of crypto-regulation discourse in the U.S. He oversaw the creation of Coinbase’s Digital Asset Policy Proposal (or dApp), which laid out a fit-for-purpose regulatory framework for the rapidly-emerging industry and was recognized as “a dramatic shift from current policy in the United States”, sparking an ongoing conversation on how crypto should be regulated while safeguarding American innovation. Before joining Coinbase, Shirzad was Global Co-Head of Government Affairs at Goldman Sachs. Shirzad has served as counsel to the highest levels of the U.S. government, including as deputy national security advisor for international economic affairs for President George W . Bush. In that role, he served as The President’s personal representative to the G-8 (the “G-8 Sherpa”). Prior to his time in the White House, Shirzad was assistant secretary for import administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce and international trade counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. Earlier in his career, he practiced law in Washington, DC. Faryar earned a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law, a MPP from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a BS from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Omid Malekan is the the author of several books, including Re-Architecting Trust: the Curse of History and the Crypto Cure for Money, Markets and Platforms as well as The Story of the Blockchain: A Beginner’s Guide to the Technology That Nobody Understands. An eight-year veteran of the crypto industry, his writing on this and related topics has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Spectator Magazine, and his own blog on Medium. Prior to his work with crypto, he was best known for several viral videos in the heyday of YouTube, an animated one of which found its way into the financial zeitgeist. Malekan has spent years being confused about crypto so you don’t have to be. When not writing or teaching, he plays the part of ambassador, sitting between the people who push the envelope on what is possible and those who will be impacted should they succeed.

Michael Sonnenshein is the Former CEO of Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest digital currency asset manager. Under his leadership, the firm grew to be the definitive leader in crypto investing, offering a wide range of investments including single-asset and diversified products. Michael is regularly featured on CNBC and Bloomberg, and he was honored in 2021 as one of 100 People Transforming Business by Business Insider and in 2018 as the publication’s Rising Stars of Wall Street. Michael serves as a member of the Grayscale Board of Directors. Prior to joining Grayscale, Michael was a financial advisor at JP Morgan Securities, covering high-net-worth individuals and institutions, and an analyst at Barclays Wealth, providing coverage to middle‐market hedge funds and institutions. Michael earned his Bachelor of Business Administration from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and his Master of Business Administration from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.

Teddy Fusaro is an experienced finance professional currently serving as President and COO at Bitwise Asset Management. Prior to this role, Teddy held the position of Senior Vice President at New York Life & MainStay Investments and served as Senior Vice President, Head of Portfolio Management, Capital Markets, and Trading at IndexIQ. Additionally, Teddy was Vice President and Portfolio Manager, Co-Head of Trading at Direxion, and started a career as an Analyst in Equity Derivatives and Credit Derivatives at Goldman Sachs. Teddy holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Providence College.

Cynthia Lo Bessette is head of Fidelity’s Digital Asset Management division where she has oversight and responsibility for setting the strategy and priorities for the division in building digital asset investment capabilities and solutions for Fidelity clients and investors across our platforms, offering investment products and advisory services designed to meet the growing needs of Fidelity’s retail customers and intermediary and institutional clients. Ms. Lo Bessette leads the teams responsible for the development of the digital asset research and data platforms and research agenda, including evaluation of blockchain protocols, infrastructure, and financial applications. In addition, she leads the teams responsible for the establishment of the digital asset operating platform, the expansion of the strategic product roadmap for digital assets and the expansion of the business development function. Ms. Lo Bessette has extensive experience working with asset management firms investing globally across asset classes and serving a worldwide investor base, including retail and institutional investors. She has broad experience working with global asset managers on strategic transactions and on start-up and establishment of new businesses in global markets, investment product development and distribution, and portfolio management matters involving US and foreign regulations and local market practices. She has been in the financial industry since 1995. Previously, Ms. Lo Bessette was head of Asset Management and Digital Assets Legal. Prior to joining Fidelity in August 2019, Ms. Lo Bessette was Executive Vice President and General Counsel of OppenheimerFunds, and was also a director of OFI International, Ltd, the UK affiliate of OppenheimerFunds, and OppenheimerFunds ICAV, a family of UCITS offered globally.

Sebastian Corrochano is the Head of Business Development for Galaxy Asset Management (“GAM”) and one of its founding team members. Currently, he overseas various strategic initiatives across product ideation, launches, and fundraising for GAM’s alternative investment solutions. Sebastian has been with GAM since its inception in 2018 and has supported the growth of the asset manager across several roles spanning business development, product, and fundraising. Prior to GAM, Sebastian began his career as an investment banker at Evercore. He graduated with honors from Emory University with a degree in Economics.

Manoj Vasudevan is a Portfolio Manager at KAUST Investment Management Company. He oversees a global multi-billion dollar real estate portfolio in addition to managing early stage venture capital investments focused on blockchain/crypto. His responsibilities include manager selection, sourcing and underwriting investments, structuring transactions across a variety of investment formats such as comingled funds, direct co-investments, and programmatic joint ventures. He has an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelors in Electronics from BITS Pilani. He is currently an adjunct faculty at Georgetown University and also serves as the Executive-in-Residence at the University's Steers Center of Global Real Estate.

