Save the Date! Oct. 16, 2024 at the Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco

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 2009, including Senior Vice President.

Earlier in his career, Brad helped to pioneer the VoIP industry as CEO of Dialpad Communications. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of OutMatch and has held board positions at Ancestry.com and Tonic Health.

Paul Grewal is the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase Global, Inc., where he is responsible for Coinbase’s legal, compliance, global intelligence, risk management and government relations groups. Before joining Coinbase, Paul was Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Facebook. Prior to Facebook, Paul served as United States Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of California. Paul was previously a partner at Howrey LLP. Paul served as a law clerk to Federal Circuit Judge Arthur J. Gajarsa and United States District Judge Sam H. Bell. He received his JD from the University of Chicago Law School and his SB from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Michael Anderson is the co-founder of Framework Ventures, one of the earliest and largest VC firms to enter the “DeFi” or Decentralized Finance industry. The firm has notched up major, early investments in multiple, multibillion-dollar protocols like Chainlink, Aave, The Graph, Synthetix, and more. In recent years, Framework’s investment focus has since expanded into additional maturing verticals like blockchain gaming 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 joining the crypto industry, Michael worked as a product manager during pivotal growth phases at two of the most influential companies in tech history, Dropbox and Snapchat.

Melissa is a partner in Ropes & Gray’s asset management group and leads the firm’s crypto blockchain task force, which is composed of more than 160 lawyers working across multiple practice groups and is dedicated to providing training, knowledge management, and top tier client service in the digital asset space. Her practice in the crypto, blockchain, and Web 3 space covers the waterfront. In addition to counseling asset managers in connection with the formation and launch of open-end, closed-end, and hybrid funds that hold digital assets, Melissa also advises public companies, institutional investors, and non-profit organizations on custody and other considerations related to holding digital assets. Clients likewise look to Melissa for securities and market advice in connection with the launch of tokenized fund products.

Mauricio Beugelmans serves as Chief Legal Officer, Head of Legal Compliance Division leading OK Group’s and its crypto exchange affiliates’ (OKX and Okcoin) global legal, compliance, licensing, and government affairs teams composed of over 85 professionals. Prior to joining OK Group, he practiced for over twenty years in financial markets and products law in his prior roles as in-house counsel at Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab, and as a partner at national law firms where he served investment banks, broker-dealers, and investment advisers in all aspects of regulatory, compliance, litigation, trial counsel, and employment matters. He is admitted to practice law in California, New York, and the District of Columbia.

Stephanie R. Breslow is co-head of the Investment Management Group and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. She maintains a diverse practice that includes liquid funds, private equity funds, and the structuring of investment management businesses. She focuses her practice on the formation of private equity funds, including LBO, mezzanine, distressed, real estate and venture, and liquid-securities funds, including hedge funds, hybrid funds, credit funds, and activist funds, as well as providing regulatory advice to investment managers.

Stephanie represents fund sponsors and institutional investors in connection with seed-capital investments in fund managers and acquisitions of interests in investment management businesses and funds of funds and other institutional investors in connection with their investment activities, including blockchain technology and virtual currency offerings and transactions.

Stephanie recently served as chair of the Private Investment Funds Subcommittee of the International Bar Association and is a founding member and former chair of the Private Investment Fund Forum.

Jack is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Whitestar Capital. He previously built in the asset tokenization space, responsible for crypto and product. He wrote the ‘Unreal Primer into Real World Assets,’ the first primer on tokenization, with readership among institutional investors.

Nicole Civitello is the Head of Investor Relations at Polychain Capital. In her role, Nicole is responsible for business development, capital formation, and supporting the firm’s global base of investors.

Nicole has spent the past four years in crypto. Most recently, she was Head of Investor Relations at Hack VC, an early stage crypto venture firm, and prior to that, she was Head of Capital Strategy for Anchorage Digital, the first federally chartered crypto bank. Prior to diving into crypto, Nicole spent the majority of her career in traditional finance advising alternative investment managers. She served as a Managing Director at Minard Capital, a global institutional marketing firm advising alternative investment managers on marketing strategy and asset raising, and was a senior member of the Capital Introduction team at BNP Paribas.

Nicole is a graduate of The George Washington University in Washington D.C. and is a CAIA charterholder.

Karl Cole-Frieman is Managing Partner of Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP and serves as counsel to many of the most prominent hedge fund managers in the United States. Karl is well-known in the industry for the range of his expertise regarding this client demographic and his innovative work with managers who invest in non-traditional asset classes. Karl is highly sought after for business-oriented and practical advice stemming from his long career working as both an in-house and external adviser. He has guided hundreds of start-up managers by launching their first fund and has the breadth of experience to advise very large managers.

