Monday, November 15

Welcome Breakfast & Networking

Greeting & Welcome

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

Michael Ippolito is a co-founder at Blockworks in charge of content and finance.&nbsp; Previously to co-founding Blockworks, Michael was a consultant where he advised mid-market manufacturing-focused companies on operational and capital efficiency as well as M&amp;A strategy.

Michael Ippolito

Fireside Chat: LMAX Group 

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

Marc P. Bernegger is a Board Member of Crypto Finance AG, Vice Chairman of Crypto Finance (Brokerage) AG, and a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded the party platform usgang.ch in his 20s, and later sold it to Axel Springer Media. Marc is also the co-founder of amiando, a ticketing platform, which was purchased by Xing. Marc has been active as a fintech investor since 2010 and explored bitcoin in 2012. Today, he is also a Board Member of CfC St. Moritz and Swiss Blockchain Federation, and he is the Chairman of Longevity Investors. He was named “Global Technology Pioneer” by the World Economic Forum (WEF).



Marc holds a master’s degree in law from the University of Zurich and is an alumni of the Executive Programme at Singularity University.

Marc P. Bernegger

TOBAM has been multi-awarded over the years, and Yves Choueifaty has notably been recognized as “Chief Investment Officer of the Year” in 2015 (Funds Europe) and “Asset Management Leader of the Year” in France in 2016 (AGEFI). As one of the pioneers of the smart beta movement, Yves Choueifaty is a frequent speaker at conferences and is a member of The 300 Club (23 members throughout the world), whose mission is to raise awareness about the potential impact of current market thinking and behaviors. Mr Choueifaty graduated in 1992 from ENSAE (leading French Engineering School) in Statistics, Actuarial studies, Finance, and Artificial Intelligence. 



Mathematician and Former CEO of Credit Lyonnais Asset Management (“CLAM”, AUM €70B). Having spent over 10 years with CLAM in diverse senior roles (CIO, Head of Financial Engineering and Quantitative Investment Management), Mr Choueifaty left in 2004, went back to Mathematics research and founded the Maximum Diversification ® approach and TOBAM in 2005. 



Mr Choueifaty is also a committed entrepreneur on human rights and climate change challenges. He has several external commitments: he is the president of the advisory board of WeNow, a “climate neutral now” champion endorsed by the United Nations. He is also a board member of the Saint-Joseph University foundation in Lebanon, a board member of the RDCL (Association of Lebanese businessmen and women united by a common vision for the Lebanese economy), and Yves Choueifaty is a member of the Paris Committee of the NGO Human Rights Watch since 2019.

Yves Choueifaty

Michael Hall is the Chief Investment Officer and Founder of Nickel Digital Asset Management Ltd. From 2016 to 2019 Mr Hall worked with a Swiss-based wealth manager to advise on macro and digital asset arbitrage portfolios, including, from July 2018, managing a digital asset arbitrage strategy for the founder of one of London’s largest hedge funds. From 2011 to 2015 Mr Hall pursued entrepreneurial projects in the financial industry including macro and fixed income hedge fund and fund of funds advisory and automated market-making and trading strategies. From July 2005 to November 2010 Mr Hall set up and managed the Texel Macro fund, a liquid fund trading a relative value arbitrage strategy, which generated returns of over 20% in 2008. From December 2002 until February 2005, Mr Hall was a senior trader at a large Spanish Macro Fund, trading a US$200 million allocation of its Relative Value Fund. From November 1999 to December 2002 Mr Hall was co-founder and President of Metapack, a java software company whose clients include Boots plc, John Lewis and other large UK retailers. In 2018 MetaPack was sold for £175 million. From 1992 to 1999 Mr Hall worked as a trader in the Fixed Income Arbitrage group of Bankers Trust New York (Bankers Trust was taken over by Deutsche Bank in 1999). He ran a proprietary trading book focusing on relative value opportunities in the G10 countries producing average annual returns of over 18 percent. He also managed risk for multi-billion dollar mortgage, asset-backed and municipal bond portfolios. Mr Hall received a degree in Electronic Engineering (1st class) from the University of Manchester (UK) in 1986 and an MBA in Finance from Wharton Business School.

Michael Hall

Perspectives from the Buy Side: Inside the Bull Market

Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer is an expert in the field of banking and one of the foremost authorities on transaction banking regulatory and innovation in financial technology matters. After a distinguished career of over a decade with Citi, Ruth is now an independent Non-Executive Director on the boards of the London Stock Exchange Group, Permanent TSB and Pendo Systems Inc. She is also a Partner at Gauss Ventures, Senior Adviser at KPMG’s UK Banking Practice and Adviser at Coinfirm. She continues to focus her passion on bringing the financial industry and the emerging financial digital ecosystem together. Ruth was named as one of 2010s ‘Rising Stars’ by Financial News; named in Management Today’s 2011 ‘35 Women under 35’ list of women to watch and identified as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Finance 2012 by the Treasury Risk Magazine. She received the ‘Women in Banking and Finance Award for Achievement’ in 2015 and in 2016, 2017 and 2018 she was named on the global ‘Women in Fintech Powerlist’ of Innovate Finance. In 2018 she became one of the Top 10 Global Fintech Influencers (Fintech Power 50). She speaks five languages, has completed studies in Financial Economics (MA, UK), International Politics (MA, FR), an LLM in International Economic Law (UK) and a PhD in Finance (UK/NL). She published two books: “EU Payments Integration” (2010) and “Transaction Banking and the Impact of Regulatory Change” (2014), is a Fellow of CASS Business School City University London, a Visiting Professor at the London Institute of Banking and Finance and also lectures at Queen Mary London School of Law.

Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer

Julian Sawyer is the CEO of Bitstamp where he leads the global team and is in charge of the company’s overall strategy and vision. Julian brings 30 years of experience in financial services and&nbsp; consulting, as well as hands-on experience building finance companies from the group up. Prior to Bitstamp, Julian worked as Gemini’s Managing Director for Europe.&nbsp;



Prior to that, Julian built an extensive career in traditional finance as the co-founder of Starling Bank, where he served as Chief Operating Officer until 2019, overseeing the expansion of business services and growing Starling into one of the largest mobile banks in the U.K. Before Starling, Julian founded Bluerock Consulting, a financial management consulting firm where he advised challenger banks, and eventually, successfully sold.



Julian is also an advisor to the board of the leading Australian challenger bank, Volt, and an Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow at CASS Business School’s Faculty of Management.

Julian Sawyer

Previn Singh is Head of the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Centre of Competency within the Investment Bank (IB) at Credit Suisse. His areas of focus are the development of Digital Assets, DLT usage Front-to-Back within the banking ecosystem and the development of Digital Assets &amp; DLT Strategy. He has over 28 years change, transformation &amp; innovation management experience. Prior to Credit Suisse he was at Deutsche Bank where he was the global Business Architect across various functions such as Risk, Finance, Liquidity Management, Operations and Trade Management. In his time there he helped drive the transformation of these functions in line with their strategic objectives. Before that he was responsible for similar work at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. He came to business transformation and innovation via an early career as a Business Analyst, Project Manager and Programme Director. Previn has a First Class degree in Civil Engineering from Queen Mary College, University of London and an MSc in Engineering gained with Distinction from Imperial College. He also holds an MBA from Imperial College Business School. He is married and has 2 children.

Previn Singh

Stephen Richardson has multiple years of experience in both traditional and crypto-focused financial institutions. Stephen’s role at Fireblocks involves structuring, developing, and evaluating strategic opportunities with traditional financial services and native digital asset companies that align with the growth of the Fireblocks platform. Prior to Fireblocks, he was Senior Manager in the Financial Services practice of Accenture Strategy, focused on transforming customer experience and digital enablement programs for leading Financial Services firms. Prior to Accenture, he was Head of Strategy and Head of Product (Business) for Noble Markets, where he evaluated and implemented key strategic objectives, including development of Noble’s banking and trade settlement products. He holds a B.A. from Cornell University and MBA from Washington University in St. Louis.

Stephen Richardson

Andrew is focusing on strategy, design principles, assessing capabilities &amp; technologies, and creating a CBDC and Digital Currencies suite of products and services for FIS to support full payments value chain, including central infrastructure and applications.



Before joining FIS, Andrew worked for Accenture where he was their strategy and business offering deputy for CBDC and digital assets. Andrew has sold and delivered CBDC projects with central banks and other financial market infrastructure players. Including leading a CBDC innovation project at SWIFT, where he advised how CBDC could impact their business and defined new roles SWIFT could play, developing associated use cases and experiments. Andrew then successfully led a development team to test a cross-border CBDC experiment for SWIFT.



At Accenture Andrew also contributed to CBDC and digital assets point of views and consultation responses. During his time at Accenture he was part of the blockchain practice, where he worked on several DLT initiatives including a government blockchain payments proof of concept.



Andrew’s background is in payments and financial services. Before moving into CBDC Andrew co-led a payments discovery and future payments programme for a UK government department and worked for a large UK bank supporting various payments change and industry initiatives.



Andrew has project and programme management, product and design thinking experience. Andrew holds a BSc (Hons) in International Business Finance and Economics from the University of Manchester.

Andrew Turner

Central Bank Digital Currencies, Stablecoins and Dollarization

Coffee Break & Networking

Dmitry Tokarev started his career as a Quant, having graduated from Imperial College, London, with a Distinction in Risk Management and Financial Engineering. He later helped to build an asset management firm as its CTO and as a partner. It was there he observed a gap in the market forCopper.co, as he found there were no feasible options available to institutional investors in the crypto space that allowed for the necessary security, control and speed of storing crypto assets. The firm has since grown to service more than 300 clients, across 3 offices and 120 staff

Dmitry Tokarev

Fireside Chat: Every Rose Has Its Thorns: Security Vulnerabilities In Crypto Infrastructure

David Olsson is the Global Head of Institutional Distribution at BlockFi.&nbsp; He started his career in proprietary trading at a hedge fund, Caxton, and later moved to Merrill Lynch where he spent time in New York and London and was responsible for a structured financing and structured products desk.&nbsp; In London he built a team from the ground up, and launched several businesses including a managed account platform for fund-linked derivatives. He then moved to Credit Suisse, where he also led a team in Equity Derivatives, and then was asked to spearhead an effort focussing on sophisticated UHNW clients in its Private Banking department. He graduated from Duke University with a BA in Philosophy, and Columbia University with an MBA.

David Olsson

Chris Harmse, Managing Director at BVNK (<a href="https://www.bvnk.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">www.bvnk.com</a>) has a decade’s experience in analyzing and trading financial markets to identify investment and commercial opportunities across multiple asset classes for corporate and private clients.  In that time, he has held trading, analyst and fund management roles with BNP Paribas, Centaur Asset Management, Excelsia Capital and Asymmetry Asset Management. Clients benefit from his diverse cross-asset experience which allows him to tune out the noise, understand the macro drivers and identify commercial and product opportunities. He is a <a>Chartered Financial Analyst</a> who holds a postgraduate degree in Investment Management. Chris began his career as an equity trader at Renaissance Capital, before joining the buy-side team of Rezco Asset Management, where he focused on preserving clients’ capital, while creating wealth. As an equity analyst Chris has focused on deep analytical research, equity valuation, and financial modeling.  His experience as a buy-side equity analyst highlighted how digital asset infrastructure can be applied to reduce the inefficiencies of traditional financial services and improve on incumbent business models. In 2014, he joined BNP Paribas, working in the London and Johannesburg offices, with responsibility for marketing and structuring financial products for institutional clients and multinational corporates. In 2017, he joined Asymmetry Asset Management as a hedge fund analyst and partner where he helped to set-up and manage a crypto asset fund.  Chris joined Coindirect in May 2020 where he built the cryptocurrency and FX OTC desk, in addition to playing a key role in the ongoing scope and development of the business’ strategic product roadmap. Chris is also the P&amp;L lead for several core product lines.  Most recently, Chris has joined the BVNK team - working out of the London office as Managing Director. Chris is leveraging his extensive industry experience to bring BVNK’s digital asset banking platform to market to address a critical and exciting sector gap.