Abi Subramanian is the Founding Partner of GGA a global investment and advisory firm focused on backing entrepreneurs in futuristic technologies. Abi is a seasoned financial services professional with over 25 years of experience in private and public markets in the disruptive and transformative sectors of the economy. Abi was a former Partner and GP of Black Pine, a Hong Kong-based large single-family office of one of the region's oldest Cantonese families and (in parallel) a Founding Partner at Accrete Capital, a London-based Private Equity investment firm. Previously, he ran Hudson Fairfax Group, an Independent Cybersecurity fund backed by a prominent UK Family and prior thereto successfully built and sold a Next Generation Satellite Systems, a startup spun out of a larger commercial entity. Earlier in his career, Abi was a merchant banker focused on the private capital space, investing and advising entrepreneurs in high-growth technologically oriented sectors. He spent 15 years at leading growth equity platforms such as SG Cowen, Jefferies and Thomas Weisel Partners as head of their Private Capital/Alternative Capital groups. Outside of work, Abi is a devoted family man. He is a father of two girls and counts world travel, modern art and current events as some of his preferred leisure time pursuits. He holds a Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Georgia Institute of Technology.

Ari Juels is the Weill Family Foundation and Joan and Sanford I. Weill Professor in the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and the Technion and a Computer Science faculty member at Cornell University. He is a co-founder and co-director of the Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts (IC3). He is also Chief Scientist at Chainlink Labs. He is the author of crypto thriller novel The Oracle (Talos Press, 2024) and crypto(graphy) thriller novel Tetraktys (Emerald Bay Books, 2009).

Theo is focused on investing in business and technical infrastructure that tackles existential problems in the Web3 economy. As an MIT Sloan and Ohio State alum, he brings real-world expertise to drive impactful innovation. Theo enjoys a variety of hobbies as an amateur runner, port-side rower, skier, and art enthusiast.

Chi Zhang is the accomplished co-founder and CEO of ZettaBlock, a pioneering startup dedicated to constructing vital infrastructure for open and trustless AI development.. With a remarkable background in AI, big data, and product management, Chi successfully spearheaded data engineering product development at Databricks and played a key role as a founding AI leader at dotData, an Automated Machine Learning platform. Chi got her Ph.D. in ML/AI (Statistics) and M.A. in Economics from UC Berkeley. Outside of her professional achievements, she cherishes her past as a professional inline speed skater and finds joy in a wide range of outdoor activities.

David Alderman is a research analyst for Digital Asset Management at Franklin Templeton. He is responsible for conducting fundamental research and analysis on the Firm's digital asset investment strategies. Prior to joining Franklin Templeton, David was with Pervalle Global LLC, a discretionary macro hedge fund, covering commodity-based equities and digital assets. And prior to Pervalle, he was an investment banking analyst at Intrepid Financial Partners and Regions Securities, LLC focusing on the energy sector. David holds a bachelor of engineering in Mechanical Engineering from Auburn University, and a master of science in Financial Economics from Columbia Business School.

Jonathan Perkins is a tech entrepreneur and professional with a diverse background in software development, project management, and startup leadership. He is currently the Co-founder of SuperRare Labs, a groundbreaking platform that allows individuals worldwide to become art collectors in the digital age. Established in March 2018, SuperRare Labs utilises blockchain authentication to create a social marketplace for trading unique digital artworks. With a mission to foster a global art economy fit for the digital age, Jonathan has been at the forefront of driving innovation in the intersection of technology and art. Benchmarking his art skills, Jonathan was instrumental in project management and production for Wells Fargo's Community Mural Program to create and install several hundred graphically designed murals per year in the USA. Jonathan holds a BA in digital Media from San Francisco State University, and an Associate of Arts degree in Audio Engineering from City College of San Francisco. He is also an avid surfer.

David co-founded Bogus Club, a Memecoin community embracing the absurdity in tech/art/crypto. David also is a founding member/VP at Transient. Transient empowers thousands of creators and brands within the Web3 ecosystem. Fully immersed in crypto since 2020, David first ventured into Bitcoin back in 2014 during his enterprise sales days at Gartner.

Basketball icon Scottie Pippen is one of basketball’s most talented, versatile, and successful players. An incredible come-up story, Pippen walked onto the team at an NAIA school after a slew of Division 1 rejections and was drafted fifth overall in the 1987 NBA Draft. Quickly establishing himself as leading talent, he played a critical role in elevating the Chicago Bulls into a championship team, effectively reigniting worldwide passion for the NBA during the ‘90s. Over 17 seasons in the NBA, Pippen won 6 NBA championships, 2 Olympic gold medals, and was named one of the NBA’s “50 Greatest Players of All Time.” He is also a two-time inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. After retiring, Pippen released his instant New York Times bestseller, his memoir, Unguarded. Beloved both by his community and basketball fans across the world, Pippen is a leading figure providing motivation, promoting sportsmanship, and sharing the story of his unlikely success. Scottie Pippen is regarded as one of the best players in the NBA not only for his skill on the court, but also for helping build one of the first and most dominant basketball dynasties in the last half century.