A Lighthouse Executive Event Series on Blockchain, Distributed Ledgers and Smart Contracts.
Copyright 2016 Lighthouse Partners, Inc.
Retrospective - The Blockchain Conference 2016
Take a look back at the debut Blockchain Conference event ...
The following pages provide program, sponsor, speaker and media coverage information.
Presentations
Below you will find links to most* of the presentations ...
Video: Avoiding The Pointless Block Chain Project - Gideon Greenspan, Coin Sciences
Video: Block Chain Technology - U.K. Government Office For Science
SIX Valued Features and FIVE Disruptive Implications of Block Chain Technology - Spencer Bogart, Needham & Company
How to Make Block Chain Real for Business - John Wolpert, IBM
The Evolution of Trust - Judd Bagley, t0
An Ownership Layer for the Internet - Bruce Pon, Ascribe & Leanne Kemp, Everledger
Why Most Fortune 500 Companies Will Use Block Chains - Jae Kwon & Dustin Byington, Tendermint
Block Chains and Smart Networks - Introducing Logic to the Cloud - Micah Winkelspecht, Gem
Banking on the Block Chain - John Bertrand, SAP
Triple-Entry Accounting - Reducing Financial Fraud Using Block Chains - Daniel Winters, Global Tax Accountants
How Smart Contracts Enable Trustless Business - Sergey Nazarov, SmartContract
Ethereum Overview and Applications - Kieren James-Lubin, BlockApps
Honesty is Subversive - How to Build Transparent and Accountable Business Systems with Block Chain Technology - Tiana Laurence, Factom
* Some presentations had no slides. Panel sessions had no slides.
Media Coverage
The conference generated a lot of buzz. Here are some of the highlights.
IBM Director Declares 'We're All in on Blockchain'
Read an account of John Wolpert's keynote presentation - on CoinDesk.
theCube Reported From the Conference
Check out theCube for video interviews with Pete Harris (Lighthouse Partners & Conference Chair), John Wolpert (IBM), Bruce Pon (Ascribe) and Dustin Byington (Tendermint).
The Block Chain Conference: Highlights
Ripple covered the conference on its Insights blog.
The Block Chain Conference brings finance industry and blockchain companies together
A review of the conference from Brave New Coin.
Blockchain Conference SF Highlights Need for Blockchain Finance Industry Standard
Read a review of the finance aspects of the conference at CHAIN-FINANCE.
The blockchain: A new tech and finance tango
Check out this interview with conference chair Pete Harris on SiliconANGLE.
Highlights of The Block Chain Conference
The Enlucem blog gave its account of the conference highlights here.
Social Media Views
For those that like to engage via social media.
The Infographic
A quick take of the conference pulse.
Twitter Activity
As tracked by Zignal Labs, the conference blew up the #blockchain Twitter-sphere on the day.
Sponsors and Partners
We worked with a great team. Thanks to everyone for being a part of the conference.
Program Sponsor: Gem
Gem is a block chain platform company based in Venice, California. Gem partners with companies to harness block chain technology with a scalable, modular and custom-built platform. Gem refines block chain technology to power smart networks that connect industries.
Program Sponsor: Symbiont
Symbiont is building the first issuance and trading platform for smart securities on block chain technology.
Program Sponsor: Tendermint
Tendermint offers its Open Blockchain Platform, which removes all of the complexity of block chain application development, allowing enterprise application developers to focus on business logic.
Program Partner: Celent
Celent is a research and consulting firm focused on the application of information technology in the global financial services industry.
Program Partner: ConsenSys
ConsenSys is a venture production studio building decentralized applications and various developer and end-user tools for block chain ecosystems, focusing primarily on Ethereum.
Program Partner: MultiChain
MultiChain from Coin Sciences allows organizations to rapidly design, deploy and operate distributed ledgers
Program Partner: Blockchain Capital
Blockchain Capital is a pioneer and the premier venture capital firm investing in block chain enabled technology companies.
Program Partner: Needham & Company
Needham & Company is a nationally recognized investment banking and asset management firm focused solely on growth companies and their investors.
Official Influencer Liaison Partner: Massing Works
Massing Works provides a CMO/ VP, Marketing as a Service offering for startups or organizations looking to build a marketing function in an accelerated and economical way. This allows companies to benefit from very experienced professionals on a part time basis while they bootstrap.
Industry Partner: BlockchainConf
BlockchainConf is San Francisco's premier block chain conference facilitator - focused on Web 3.0's most important technology.
Principal Media Partner: Block Chain Inside Out
Block Chain Inside Out focuses on block chain platforms, applications, APIs and technologies. It covers not just the block chain that powers bitcoin, but also alternatives and distributed ledgers that support other crypto currencies and decentralized applications.