Chris Harmse

Leon Marshall is Managing Director, CEO of Galaxy Europe, and Global Head of Sales at Galaxy Digital. Previously Marshall led the global sales team at Genesis Global Trading and was responsible for accelerating Genesis’ client acquisition and revenue expansion strategy. Marshall began his career on the sell-side at UBS as a commodity options trader. He subsequently held senior portfolio management roles at Swiss commodities firm Trafigura and US private equity firm Apollo Management. Prior to Galaxy, Marshall also served as an advisor on strategy and business development and co-authored blockchain research papers for crypto firms in London and Berlin. Marshall holds an MBA and is a recipient of the Sari Scholarship from London Business School. He also holds a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics &amp; Economics from the University of Oxford.

Leon Marshall

From 2014 to 2016, Charlie Meraud worked on a Credit and Forex Solutions Sales desk where he traded about €750M per year mainly in repo, forex and interest rates with CEEMEA clients ranging from banks to assets managers and insurers. 



After that, he was part of the launch team of Blackfin Capital Partners venture fund which raised €180M to invest in European fintech startups from early stage seed to Series B. He then launched Woorton in 2018, becoming the leader in providing liquidity in crypto assets in continental Europe.  



He’s a graduate of Paris Dauphine University with a MSc in Applied Economics and Financial Engineering.

Charlie Meraud

Sam Reynolds is a journalist covering the dynamic and exciting Asia market for Blockworks. As a FOIA fiend, he also enjoys through government filings for scoops. Before joining Blockworks, Sam was an analyst with IDC covering the gaming and personal computer market from Taipei.

Sam Reynolds

The Market for Institutional Lending in Digital Assets

Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie has led a highly technical career in finance technology, forming a robust platform for solutions architecture and fintech innovation. He has helped Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Barclays Investment Bank (2004-15) and Lloyds Commercial Bank bring a number of strategic and tactical projects to fruition as a hands-on SME in derivative instruments, regulations and technology. After nearly 20 years in investment banking Oliver founded BCB Group where his mission is to accelerate global adoption of digital assets as money, as ownership and as a commodity of value.

Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie

Peter McCormack is a full-time podcaster and filmmaker covering topics such as Freedom, Human Rights, Censorship and Bitcoin. Peter created and hosts the What Bitcoin Did Podcast, a twice-weekly Bitcoin podcast where he interviews experts in the world of Bitcoin development, privacy, investment and adoption. Launched in November of 2017, the podcast has grown to over 350 episodes with a guest list that is a testament to the diversity of knowledge and opinions that represent the broader Bitcoin community.

Peter McCormack

Fireside Chat: Gradually Then Suddenly: The Disruption of Global Finance 

Lunch & Networking

Boris Bohrer-Bilowitzki

Chris Tyrer

Jason Guthrie is Head of Digital Assets for WisdomTree in Europe. Guthrie oversees WisdomTree’s digital assets efforts which include bringing new products to market, identifying opportunities to enhance existing products, driving distributions strategies, and leading on client education and engagement on cryptocurrencies. He is responsible for efforts beyond the traditional product set and is actively pushing the digital asset agenda by pursuing alternative and strategic projects. Previously Guthrie was head of Capital Markets for WisdomTree in Europe for 4 years, where his team was responsible for ensuring clients had a smooth trade execution experience. Prior to joining WisdomTree, Guthrie worked at Deutsche Bank’s ETF Capital Markets group as well as Macquarie Bank as an Investment Executive based in Sydney, Australia. Jason holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) from Macquarie University in Sydney.

Jason Guthrie

Alexandre Kech is Director, Blockchain &amp; Digital Asset at Citi Ventures Studio. Alex‘s team researches, engages and experiments on emerging use cases for blockchain technologies and digital assets. 



Over the past 25 years, Alex has constructed a unique career combining finance at BNY Mellon, payments/securities infrastructure and standards at SWIFT, and blockchain and digital assets at Onchain Custodian. As CEO of the Singapore-based company he co-founded, he led the building from scratch of a custody and prime brokerage service for crypto and other digital assets. 



Alex is also involved in industry initiatives. He is the convenor of the ISO TC 68 / SC8 / WG3 which produced the ISO 24165 Digital Token Identifier (DTI). In that capacity, he is a member of the DTI Foundation Product Advisory Committee. He also recently served as co-chair of the Global Digital Finance (gdf.io) custody working group.

Alexandre Kech

The Future of Financial Services and Digital Assets

Jakob is the global CEO of crypto market maker GSR. Prior to joining GSR, he was Head of EMEA business at Two Sigma Investments and a board director of Two Sigma International. He has over a decade of experience developing business and investment solutions in systematic investment management, including roles at Winton Capital Management and Barclays Global Investors (BGI).

Jakob Palmstierna

Joseph Edwards is the Head of Research of Enigma Securities, and heads up Enigma's wide range of scheduled and bespoke research products, and is regularly called upon in the media for his expertise on market structure and sentiment analysis. Prior to Enigma, Joseph was an acclaimed professional esports coach and analyst, working with a number of notable organisations including TSM and Team Liquid. He holds a B.A. from Oxford University and a M.A. from King’s College London.