Karl is a trusted adviser and is nationally recognized as a leading cryptocurrency lawyer. He represents many of the largest cryptocurrency fund managers in the country.

Prior to co-founding Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP, Karl was General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Standard Pacific Capital, LLC (“Standard Pacific”), an SEC-registered hedge fund manager in San Francisco with offices in New York, Hong Kong, and a sub-advisor in Tokyo. In addition to managing the Legal and Compliance Departments at Standard Pacific, Karl was also responsible for Human Resources, IT, General Administration, and particular operations and strategic matters for Standard Pacific’s credit strategy.

Before joining Standard Pacific, Karl was Associate General Counsel of Sagamore Hill Capital Management, L.P., a multi-strategy hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut, with an office in London.

Prior to that, he was Vice President and Associate General Counsel at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (“JP Morgan”). He was lead counsel for Loan Trading and Distressed Debt and actively involved in the Loan Syndications and Trading Association. During his tenure at JPMorgan and predecessor firm, Hambrecht & Quist, Karl also supported the M&A, Corporate Finance, and Private Equity Groups. He began his career in 1997 as an Associate in the Litigation Department of Shearman & Sterling.

Karl lives with his wife, Wanda, and twins, Isaac and Taylor, in Oakland, CA, where he enjoys running and biking and is a Crossfit Level 1 Trainer.

Srini Dhulipala is the CIO and Managing Partner of New Form Capital Liquid Opportunities Fund. Prior to his current role, he founded and served as CIO of Kildonan Castle Asset Management, a global credit opportunity fund, for 8 years. From 2006 to 2011, Srini was a Managing Director at Merrill Lynch and headed the Credit Proprietary Trading desk. Between 1999 and 2005, Srini worked as a Credit Derivatives trader at Morgan Stanley before moving to Bank of America to run their credit trading business globally. A Mechanical Engineer by training, Srini worked at Ford Motor Company for 4 years as a safety design engineer before earning an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1999. Srini also currently serves on the board of DGS, a wireless communications tech company.

Julian manages Parataxis Capital’s liquid strategies and early-stage token investments as well as Parataxis Labs, the firm’s advisory arm. He focuses primarily on investments into crypto projects in the DeFi (decentralized finance) as well as Metaverse sectors that have significant adoption potential. Previously, Julian was an investor at digital asset investment firm Hashed in South Korea. Prior to joining the digital asset space, he spent nine years across the financial technology (LendingHome), private equity (KKR), and investment banking (Lazard) sectors. Julian is a graduate of Stanford University (BA).

Jason Hall is the Co-Founder and CEO at Methodic Capital Management where he and his team work to bring digital asset exposure to institutional investors. Methodic focuses on passive, indexed, and highly compliant products with an emphasis on efficient returns and transparent operations. Experienced in the traditional finance space, Jason brings expertise in trading, business development, and indexed portfolio management.  Prior to co-founding Methodic Capital, Jason worked at Bridgewater Associates where he focused on building investment teams as well as multi-asset beta portfolio management. He is a veteran of the U.S. Army and is working to incorporate an internship for transitioning veterans at Methodic Capital.

Paul Hsu is CEO and Founder of Decasonic, the venture and digital assets fund building blockchain innovation. Paul was previously a leading social gaming developer, who led Zynga’s IPO. Beginning in 2013, he expanded this expertise into investing in blockchain technology. Paul’s early career included early-stage venture investing at NeoCarta Ventures, a $300M fund based in Silicon Valley, as a founding team member and key investment professional in the fund. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University, where his studies concentrated on economics, math, statistics, and international politics. Paul graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude.

Matt is the Head of Tax at Paradigm. Prior to joining Paradigm, he was Partner, Senior Tax Counsel at SoftBank Investment Advisors. Previously, Matt was a Senior Manager in KPMG’s M&A Tax practice. He received his J.D. from The University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law.

David founded Reflexive Capital in July 2023. Before starting Reflexive, Dave headed the Macro and Digital Asset teams at Commonwealth Asset Management. Prior to that, he served as CIO at Thiel Macro acting as the primary support role to the Fund’s President, Peter Thiel, in managing the majority of the Fund’s risk capital across all macro asset classes. Dave began his career as an interest rate swap trader at Goldman Sachs and holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.

