This is the special focus group everyone has been waiting for. The topic and “revolution” that simply won’t go away – Blockchain and Cryptocurrency.
We’ve gathered an all-star group of established leaders who are enthusiastic industry professionals, who will help guide this first-of-its-kind group exclusively catered to the OG community.
CRYPTO GROUP LEADERS:
ANA DE SOUSA:
I was the first business hire at FalconX, which today is a global crypto brokerage valued at $700M. I stood up trading operations, business operations, legal, finance, regulations and HR there. I’ve since become the Federal Reserve’s crypto risk & policy lead. My job now is to help bank supervisors assess bank exposure to crypto and advise policymakers on risks to financial stability and monetary policy stemming from cryptoasset markets.
In the past, I’ve traded, advised several startups, and consulted for large companies such as Coinbase.
BEN O’NEILL:
I was the first business hire at Messari, a crypto market intelligence software provider that helps customers make more efficient and accurate decisions with regards to investments in and compliance of digital assets. My daily responsibilities include interacting with project teams, funds, and exchanges about how their support and interaction with assets is expanding from buying/selling into more active DeFi and governance participation.
Nowadays, I am spending more and more time on how businesses interact with crypto behind the scenes (finance, accounting, infrastructure) as our company continues to grow. I started my career launching new business lines at Uber and have been investing / exploring crypto since early 2015.
CHRISTINE TO:
Christine To leads the fintech business development team at Anchorage Digital. Christine has more than seventeen years of finance and tech experience to help fintech innovators understand blockchain innovation and its benefits through Anchorage. Prior to Anchorage, Christine led partnerships at the Stellar Development Foundation where she built relationships with financial services and fintech companies, teaching them the benefits of using Stellar for digital payments.
Prior to Stellar, Christine was the VP of Business Development at fintech crypto wallet provider Airfox where she led fundraising and strategic operations to offer Brazilians access to financial services such as lending, cross-border payments, and access to the digital economy. Christine holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
GEORGE BOYAR:
I have been helping friends and family manage investments in crypto since 2017, and have been a very early participant in the sub category of decentralized finance. I currently spend 100% of my time participating in various DAOs (decentralized communities that govern various crypto protocols), researching potential investments, and in general staying up to date on all things crypto.
My current thesis is that crypto has a clear path towards being a productive capital asset similar to a dividend paying stock, in addition to being a store of value. Outside of blockchain, I primarily worked with early stage startups, standing up teams in customer success, legal, finance, HR, and customer support.
MICAH ROWLAND:
I’ve generated a 500% total realized return on my cash investments into crypto since Sep 2020, mainly through putting capital into various DeFi projects. Having treated crypto like my job for the better part of a year now, I’d love to pass on some learnings by teaching or co-teaching a course on Crypto Speculation / DeFi (just don’t call it “investing!”)
PATRICK CHANG:
I have been an early-stage VC for almost 16 years with experiences at Cota Capital, Samsung Next Ventures, Foundation Capital, and Bain Capital Ventures. I led all the blockchain strategy and investment thesis at Samsung Next. I was a seed or preseed investor in Dapper Labs (100x), Flow (300+x), Theta (100x), Alchemy (10x), Forte ($1+B), Branch Metrics (1+B – not blockchain), and several other edge computing exits (Packet, Volterra, AST).
My cofounder is an experienced entrepreneur, operator, and corporate exec with a Ph.D. from Columbia University in Networks and incentive mechanisms (blockchain before blockchain was a thing). He has over 25 years of operating and investing experience, and we have nearly a decade of experience working together.
