Featured Speakers & Panelists
Muneeb Ali
Dr. Muneeb Ali is the co-founder of Stacks, a Bitcoin layer for smart contracts. He serves as the CEO of Trust Machines, a company building the largest ecosystem of Bitcoin apps. He has raised more than 200 million USD in funding from investors like Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator, Breyer Capital, and others. 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.
Paul Brody
Paul Brody is responsible for driving EY’s initiatives and investments in blockchain technology across consulting, audit, and tax business lines. He has held numerous leadership positions in the areas of IoT, supply chain and operations, and business strategy, working with client organizations such as HP, Samsung, LG, Huawei, Apple, Canon, Toshiba, Sony, Panasonic, Ericsson, Nokia, Alcatel, FIAT, Honeywell, and Raytheon, among others. As a member of the open LinkedIn network, he enjoys learning about new ideas and technologies that have the potential to reshape the industry or create opportunities and challenges for EY. His specialties include consumer electronics business strategy, mobile telecommunications, product design, supply chain, and operations management.
Anna Chekhovich
Anna Chekhovich is a financial director and activist with the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), founded by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Persecuted by the Russian government, she fled the country in 2019. Since 2016, the ACF has used Bitcoin to evade government surveillance and sustain its operations while facing financial repression. After being labeled an extremist organization, the ACF relocated to Lithuania, where Chekhovich now works on crypto asset accessibility for NGOs. She collaborates with European banks and officials on crypto regulations, ensuring financial support for Russian political prisoners and activists. She also advocates for crypto access as a lifeline for opposition movements in authoritarian regimes worldwide.
Rafael Cordón
Rafa is an entrepreneur and technology consultant with more than 15 years of experience advising governments on data platform strategy and innovation. He is the CTO of Simple Proof, a startup that helps institutions uphold information integrity through immutable record-keeping and trustless verification. He recently worked with the government of Guatemala to safeguard election documents using open protocols and the Bitcoin blockchain. Additionally, Rafa is Chief Cloud Architect at ITZ DATA (www.itzdata.tech/en), an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner specialized in working with Public Sector institutions on their cloud adoption journeys.
Luigi D’Onorio DeMeo
Luigi D’Onorio DeMeo is the COO of Ava Labs, where he initially led DeFi and Developer Relations before expanding his role to drive the company’s vision of tokenizing the world’s assets. A recognized thought leader in crypto, he helps shape industry evolution and innovative value exchange. Luigi began his career as an institutional trader at Citigroup, specializing in credit and equity products, before moving into valuation and M&A advisory. In 2018, he founded a venture-backed decentralized application (dapp), deepening his involvement in crypto, where he has been active since 2016. His expertise in both traditional and decentralized finance enables him to bridge the gap between these sectors.
Philip Daian
Phil Daian is a crypto-economic researcher and lead author behind the landmark paper, “Flash Boys 2.0,” which introduced and defined the MEV problem in the Ethereum landscape, over 4 years ago. He is the cofounder of FlashBots, which is a research and dev organization with the mission of mitigating the negative externalities of MEV.
Fadi Elsalameen
Fadi has 15 years of experience working in the US, the Middle East, and Africa. Raised over $3 billion dollars for various deals in several countries.
Carole House
Carole House is an experienced cybersecurity and risk management professional with a demonstrated background in U.S. military intelligence and the Federal executive and legislative branches of government who is committed to protecting people. She is skilled in cybersecurity and emerging technology policy, security operations and risk management, unconventional warfare, and strategic and operational planning. Carole is also a strong research professional with a Master of Arts (M.A.) focused in Security Studies from Georgetown University.
Evan Mawarire
Evan Mawarire is a Zimbabwean pastor and activist, best known for founding the #ThisFlag Citizen’s Movement, which mobilized millions against corruption, injustice, and poverty. His efforts contributed to the ousting of dictator Robert Mugabe. Despite facing imprisonment, torture, assassination attempts, and treason charges, he remained a symbol of resilience, eventually going into exile in the U.S. Evan has spoken at Yale, Harvard, Oxford, and global forums like the Oslo Freedom Forum. He was named among Foreign Policy Magazine’s 100 Global Thinkers and awarded African of the Year in 2016. A visiting fellow at top universities, he serves on advisory boards and is a Senior Fellow at Renew Democracy Initiative. His memoir, Crazy Epic Courage, details his journey.