Dov Kleiner advises clients on bankruptcy and workout issues, focusing on transactional and credit matters. He has extensive experience representing investors, creditors, debtors, and official and unofficial committees, with a particular focus on large, complex capital structures and highly leveraged enterprises. Dov also works closely with the Real Estate group on real estate workouts, as well as commercial and mezzanine loans.

In the past few years, Dov has been active in the crypto insolvency space where he has represented strategic investors, creditors, and account holders as well as claims traders.

Dov is a member of the New York City Bar Association’s Bankruptcy and Reorganization Committee where he co-chairs the Cannabis and the Digital Assets Subcommittees.

Louis LaValle is Managing Director of 3iQ Digital Assets (US) Inc. He joined 3iQ in 2021 and is responsible for the development, execution, and investment management of the firm’s institutional investment platform. Louis brings over 20 years of investment management experience advising global institutions on hedge fund, private equity, and digital asset investing. Prior to 3iQ, Louis held senior leadership positions at several alternative investment management firms including Neuberger Berman, EACM Advisors, Permal Group, and SkyBridge Capital. He previously served as strategic advisor to Crescent Crypto Asset Management, a digital asset investment firm that created one of the industry’s first suite of investable crypto index solutions. Louis began his investment management career at Morgan Stanley, managing over $1 billion of capital on behalf of family offices and institutional investors. He holds a bachelor’s degree with honors from New York University (NYU).

Kevin is an attorney with a background in tax, cryptocurrency, and venture and hedge funds. Before joining Hard Yaka, Kevin practiced law in major financial centers at law firms, accounting firms and investment banks, advising a wide range of clients from startups to multibillion-dollar investment funds. He holds an LL.M. in tax from New York University, a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

Bart Mallon is Managing Partner of Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP and serves as counsel to many of the most prominent hedge fund managers in the United States. Bart provides comprehensive and tactful advice to clients regarding structure, operational items and compliance matters. He has held many exam licenses, including Series 3, Series 7, Series 24, Series 34, Series 63, and Series 65.

Additionally, Bart created the nationally recognized Hedge Fund Law Blog which is often quoted in high-profile publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Compliance Update, and Absolute Return + Alpha.

Bart lives in San Francisco and is an avid golfer.

Joe is Head of Digital Assets Investing and Head of Hedge Fund Research at Cambridge Associates.

Joe joined Cambridge Associates in 2006, with a focus on alternative assets. Responsible for finding and assessing alternatives funds focused on digital assets, Joe completed the firm’s first due diligence on a crypto fund in 2017 and has been working with client investments in digital assets funds since 2018. He is often cited in the media, is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and client events, and contributes to firm research on both hedge funds and digital assets. Joe chairs the Hedge Fund Ratings Committee. Prior to joining Cambridge Associates, he took over as turnaround CEO at Keizon, K.K., a Tokyo-based Internet company.

Joe received his MBA from the University of Virginia, his MA in East Asian Studies from Yale University, and his BA in East Asian Languages & Cultures from the University of Southern California.

Jack is the CEO of digital asset infrastructure company PolySign. PolySign is the parent company of Standard Custody, a qualified custodian for digital assets licensed by the state of New York, as well as MG Stover, the largest digital fund administration firm servicing hedge funds, private equity funds, and venture capital funds. Prior to joining PolySign, Jack McDonald was CEO of Conifer Financial Services for a decade, where he grew AUA from $5B to$125B, culminating in a successful exit in 2016. Before Conifer, Jack was the Managing Director and Head of West Coast Equities at UBS. Jack was named one of the ‘20 Rising Stars of Hedge Funds’ by Institutional Investor Magazine and inducted into Global Custodian’s ‘Legends of The Industry’.

Dan Miller joined IQEQ in June of 2019, in the New York City Hedge Fund Operations team. His areas of expertise include designing next generation institutional grade trading architectures, hedge fund launch coordination, counterparty management, ensuring fund accounting best practices are adhered to, and building robust and repeatable operational processes for alternative investment advisors of all sizes, structure, and strategies. Dan also leads the firm’s digital asset advisory practice – offering clients across the digital asset space an objective opinion on industry best practices and proper controls, helping firms to accept institutional allocations on day one.

Dan started his career with Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. His areas of focus were regulatory reporting (Form PF, Form ADV, CPO-PQR, and others), client reporting, managing investor flows, and fund accounting. Dan also had the opportunity to service Bridgewater on behalf of BNY Mellon where he assisted in building their legacy client and regulatory reporting functions in BNYM’s OnCore architecture. Subsequent to working for Bridgewater and BNY Mellon, Dan was Director of Middle and Back Office at Marto Capital – a global macro hedge fund launched by Bridgewater Alumnus Katina Stefanova.