Joseph Edwards

Charlie is Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Markets at&nbsp;<a href="https://t.sidekickopen45.com/s3t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7kF8bGmZGW5nD3nR2zGCwVN8Jbw_8QsLnMW1SJ5lT2zGG2zN56dTT71XHR0102?te=W3R5hFj26QkG-W3ZZmPc3F7xMDw41ppYL48S2&amp;si=8000000000109225&amp;pi=ddbd0f04-2709-4d94-9587-863c490f14f8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockchain.com</a>&nbsp;where he is responsible for firmwide strategy, commercial development, and&nbsp;<a href="https://t.sidekickopen45.com/s3t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7kF8bGmZGW5nD3nR2zGCwVN8Jbw_8QsLnMW1SJ5lT2zGG2zN56dTT71XHR0102?te=W3R5hFj26QkG-W3ZZmPc3F7xMDw41ppYL48S2&amp;si=8000000000109225&amp;pi=ddbd0f04-2709-4d94-9587-863c490f14f8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockchain.com</a>’s markets businesses.&nbsp; Charlie is a proven fixed income professional with deep trading and business building experience across emerging markets, corporate credit, credit derivatives trading, structured finance, and mortgages.&nbsp; Following a relocation in London in 2009, Goldman named Charlie to its exclusive partnership in 2012 as a result of his leadership of the build-out of its highly successful post-financial-crisis European mortgages business.&nbsp; In 2014 he assumed a senior role in Goldman’s commodity department as Global Head of Metals trading, overseeing all base and precious metals activities globally. In 2016 he decided that a fuller embrace of disruptive technologies would be a requirement to be best positioned for transitions in markets over the coming decades, and craving deep hands-on experience in tech entrepreneurship, machine learning, and electronic trading, he left Goldman to join Stratagem Technologies, a London-based AI sports prediction company he had previously seeded, as Chairman and CEO. &nbsp; By 2018, Charlie had decided that a pivot to digital assets was the optimal strategy to best deploy Stratagem’s technical capabilities, and the team began serious work on crypto markets.&nbsp; Stratagem caught the attention of&nbsp;<a href="https://t.sidekickopen45.com/s3t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7kF8bGmZGW5nD3nR2zGCwVN8Jbw_8QsLnMW1SJ5lT2zGG2zN56dTT71XHR0102?te=W3R5hFj26QkG-W3ZZmPc3F7xMDw41ppYL48S2&amp;si=8000000000109225&amp;pi=ddbd0f04-2709-4d94-9587-863c490f14f8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockchain.com</a>&nbsp;and was acquired in October 2018 to bring Charlie and the team aboard.



He holds a BA in Economics and Mathematics from Yale University, and graduated&nbsp;magna cum laude&nbsp;with distinction.&nbsp; Originally from Minnesota, Charlie spent many years in New York and currently lives in London with his family.

Charlie McGarraugh

Guillaume Chatain is the Head of Institutional Sales EMEA at Coinbase. Prior to joining Coinbase he was the Founder and CEO at ResonanceX, a VC backed digital broker-dealer having launched the first Structured Product to clear, settle and receive custody on a public blockchain. Guillaume also spent a decade in traditional finance, as a Managing Director for J.P. Morgan Private Bank where he advised UHNW clients on large derivatives and financing transactions, and oversaw client solutions and product development for all types of equity and derivatives investments distributed in the Asia-Pacific region.



Guillaume is a CFA charterholder, an Aerospace engineer and he holds a MBA from Columbia Business School.

Guillaume Chatain

Casey Wagner is a New York-based business journalist covering digital assets and macro economics. Prior to joining Blockworks, she reported on markets at Bloomberg News. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Media Studies.

Casey Wagner

Institutional Market Access and Prime Brokerage

Mariana Gospodinova is the General Manager of European Operations for Crypto.com, where she leads the market strategy, operations, business development and partnerships, and product commercialisation for the company across the continent. Previously, Mariana was COO of Binance Europe, where she oversaw operations and looked after the successful launch of the crypto to fiat exchange and other local initiatives. Mariana has significant experience in the payment industry in Europe, with leadership roles in operations at companies including Paysafe and SysPay, focusing on building up a payment platform in line with regulatory and card scheme requirements. Prior to Binance, Mariana held leadership roles in the payment industry with European companies including Skril (now Paysafe) and SysPay, focusing on building up a payment platform in line with regulatory and card scheme requirements.

Mariana Gospodinova

Casper is a Co-Founder of Spartan Group and Co-Head of Spartan’s Advisory business. Spartan advises leading crypto-focused companies on M&amp;A and fundraising, with past clients including Solana, Dapper Labs, Blockfolio, Bybit/BitDAO, GoJek, Deribit and Blockstack. Spartan’s crypto asset management business manages >$350 million via its hedge funds and venture funds. Based in Asia since 2004, Casper has worked as an investment banker, tech entrepreneur, corporate executive and private equity investor. Prior to co-founding Spartan in 2017, Casper spent 10 years in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs in their London, Hong Kong, Beijing and Singapore offices, where he led and worked on more than $20 billion of M&amp;A and capital markets transactions.

Casper B. Johansen

Mounir Benchemled

Fireside Chat: Roadmap for Scaling an Exchange: CeFi vs. DeFi

Piers Ridyard is CEO of Radix DLT (<a href="http://radixdlt.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">radixdlt.com</a>). Radix is the only decentralized network where developers will be able to build quickly without the constant threat of exploits and hacks, where every improvement will get rewarded, and where scale will never be a bottleneck. Piers also founded and exited Surematics, a YCombinator company, and was mining on the genesis block of Ethereum in July of 2015. Piers graduated from the University of Manchester and the University of Law, and has a CFA level 1.