Principal Media Partner: The Distributed Ledger
The Distributed Ledger brings you the latest news about block chains and distributed ledgers.
Principal Media Partner: theCUBE
theCUBE is the leading live interview show covering enterprise technology and innovation.
Media Partner: Crypto Markets & Technology
Crypto Markets & Technology focuses on the deployment of cryptographic technologies in the financial markets, including the emergence of crypto currencies (such as bitcoin) as an asset class and the development of block chain, distributed ledger and decentralized approaches in trading and investment processes, including the execution and settlement transaction lifecycle.
Media Partner: Bitcoinist
Bitcoinist Ltd. is a tech media company dedicated to providing pertinent and insightful news, reviews, and commentary on Bitcoin, other blockchains, finance, and technology. With contributors from around the world, the talented team at Bitcoinist.net is ready to be your trusted source for Bitcoin news. We believe that blockchain technology is changing the world for the better - read along as we chronicle the journey.
Media Partner: BlockchainBriefing
BlockchainBriefing is the world’s leading information and news portal for ledger technology, delivered straight to your inbox.
Media Partner: Brave New Coin
Brave New Coin (BNC) is a Data & Research company who has built a superior Market-Data Engine for the Blockchain & Digital Equities industry. We collect, process & index live data from over 100 trading platforms in real-time to produce a number useful data tools for Developers, Traders & Enterprise.
Media Partner: Data Management Review
Data Management Review provides knowledge and resources covering data management approaches, trends and challenges as well as all the regulations impacting financial data management for the enterprise.
Media Partner: Intelligent Trading Technology
Intelligent Trading Technology is the premier online community offering continuous news, expert analysis, in-depth research and compelling thought leadership focused on the technology convergence - low-latency execution and predictive analytics - underpinning tomorrow's automated trading strategies.
Media Partner: PaymentsCompliance
A PaymentsCompliance subscription provides users with real-time access to daily news and analysis; country and thematic research and reports; a global compliance directory covering more than 130 jurisdictions; an advanced policy tracker; and local legal insights written by expert commentators. Driven by an experienced team of lawyers and journalists, PaymentsCompliance helps clients in their strategic decision-making, regulatory and risk assessments, compliance audits and due diligence research.
Media Partner: Securities Finance Monitor
Securities Finance Monitor is a publication dedicated to investments, treasury and financing. We identify important news and contribute original research and analysis on these markets. Our content is directed towards an audience of banks, asset managers, asset owners, technology firms, regulators and other professionals with a demonstrated interest in our target markets.
Association Partner: Digital Currency Council
The Digital Currency Council helps the formation of standards around federated commerce chains, collaborative commerce agreements/contracts and dovetails this with existing legal and industry efforts.
Association Partner: Wall Street Blockchain Alliance
The Wall Street Blockchain Alliance is a Trade Advocacy Group for financial market professionals, by financial market professionals. The WSBA mission is to guide and promote comprehensive adoption of digital currency technology across financial markets. We do this by engaging with regulators, policymakers and technology innovators through direct communication, comment letters, studies and more to guide the public dialogue about digital currencies and blockchain technology, so that the financial markets can realize the full potential of these capabilities.
Conference Program - Morning Plenaries
The morning is where the Big Picture of Block Chains was presented.
8am - Badge Pickup, Registration and Breakfast
Enjoy a 'Healthy Starter' breakfast, say hello to fellow delegates and check out any final additions to the conference program in order to get the fullest value from the event day.
8.45am - Welcome and Vision Setting
Pete Harris, Principal of Lighthouse Partners, will briefly describe the plan of the event day ahead, and make some personal observations on the status of block chain and distributed ledger developments. Pete will also act as chairperson for the morning keynote and plenary sessions.
As an added bonus, Gideon Greenspan, Founder & CEO of Coin Sciences (developer of MultiChain), will offer some comments via a short video presentation to amplify his recent written thoughts on "Avoiding the Pointless Block Chain Project".
9am - Presentation: SIX Valued Features and FIVE Disruptive Implications of Block Chain Technology
An exploration of how block chain technology is enabling the Internet of Value and why nearly every enterprise needs a “block chain strategy”.
Presented by Spencer Bogart, Equity Research Associate, Block Chain & Software (SaaS), Needham & Company.
10am - Keynote Presentation: How to Make Block Chain Real for Business
We invite you to join in this exciting conversation. Block chain technology can radically improve banking, supply-chain and other transaction networks, giving them new opportunities for innovation and growth while reducing cost and risk. But Block chain is far from being ready to handle industrial use cases. Attend this keynote to hear common requirements observed across a variety of industries. More specifically, learn of IBM's point of view in this space, as well about its contribution to an open source community led by the Linux Foundation aimed at accelerating the maturity of this shared ledger technology, through a collective, open and coordinated approach.