Dan graduated with degrees in Economics and Accounting from the Pennsylvania State University.

Ryne Miller is the Managing Partner of Miller Strategic Partners LLP in New York City. He regularly advises traditional financial services and FinTech clients on regulatory matters and investigations related to their trading and markets businesses. Ryne also advises companies on special situations projects and crisis management scenarios. He has previously been a legal counsel to then CFTC Chair Gary Gensler, a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, and the general counsel of FTX US.

Mitch Nedved is the Chief Financial Officer at Polychain Capital. He is responsible for overseeing the accounting, tax, audit, and financial operations for Polychain. Prior to joining Polychain in early 2019, he was a manager of Hedge Fund Investment Accounting focused on digital asset funds at MG Stover LLC, an alternative investment fund administrator. Mitch is a Certified Public Accountant. He received a B.S. in Finance and a B.S. in Business Economics from the University of Wyoming and a Master of Accountancy from the University of Denver.

Edward Nwokedi is the Founder and CEO of RedSwan CRE Marketplace and RedSwan CRE Africa. RedSwan is a Commercial Real Estate platform for asset-backed securities. With over $5B in tokenized real estate assets, RedSwan leads the market under full FINRA compliance. Ed started his 23-year real estate journey at Colliers International and moved to Cushman and Wakefield, Texas, rising to Executive Director of Capital Markets, culminating in more than $2.7B in multifamily sales.

Ed received his M.B.A. from St. Mary’s College of California in Moraga, California, and his B.S. in Accounting and Organizational Behavior from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He holds CCIM accreditation in Commercial Real Estate and is on the advisory board of the Bauer Real Estate Program at the University of Houston’s C.T. Bauer College of Business.

Alexander Pack is the Managing Partner at Hack VC, an early-stage crypto venture fund. Previously, he was a co-founder and Managing Partner at Dragonfly Capital, led crypto investments at Bain Capital Ventures, and was a senior advisor to Huobi. Alexander is an early investor in over 20 crypto unicorns and founder of Imperii Partners, one of the leading crypto-specialist investment banks.

James Parillo is the Managing Partner of Figment Capital. He leads the firm’s investment strategy, portfolio company support, investor relations, and portfolio management.

Before joining Figment Capital, James was a Managing Director in KPMG’s New York Alternative Investment practice. He created and led the U.S. firm’s digital asset fund tax compliance and consulting practice from 2017 to 2021 and led the firm’s global digital asset practice from 2020 to 2021. During his tenure, James called many of the most prestigious digital asset funds in the world his clients such as a16z, Polychain, and Multicoin.

James views decentralized, community-owned networks as representations of digital jurisdictions and believes that users will ultimately choose to engage with communities that serve their own self-interests and most accurately reflect their values.

Sadie Raney is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Strix Leviathan, a digital asset investment manager, and the Co-Founder of Strix Leviathan-spinoff Makara, one of the first SEC-registered automated investment advisors in crypto that was acquired by Betterment in 2022. Sadie has over two decades of experience in finance and leadership. She previously served as Financial Controller for Blue Box, a cloud computing startup, and led the finance and administration team through the acquisition and integration by IBM. Sadie is an advisor for multiple early stage startups, including Franklin, Distinkt and Jetson, and is an Entrepreneur in Residence and mentor for the Barcelona Technology Transfer Group at IESE Business School.

As a Partner at Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP, Dave provides pragmatic, business-savvy counsel to investment managers and their funds. He advises clients on the formation and structure of domestic and offshore investment funds, separately managed accounts, and management company matters, as well as marketing and investor relations. Dave represents a wide variety of funds, across asset classes and ranging in size from start-ups to multibillion-dollar firms. He has deep experience working with digital asset funds and is the creator and host of Tokens of Wisdom, a bite-sized podcast discussing the legal loopholes in forming, launching, and running a private investment fund, including considerations unique to digital asset/crypto funds.

Dave received his undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California and his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. He is admitted to practice in California and Massachusetts.

Michael So is the Head of Deal Execution at Oasis Pro. Oasis Pro brings an efficient, regulated approach to the digital securities markets with a range of services that include a platform for new issuance and regulated ATS for secondary trading, APIs that bring digital capabilities to traditional operations, tokenization services that bring issuers and investors next-gen, digital capabilities, and transfer agent services to integrate traditional and digital operations seamlessly.