Piers Ridyard

Dotun currently heads emerging technology globally for the capital markets division of LSEG. He's responsible for steering adoption of blockchain and DLT across the group’s capital markets businesses as well as being part of the wider cross-divisional leadership around digital asset strategy and engagements with the wider capital markets landscape through strategic partnerships and external initiatives. He has a combined 16+ year career history in video games and financial services (derivatives trading &amp; quantitative market-making infrastructure &amp; execution), with expertise that includes software engineering and architecture, product design and delivery, blockchain and DLT, high performance computing as well as real-time and scalable distributed systems. Dotun has been deeply immersed in distributed ledger technology professionally at multiple levels (development, architecture, product &amp; executive leadership) over the past ~6.5 years with executive roles in two commercial ventures over ~3.5 years prior to joining the LSEG.

Dotun Rominiyi

Andrew Gastwirth is the Chief Innovation Officer at DLA Piper. He has 30+ years of experience developing enterprise strategy and delivering solutions across Fortune 500 companies and Public Sector Agencies. Andrew came to DLA Piper in 2017 to drive the Digital Transformation strategy at the firm and reimagine the legal industry by adopting emerging technologies and new approaches to delivering legal and consulting services. Andrew is the Lead Technologist for the DLA Piper/Aldersgate TOKO asset-tokenization platform and is a Chairman of the Hedera Hashgraph Enterprise Alliance. Before arriving at DLA Piper, Andrew was a Principal Digital Advisor at Microsoft. He designed and delivered  Blockchain, Internet of Things, and Artificial Intelligence solutions for supply-chain, manufacturing, and trade compliance for customers in various industries, including Financial Services, Energy, US Federal Agencies, the US Department of Defense, and the Defense Industrial Base.

Andrew Gastwirth

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Alexey Demyanov is a Managing Director within BofA Securities at Bank of America. Part of the EMEA Structuring team, he focuses on Digital Assets initiatives across Global Markets.&nbsp;



After starting his career as the Quantitative Analyst within the Structured Rates business, Alexey set up a business area of credit, liquidity and balance sheet optimization – focusing, among other things, on systematically identifying the opportunities to increase the efficiency of &nbsp;the macro business.



Alexey acquired an MSc in Mathematics at St-Petersburg State University (Russia) and holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from International School for Advanced Sciences (SISSA, in Trieste, Italy).

Alexey Demyanov

Tyrone is the Head of Onyx Digital Assets, a multi-asset tokenization platform that enables the exchange of value for various types of digital assets. Tyrone also leads J.P. Morgan’s Blockchain team where he is responsible for creating innovative Web3-focused products &amp; solutions for J.P. Morgan’s businesses and clients, and for engaging with the industry at large in order to provide a holistic blockchain strategy for the firm. Tyrone was previously a Senior Blockchain Product Manager in J.P. Morgan’s Blockchain Center of Excellence and was also the Head of Product for Quorum, an open-sourced Ethereum-based blockchain platform built for Enterprise use. Prior to moving into the blockchain industry in 2015, Tyrone was a software engineer within J.P. Morgan's Credit Markets business, and before that he spent several years in Product transformation, managing and delivering large strategic programs across various businesses within J.P. Morgan, across Front, Middle and Back Office risk and trading systems. Tyrone sits on the Board of Directors of The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

Tyrone Lobban

Tokenization and the Future of Capital Markets

Closing Remarks 

Networking Reception

VIP & Speaker Dinner 

Tuesday, November 16

Greeting & Welcome Back 

Thomas Uhm is a part of Jane Street’s Global Crypto Institutional Sales &amp; Trading team. In this role, Tom coordinates activity between the crypto asset trading desk and external parties. He focuses on issues related to strategy, infrastructure, education and execution for both crypto-focused and traditional financial firms



Tom joined Jane Street in 2003 trading ADRs before moving to the London office in 2006. During his tenure in the UK, he has continued to work with the equities team while also working with ETFs, commodities, and cryptocurrencies.



Tom holds a BS in Political Science from the University of Illinois. He grew up in Chicago and misses the food there terribly. He moved to New York to become an actor, before switching to his career in trading.

Thomas Uhm

Abhishek Jain

Fireside Chat: Jane Street & DRW

Angus Fletcher is senior Commercial and Regulatory advisor at Fnality. Prior to joining Fnality, Angus has spent the last 25 years working in regulatory reform and post-trade services for a number of global financial institutions; Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, SWIFT, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. He has been and continues to be an industry advocate for change and improvement.

Angus Fletcher

Richard is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Fabric Ventures. Fabric backs the founders of the Open Economy, investing in Web 3 builders, businesses and digital assets since 2012. Fabric invested in Polkadot, Ocean Protocol, Orchid, Sorare, 1inch, The Graph, and NEAR.



Richard combines a pedigree in open source, developer-oriented tools, and early stage venture investing with blockchain focus since 2012, and has invested in Pantera Venture Fund I, Bitstamp, Bitrise, Tray.io, TransferWise, and Citymapper. Richard has previously exited 3 software companies as an entrepreneur reaching a cumulative market cap of $2.2bn.

Richard Muirhead

Ioana Surpateanu is Chief Strategy Officer at DIA Association and Principal for DIALabs, a vehicle designed to support the DeFi ecosystem development, empower women in emerging tech and enable partnerships with entities on the traditional side of the spectrum as well as regulators and policymakers. She is also an Executive Board member of the Multichain Asset Managers Association ( MAMA), a global community of organizations working to transform asset management through blockchain technology. Prior to joining DIA, Ioana was Co-Head of European Gov’t Affairs and Innovation Strategy lead for Citi, where she coordinated the policymaker interaction on emerging tech and crypto. In addition, she seconded into Citi’s markets infrastructure investments team to work on FinTech investments. In parallel, she was Vice-chair of the European Parliament Outreach Task Force in AmCham EU. In that capacity, she led the EU Institutions outreach strategy with focus on high-profile political leaders throughout Europe. She joined Citi from the European Parliament where she was Head of Cabinet for the VP of the European People’s Party (EPP) Group and senior adviser on issues related to the digital single market (DSM), EU budget and the inception of the European fund for strategic investments (EFSI). Ioana holds two master’s degrees on politics, economics and international relations from the University of Tel Aviv and University of Bucharest . She appears on Innovate Finance’s WIF Powerlist and was shortlisted for the WIBF Tech Star Award. She is a competitive skier, occasional Kart racer and Formula One aficionado