Presented by John Wolpert, Global Blockchain Offering Director, IBM
10.30am - Refreshments and Networking
An opportunity to network with other attendees, speakers and sponsors.
11am - Presentation: The Evolution of Trust
With the arrival of crypto-technologies, there is a rush to move financial processes from trusted intermediary to trust-less. While that instinct is moving things in the right direction, the leap from trusted to trust-less isn’t a quantum one; instead, it must consist of a series of intermediate steps. This presentation will address this dynamic and use the example of Overstock.com's t0 crypto-finance unit to demonstrate how to make that transition.
Presented by: Judd Bagley, Director of Communications at Overstock.com and Chief Evangelist of t0.com.
11.30am - Presentation: An Ownership Layer for the Internet
Payment networks, banks and trading exchanges are supremely optimistic about using the block chain to reduce settlement times and increase transparency. But what about intellectual property? Just as the block chain can be used to transact payments, money and stock certificates, it can also be used to transmit intellectual property. Intellectual property was last valued at $25 Trillion in 2006, but much of it remains locked away and latent. Arguably, much of the value created in the last decade was probably created in some digital form. Content holders, including media, music, publishers and cultural institutions, all have content that can be better monetized, and ascribe.io has built a service that targets this need. But in countless use cases, we came up against scalability constraints in the bitcoin block chain for registering ownership and transferring digital property. After one year working to enrol creators onto the ascribe platform, we decided to focus our energies on a more immediate challenge, building a scalable block chain database that the community could use.
Presented by:
Bruce Pon, Founder & CEO, Ascribe
Leanne Kemp, Founder & CEO, Everledger
Noon - Presentation: Why Most Fortune 500 Companies Will Use Block Chains (with a Tendermint Platform Demo)
Tendermint's leadership team will give their take on where the block chain industry fits into the large enterprise technology stack and how block chains compare to a software product currently in production at 90% of Fortune 500 companies.
There will also be an overview and demo of Tendermint's Open Blockchain Platform, which removes the complexity of block chain application development, allowing enterprise application developers to focus on business logic.
Presented by:
Jae Kwon, Founder & CEO, Tendermint
Dustin Byington, Co-Founder & President, Tendermint
Ethan Buchman, Co-Founder & Blockchain Engineer, Tendermint
Note: Tendermint and its partner Eris Industries will be demonstrating their offerings in the foyer just outside of the conference room.
12.30pm - Box Lunch and Networking
A box lunch will be served for efficiency, and seating will be available for your convenience. This time also provides ppportunity to network with other attendees and to chat with speakers and sponsors.
Conference Program - Afternoon Streams
The afternoon was for detailed dives into block chain applications, approaches and technologies.
1.30pm - Segment: Block Chains for a New Wall Street - Presented in Partnership with Celent
This segment will focus on the activities of financial markets players and the startups that are joining forces to re-invent securities processing.
The chairperson for this segment is David Easthope, SVP, Securities and Investments Group, Celent
1.30pm - Segment: Block Chains for a New Business World
This segment will focus on non-financial services use cases for block chain technology and implementation approaches
The chairperson for this segment is Andrew 'Flip' Filipowski, Founding Partner, Tally Capital
1.30pm - Presentation: Smart Contracts for Delivery vs. Payment (DVP)
Delivery vs Payment, often referred to in the bitcoin world as "Atomic Swaps"; is the cornerstone of mutual fund accounting. These funds are often legally prohibited from paying for a security before it is delivered. This talk will explore the three different technical mechanisms in use in the block chain space to enable DVP settlement of trades. It will touch on Namecoins' atomic swaps, Ripple's exchange orderbook, and the new attempts at inter-ledger settlements in the space.
Presented by Ryan Singer, Founder & CEO, Blockchain Clearing Corp..
1.30pm - Presentation: How Smart Contracts Enable Trustless Business
This session will provide a business overview of smart contract concepts, how they relate to block chains and how they might be created. Examples of how smart contracts can be used by companies to underpin commercial transactions will also be covered.
Presented by Sergey Nazarov, Co-Founder & CEO, SmartContract
2pm - Panel: Re-Inventing Wall Street on the Block Chain
A panel of experts will discuss recent activity related to the financial markets' adoption of distributed ledgers and point to likely directions in the next 12-24 months.