Michael has a broad range of experience across the digital asset space. He was Co-Founder of Okra Finance, Head of Business Development at Cook Finance, Head of Tokenization at Atomyze, and Project Manager at Gemini. Michael began his career at traditional financial institutions including Bank of America, HSBC, RBS, Scotia Bank, and Barclays. He received his BA from Cornell University.

Dana Syracuse, a partner in Paul Hastings’ Fintech & Global Payments practice, focuses his practice on the blockchain, fintech, e-commerce, and financial services sectors, working with clients on regulatory, business and product counseling, cyber and data security, and enforcement concerns.

Dana is the former associate general counsel for the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and a leading figure in the development of the country’s first comprehensive digital currency regulation. He works with a range of fintech and digital business clients on federal and state regulatory, licensing, compliance and enforcement matters, complex bank regulatory issues, including privacy, data, cyber security, anti-money laundering, Bank Secrecy Act and Know-Your-Customer matters, consumer protection, and contract drafting and negotiations. He frequently interacts with lawmakers at the state and federal level on these issues, including testifying before the United States House of Representatives on the future of virtual currency and blockchain regulation.

With nearly two decades of practice as a Cayman Islands lawyer, Matt Taber is a highly accomplished lawyer with Harneys, based in their Cayman office. He is widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable transactional lawyers in the region, with a wealth of expertise in a range of areas that are critical to the Cayman Islands and global investment and financial services industry. Matt’s experience includes advising clients on all aspects of investment funds and investment management, and subscription finance and fund finance for many of the top lenders in the field. He also has extensive knowledge in mergers and acquisitions, early-stage financing, and the regulation and licensing of financial services firms in the Cayman Islands. Additionally, he is well-versed in the rapidly evolving area of virtual assets. Matt is an active member of the board of the Cayman Islands chapter of AIMA and has previously served as the secretary of the Blockchain Association of the Cayman Islands.

Benjamin Tsai is the President Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Wave Digital Assets where he oversees product development and trading for the firm. A veteran in both the Web3 and traditional finance space, Ben is also the co-founder of LA Blockchain Lab and holds over 15 years of senior leadership experience at Merrill Lynch Asia and Alliance Bernstein where he led business strategy and managed profitable distribution teams across Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, and Taipei.

Tony is a Principal in KPMG LLP’s Alternative Investment Tax practice and leader of the firm’s digital asset tax practice. He has more than 25 years of experience in tax and is responsible for tax structuring and tax advisory services for a broad range of asset management clients including hedge funds, crypto funds, fund of funds, private equity, and venture capital funds. Tony also has expertise in the taxation of financial products, digital assets, and complex capital markets transactions.

Anjan Vinod is a Vice President at ParaFi Capital where he focuses on token and venture investments in the blockchain space. ParaFi is a leading crypto-native investment and technology firm founded in 2018, focused on token, venture, and quantitative strategies. Anjan focuses on the DeFi, Real World Asset, and infrastructure verticals. Prior to joining ParaFi in 2019, Anjan spent three years working in operations, strategy, and research roles in the blockchain space. He holds a B.S from U.C Berkeley.

Marianne Winkler is the Tax Director at a16z crypto. She officially joined a16z on June 1, 2018 after serving as a Tax Consultant at a16z from November 2016 to May 2018. In addition to crypto, Marianne is also a CPA and J.D. and is a valuable resource on firm-wide tax matters. Marianne graduated from University of San Diego School of Law. Her experience encompasses both finance and tax positions in the Alternative Asset industry in private industry and public accounting. She has served as the Chief Financial Officer of a hedge fund ($2BAUM), venture fund ($500M AUM), and private equity fund ($1B AUM). Additionally, she was instrumental in forming one of the first peer-to-peer credit funds in the industry. Prior to joining a16z, Marianne was a Tax Director in the Venture and Private Equity Tax practices of PricewaterhouseCoopers and BDO Siedman. She is currently on the Tax Working Group of the Crypto Council for Innovation. During her free time, Marianne enjoys hiking, yoga, cooking, and lots of entertaining.

Alex Witt, CFA is General Partner at Verda Ventures, a $30m venture fund focused on real world asset infrastructure, and Director at APF focused on real world asset debt capital. He was previously CFO at the Celo Foundation, a carbon-negative, Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain ecosystem building permissionless infrastructure for the new digital economy. Prior to joining the Celo Foundation, Alex co-founded the SWFT Blockchain payments platform (exited) as CFO. He started his career in investment research at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

Alex holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics (LSE) and Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management, as well as being a CFA Charterholder.