Melanie McClain
Melanie McClain is a Billboard-recognized executive with 15 years of music industry experience, specializing in music programming, content strategy, and data storytelling. She helped launch YouTube Music in 2018 and led award-winning campaigns like 50 Deep for hip-hop’s 50th anniversary. Melanie has driven growth across YouTube Music and YouTube Shorts, developing successful content strategies for artists like Taylor Swift, Doja Cat, Tyla, and NewJeans. As founder of Blurred Lines, she connects cultural tastemakers and advises brands on marketing and artist relations. A seasoned speaker at SXSW, ADE, and more, she previously led partnerships at Web3 startup P00LS with talent like Ronaldinho and YSL Beauty. Her background also includes A&R at Secretly Group, where she was named a 2021 Billboard Change Agent.
Tiffany Smith
Tiffany J. Smith has over a decade of experience advising and representing broker-dealers, financial institutions, and technology companies (including crypto companies) on cutting edge regulatory and compliance matters. She has a broad client base including traditional financial institutions, crypto exchanges, NFT issuers and platforms, Web3 companies and payment platforms. Tiffany is a member of the Wall Street Blockchain Association, the Association for Women in Cryptocurrency, and the New York City Bar Association; and is on the Board of the Legal Aid Society. She was featured on the American Lawyer’s 2022 List of Northeast Trailblazers, New York Law Journal’s 2020 Rising Stars List, National Bar Association’s 40 Under 40: Nation’s Best Advocates List 2020, named a 2020 Minority Corporate Counsel Association Rising Star. Tiffany has a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School, and a BBA from The George Washington University.
Eric Wallach
Eric Wallach serves as an Investment Analyst at Pantera Capital since November 2023, following a similar role at Hitchwood Capital Management LP from January 2022 to November 2023. Prior experience includes a Summer Analyst position at Third Point LLC in July 2020 and a Summer Analyst role at Grant’s Interest Rate Observer from May to August 2019. Eric also gained experience as a Summer Analyst at Hitchwood Capital Management LP between June 2016 and August 2018. Eric Wallach holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Yale University, where studies were completed from 2017 to 2021, after attending Collegiate School from 2005 to 2017.
Jon Wong
Jon Wong leads the Ecosystem Engineering team at the Solana Foundation, where he focuses on guiding teams and companies on their journey into Web3. Previously, he developed NFT collections for Orca, Phantom, Parcl, and Welcome to Chinatown. Before that, he spent over eight years architecting frontends and shaping the culture at Coursera.
Scott Zoldi
Scott Zoldi is chief analytics officer at FICO responsible for the analytic development of FICO’s product and technology solutions. While at FICO, Scott has been responsible for authoring 105 analytic patents, with 53 granted and 52 pending. Scott is actively involved in the development of new analytic products and Big Data analytics applications, many of which leverage new streaming analytic innovations such as adaptive analytics, collaborative profiling and self-calibrating analytics. Scott is most recently focused on the applications of streaming self-learning analytics for real-time detection of cyber security attacks. Scott serves on two boards of directors, Software San Diego and Cyber Center of Excellence. Scott received his Ph.D. in theoretical and computational physics from Duke University.
Tom Zschach
Tom is a seasoned technology executive with a distinguished career in financial services. As Chief Innovation Officer at SWIFT, he drives innovation, collaborates with partners, and future-proofs the company. Since joining in 2020, he has reinforced SWIFT’s industry leadership. Previously, Tom was CIO at CLS Group, shaping its technology vision and strategy. Before that, he served as CIO at LCH.Clearnet, strengthening its position in clearing and settlement. With 20+ years in investment banking, including roles at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Barclays, he has led major technology initiatives. He holds a Computer Science and Finance degree from California State University and an Executive MBA from TRIUM, combining technical expertise with strategic leadership.