Ioana Surpateanu

The Investment Case for DeFi

Anne joined Fidelity International as CEO in December 2018 from M&amp;G Investments where she was CEO and a director of its parent company Prudential plc. &nbsp;Anne was appointed a Director of FIL Limited in September 2019.&nbsp; She has worked in the asset management industry since 1992. Anne has almost three decades of experience as an analyst, portfolio manager and CIO and is a strong proponent of ESG investing.&nbsp; Her career path spans many blue chip global names in the financial sector including Alliance Capital, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and Aberdeen Asset Management. &nbsp;



Anne is a Chartered Engineer and began her career as a research fellow at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. &nbsp;She is a former chair of the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s Practitioner Panel.



Anne was appointed a Dame Commander (DBE) in June 2021 for services to Financial Services, Women, Education and Science.&nbsp;



Anne holds an MBA from INSEAD and a BSc (Hons) from the University of Edinburgh. &nbsp;She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and holds an honorary degree from Heriot-Watt University.

Anne Richards, DBE

Tom Jessop is the President of Fidelity Digital Assets. In this role, Tom is responsible for daily business operations while directing the company’s long-term vision to create a fullservice institutional brokerage capability for native digital assets like bitcoin and tokenized securities. 



Tom joined Fidelity in January 2018 as Head of Corporate Business Development. In this role, he led a team focused on identifying and executing strategic opportunities including acquisitions, divestitures, strategic investments, and partnerships. Tom joined Fidelity from Chain, a leading provider of enterprise blockchain solutions to global financial institutions. In his role as president, Tom was responsible for all facets of Chain’s commercial strategy including sales, marketing, and strategic business development. 



Prior to joining Chain, Tom was global head of Technology Business Development at Goldman Sachs where he led efforts to invest in and partner with early stage technology companies across several enterprise domains including blockchain, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. 



Tom was also a founding member of and senior leader in Goldman’s Principal Strategic Investments group (PSI). In this role he managed a global team focused on investments in exchanges, e-trading platforms, post-trade networks, and other fintech solutions across the fixed-income, currency, commodity, and equity markets.



From 2008 to 2012 he built and led PSI’s Asia-Pacific efforts out of Hong Kong. In 2015 he was named to Institutional Investor’s inaugural “Fintech Finance 35” list. 



Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Tom held a variety of business and product leadership roles at Standard &amp; Poor’s. 



Tom holds an MBA in Finance from New York University and a BA in Economics from The College of the Holy Cross. He is a member of the Holy Cross Leadership Council of New York and serves as an advisor to the Digital Dollar Project. He is also a CFA charterholder.

Tom Jessop

Fireside Chat: Fidelity Digital Assets

Phil is Co-CEO of B2C2, the counterparty of choice in the institutional crypto markets. He joined the firm in 2018 to lead the firm’s expansion in Asia, successfully securing B2C2’s position as the number one foreign crypto liquidity provider in Japan. In 2020, B2C2 was acquired by Japanese financial group SBI. Previously, Phil worked at Goldman Sachs where he oversaw the FX G10 business and commodities trading for EMEA, as part of the systematic market making team. Prior to that, he was an FX voice and systematic trader at Barclays and JPMorgan. Phil holds a BSc in Industrial and System Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an MSc in Financial Engineering from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Phillip Gillespie

Omid leads Business Development&nbsp;for Matrixport across Europe. He was previously&nbsp;Sales Director at the London Stock Exchange Group within the capital markets trading division covering hedge funds and proprietary trading houses. Prior to that he was Vice President within ICAP's electronic broking division covering banks and the buy-side. Omid holds a BSc&nbsp;in Economics and Finance from the University of London and an MBA from Cass Business School.

Omid Zadeh

Tara is the CEO of Lantern Ventures, a digital currency trading firm with over $250 million under management. Lantern was founded on philanthropic principles, and 50% of founder profits are donated to high-impact charitable causes. Prior to founding Lantern, Tara was also a co-founder of Alameda Research. Before becoming a full-time trader, she was the CEO of the Center for Effective Altruism. Tara first started trading crypto while working in Indonesia in 2013, where she built models to settle invoice payments faster and cheaper than alternatives using BTC.

Tara MacAulay

Paul Woolman is an equity product specialist with over 20 years markets experience. Paul joined CME Group in 2016 as Senior Director, Head of EMEA Equity and Alternative Index Products. This involves managing the associated futures and options product suite and working with clients to help educate them and work on product solutions. Before joining CME Group, Paul was at BAML for over 10 years as a Delta 1 equity trader – managing exposure across futures, ETFs, swaps, structured products as well as cash equities and FX. This has provided him with a wealth of experience in the pricing, trading, structuring and risk management of equity index-based derivative products. Paul has an MBA from London Business School with a concentration in Finance and has previous experience of emerging market cash equity trading and asset management.

Paul Woolman

The Rise of Crypto Derivatives

Coffee Break & Networking 

Stani Kulechov is a thought leader in blockchain technology, smart contracts, decentralized finance and web3 social. From an early age, he became fascinated with using technology as a tool to solve problems, empower people, increase access and enable stronger human connection.&nbsp;



Stani is a pioneer in decentralized finance. While still in college, he created one of the first decentralized, peer-to-peer protocols on Ethereum. He then went on to found Aave Companies, a technology company that develops decentralized protocols, developer tools and consumer applications powered by blockchain, smart contracts and token-based economies.&nbsp;



The Company is best known for creating the Aave Protocol – one of the largest and most popular, fully decentralized liquidity markets in the world. Users of the Aave Protocol supply and borrow cryptocurrencies while earning yield. In 2022, the Company introduced Lens Protocol – the social layer for web3.&nbsp;

Stani Kulechov

Fireside Chat: Aave

With more than 120 blockchain startups financed, 12 investments including 3 direct ones, 8 indirect ones and 1 in a crypto VC fund for a global amount of nearly 40 million euros, Bpifrance is a key supporting player in the French blockchain ecosystem. Ivan coordinates this support and internal projects as we as a key financial services provider are directly impacted. He holds a computer science engineer degree and previously held several positions as innovation advisor.

Ivan De lastours

Andrew is Chief Compliance Officer at Zodia Markets, where he leads the compliance function including surveillance, financial crime and regulatory affairs across the organisation.



Zodia Markets is a digital asset exchange and brokerage by Standard Chartered and OSL. It combines institutional-grade levels of regulatory compliance, risk management, transparency and integrity with cutting-edge digital asset trading technology.



Previously, as Head of Global Authorisations at Revolut, Andrew built the Global Authorisations Department responsible for all regulatory applications from initial licence scoping through to becoming authorised and operational entities. Andrew started his career in financial services consulting at Accenture and PA Consulting before moving to the FCA to specialise in regulation, financial crime and supervision. At the FCA he was a Lead Supervisor for one of the UK’s largest wholesale banks as well as working closely with Markets Supervision. Moving into FinTech regulation, he worked with the FCA’s Innovation Hub to encourage and support ground-breaking financial products and services within the UK and abroad.



He holds a Master of Arts degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University.

Andrew Price

Shane leads the Investment Products division that provides products to improve the accessibility of cryptocurrency via traditional exchange-traded entities. The business launches its first product as a Bitcoin tracking certificate with the goal to roll out Structured Products on crypto assets via exchange-listed certificates. Prior to EQONEX, Shane was Managing Director at UBS, where he held various senior roles including Global Head of Solutions, Global Head of Equity Derivatives, and Global Head of Structuring. His businesses were awarded many of the industry’s top accolades including Best Equity Derivatives House and Best Structured Products House. Before UBS he held similar roles at RBS / ABN Amro and worked in derivatives at Deutsche Bank and at Macquarie Bank as well as a private hedge fund where he programmed and managed algorithmic trading models across liquid asset classes. Shane was the youngest-ever head of a major derivatives department, overseeing several hundred staff when he was 34 years old and was inducted into the Dow Jones Financial News ‘40 under 40 Hall of Fame’, having 6 years earlier been one of the youngest ever enlisted in the Dow Jones Top 100 Rising Stars in Finance. His academic work has been published in journals and won various accolades. He has regularly been cited by financial journalists and his work has been published in the Journal of Futures Markets, and Bloomsbury.

Shane Edwards

James joined AIMA in May 2019 as Director of Asset Management Regulation. Prior to joining AIMA, he worked at a leading Brussels-based consultancy, offering strategic communications support to predominantly financial services clients before returning to the UK at the end of 2013, to join the Government Relations team at U.S. insurer MetLife. During his time at MetLife, he led on public policy and advocacy programmes across the EMEA region. He retains deep knowledge of EU and UK political and regulatory systems as well as a detailed understanding of financial regulation. He previously worked at the Industry &amp; Parliament Trust, an organisation that works to promote the mutual understanding of Parliament and business and he holds a degree in Law (LLB Hons) from the College of Law. At AIMA, he co-leads their work on digital assets which is overseen by AIMA’s Digital Assets Working Group (AIMA DAWG).

James Delaney

Demetrios "Demo" Skalkotos is a New Jersey based senior executive specializing in enterprise technology solutions, operations leadership, and new product development. He is currently the SVP Global Head of Sales at Blockdaemon, an Institutional Grade Blockchain Infrastructure. As SVP Global Head of Sales, Demo leads business development and the ongoing roll out of Blockdaemon's&nbsp;expansion from the US, to Europe, and APAC.



Demo previously&nbsp;served in a similar role at Vault for Ledger SAS as well as the VP, Global Head of Desktop Solution &amp; Content Acquisition for the International Exchange (ICE). Prior to those roles, Demo worked as the Senior VP of Global&nbsp;Corporate Solutions for NASDAQ and other various roles.



Mr. Skalkotos holds a B.S. in Marketing and Information&nbsp;Systems and an M.S. in Information and Communication Services from Ball State University. Outside of his professional life, Demo focused on charitable and philanthropic activities and spending time with his family in New Jersey.

Demo Skalkotos

Institutional Participation and Regulation for Digital Assets

Travis Schwab is CEO of Austin-based Eventus Systems, Inc., a multi-award-winning global provider of trade surveillance and market risk solutions for financial institutions. For over 25 years, Travis has served in chief executive, compliance, sales and financial technology roles across the front, middle and back offices at a diverse set of organizations. Before founding Eventus, Travis was the CEO and Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) of RGM Securities, the broker-dealer subsidiary of one of the largest proprietary trading firms in the U.S. before its 2017 acquisition by DRW. Before RGM, he was Managing Director of Global Buyside Sales and CCO at Trading Technologies. Previously, Travis was Co-Head of North American eBrokerage Sales at Calyon Financial (currently Societe Generale). Earlier in his career, Travis had management roles at NYFIX, Inc. (currently Itiviti) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (now CME Group). He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Finance from Loyola University in Chicago.

Travis Schwab

James helped launch TradeStation Crypto’s offering which utilizes a true online brokerage model that self-directed investors and traders have come to expect for equities, futures, and foreign currency markets. He is a reputed crypto asset specialist and blockchain thought leader focused on helping people find innovative ways to participate in this space. He is active in the blockchain community with speaking engagements, TV appearances and mentoring. James has over 15 years of experience in the Fintech industry.

James Putra

Blair Halliday was recently appointed as Kraken’s UK Managing Director.



Prior to Kraken, Blair was the Head of UK for Gemini, responsible for its first expansion outside of the US.



Blair is an industry expert in regulatory compliance and anti-financial crime, and has held several senior compliance and executive positions including roles at Gemini, Circle, CashFlows, ICE and Paysafe Group. Before moving into the fintech and digital assets industries, Blair spent over a decade in various positions at the NatWest Group focused on tackling financial crime.

Blair Halliday

Former Derivatives trader at Optiver, Yoann is a serial entrepreneur investor who has invested in 60+ start ups / scale ups. He is the co-founder and Head of Business Development at Wintermute, a leading crypto market maker.

Yoann Turpin

Edd runs Institutional Trading for the Digital Asset Desk at Flow Traders, having previously set up and run cryptocurrency trading desks in the city of London. Edd brings 11+ years capital markets experience as well as specialist Crypto, and Blockchain knowledge. Edd is a member of a number of industry groups as well as a regular speaker at Crypto and Blockchain events.

Edd Carlton

Simon runs derivatives trading at QCP capital, the Singapore based crypto trading firm. He previously headed global options trading at BNP Paribas, and Standard Chartered where he was key in building the FX structured products market and developed the NDF option market. He also lectures in finance at the National University of Singapore and co-founded CORA - the OTC crypto dealers association.

Simon Nursey

Spot Market Structure: Exchanges, DEXs and AMMs

As the CEO of&nbsp;Nansen, Alex drives the growth and adoption of the blockchain data analytics firm to provide crypto traders, hedge funds, institutional investors and VCs with insights into the crypto markets. Alex has over 10 years of experience in data science, management consulting, and cryptocurrencies. His academic background is in artificial intelligence and machine learning.&nbsp;

Alex Svanevik

Martha is a veteran emerging markets specialist, with two decades of experience in capital markets, including sales and distribution and portfolio management, with a strong emphasis on equities research and macro analysis. Martha studied International Finance at Columbia University and has an undergraduate degree in International Relations, with a focus on trade and economics, She sees digital assets as the new frontier in investing, and is particularly interested in the potential for blockchain&nbsp;technology in developing nations.

Martha Reyes

Min Teo is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Ethereal Ventures, a leading crypto venture firm founded by Min and Joseph Lubin. Ethereal has 40+ portfolio companies globally, including Aleo, EigenLayer, Aztec Protocol, and SpruceID. Prior to Ethereal, Min led venture investments at ConsenSys, previously built a fintech company in the UK and started her career in private equity.

Min Teo

Matteo has spent over 35 years in various strategic and leadership roles across the asset management industry, which includes CEO of Pioneer Investments. Most recently, he was a non-executive director and Global Head of Key Clients &amp; Strategic Partners at Jupiter Asset Management, a $80 billion FTSE asset manager based in the UK. Matteo also founded alternative investment advisory boutique Hermes BPK, a joint venture with the British Telecom Pension Scheme. He also has extensive experience in the family office space, having served as Chairman of Secofind Multi-family Office.

Matteo Dante Perruccio

The Next Frontier: Defi, NFTs and the Metaverse

Daniel Masters is Executive Chairman of the CoinShares Group. Mr. Masters also co-founded Global Advisors, which notably launched GABI, a ﬁrst-of-its-kind, Jersey-based, actively managed bitcoin investment strategy in 2014. Prior to GABI, Global Advisors was previously responsible for the Global Advisors Commodity Investment Fund and the Global Advisors Commodity Systematic Fund. 



Mr. Masters began his career in Oil and Energy trading for Shell Oil, Solomon, and prior to co-founding Global Advisors in 1999, served as Global Head of Energy and Trading Business at Morgan Guaranty Trust Company (“MGT”) in New York (now JP Morgan Chase &amp; Co.). Mr. Masters has a BSc in Physics from Exeter University, a Masters in Management Science and Operational Research from Imperial College, and Graduate Certiﬁcation in Applied Statistics from Penn State University.

Daniel Masters

Jonathan Cheesman

Closing Fireside Chat: FTX & CoinShares

Closing Remarks

DAS After Party

<h2 class="wp-block-heading">DAS is the institutionally focused crypto conference for asset managers and financial services professionals.</h2>



Returning in 2021 as a two day, in person event, industry leaders from the world of finance and digital assets will gather to discuss crypto from the perspective of industry practitioners.

Panel Recordings

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Charlie Beach is currently Chief Risk Officer at EQONEX and has over twenty years’ experience in capital markets risk management and regulation in both traditional financial services and the digital asset industry.



Previously Charlie was Chief Operating Officer of one of the first institutional lending businesses for digital assets. Prior to this, he worked at IG Markets as Chief Risk Officer where he was responsible for overseeing IG’s risk management globally. &nbsp;At IG Markets, Charlie was introduced to the world of digital assets and became a keen advocate of distributed ledger technology.



Charlie has also worked at PwC, advising global capital markets clients on risk management and regulation, and at UBS as the Head of Operational Risk for the Investment Bank leading a global team providing independent second line control for the IB’s activities across all regions. &nbsp;Charlie began his career with five years in the British Army.

Charlie Beach

Agenda

Past Attendees

<h2>Join 100&#8217;s of your colleagues from the world of institutional finance.</h2>

Tickets

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General Group Passes (3+)

Upon completing your registration, your credentials will be reviewed and you can expect to hear back within 24 hours with approval. Upon arrival to DAS: London please prepare provide proof of vaccine or a negative COVID test taken within 72 hours. This will be required for entry.

Digital Asset Summit 2021 | London

DAS is the institutionally focused crypto conference for asset managers and financial services professionals.

Join 100’s of your colleagues from the world of institutional finance.

General Event Pass

VIP Event Pass

General Group Passes (3+)