Participants include:
Brad Bailey, Research Director, Capital Markets, Celent (Moderator)
R. Jesse McWaters, Project Lead - Disruptive Innovation in Financial Services, World Economic Forum USA
Ron Quaranta, Chairman, Wall Street Blockchain Alliance
Patrick Salami, Founder & CTO, HitFin
Mark Smith, Founder & CEO, Symbiont
2pm - Presentation: Ethereum Overview and Applications
This session will include a business and technology introduction to Ethereum and will also highlight a number of applications that have been built on top of the platform:
* Balanc3 - A triple-entry accounting system that leverages the immutability of Ethereum’s block chain to ensure the integrity of accounting records, combined with smart contracts to process invoices, payments and other business activities.
* Transactive Grid - Which provides real-time metering of local energy generation together with a marketplace for the purchase or sale of kilowatt hours, including spot and derivatives trading.
* Ujo Music - An infrastructure to support rights management for the creative industries, keeping track of intellectual property and automating royalty payments.
Presented by:
Kieren James-Lubin, Founder & Chief Data Scientist, BlockApps
Roman Mandeleil, Founder & CEO, <ether.camp>
3pm - Presentation: Running Ethereum Financial Apps on Microsoft's Azure Cloud
Running on Microsoft Azure's ETH BaaS (Ethereum block chain-as-a-Service) the Ethereum Total Return Swap (eTRS) highlights core block chain benefits by combining several smart contracts into a financial use case that stretches well beyond transfer of value.
Presented by James Slazas, CFO, Enterprise Capital Markets, ConsenSys
3pm - Presentation: Block Chains and Smart Networks - Introducing Logic to the Cloud
Block chain technology introduces a new means of connecting disparate information silos, whether that is between multiple parties or within a large organization. Policies can be added to block chain data management allowing stakeholders to automate workflows and reporting. Shared ledgers allow multiple parties to connect to the same data store and create logic around how they do business with one other.
This presentation discusses how connecting business logic to shared ledgers creates “smart networks” and how this will impact cross-industry trust and value exchange.
Presented by Micah Winkelspecht, Founder & CEO, Gem
3.30pm - Refreshments and Networking
An opportunity to network with other attendees and to chat with speakers and sponsors.
3.30pm - Refreshments and Networking
An opportunity to network with other attendees and to chat with speakers and sponsors.
4pm - Segment: Block Chain Business Accelerators for Financial Services
This segment examines how block chain approaches can help to reduce the friction of - and create new opportunities for - commerce.
The chairperson for this segment is Pete Harris, Principal, Lighthouse Partners
4pm - Segment: Block Chains for a New Business World Sessions Continue ...
The chairperson for this segment is Stepan Gershuni, Co-Founder, Business Development, BlockNotary
4pm - Panel: How Block Chain Technology is Disrupting Global Payments
This panel will explore how block chain technology is disrupting established players in the corporate and personal payments space.
Participants include:
Gil Luria, Managing Director, Research, Wedbush Securities (Moderator)
Olaf Carlson-Wee, Head of Risk, Coinbase
Cheryl Gurz, SVP, Retail Operations, The Bancorp
Chris Larsen, Co-Founder & CEO, Ripple
4pm - Panel: Block Chain Deployment Pointers
This panel will explore business, organizational and technical approaches and options that IT enterprises might consider as they look to deploy block chain technology.
Participants include:
Pete Rizzo, U.S. East Coast Editor, CoinDesk (Moderator)
Chris Finan, Co-Founder & CEO, Manifold Technology
P. Bart Stephens, Founder & Managing Partner, Blockchain Capital
Ray Valdes, Research Director, Internet Platforms & Web Services, Gartner
4.45pm - Presentation: Banking on the Block Chain
The presentation is looking at block chain and banking, focusing on where the technology can be most effectively used. Three areas have been selected, which could have great effect on making banking safer and adding a greater level of trust and confidence in banks. These are:
Presented by John Bertrand, Industry Value Engineer - Banking, SAP
4.45pm - Presentation: Honesty is Subversive - How to Build Transparent and Accountable Business Systems with Block Chain Technology
Factom has been busy developing new tools to leverage the security of the block chain, without the scalability limitations of bitcoin. See the three latest tools that could change data as we know it. Take away knowledge to influence your industry and learn what is in store for block chain in 2016.
Presented by Tiana Laurence, CMO, Factom.
5.15pm - Presentation: Triple-Entry Accounting - Reducing Financial Fraud Using Block Chains
Trusted third parties are central to the double-entry system of accounting. Accountants trust that bank statements are accurate, and investors trust that audited financial statements accurately reflect a company’s financial position. Unfortunately, records can be altered or deleted, and auditors can ignore fraud and other criminal activity.
With triple-entry accounting, financial transactions are recorded in a cryptographically secure block chain in which the receipt IS the transaction. When block chains eliminate the need for a trusted third party, this increases transparency and efficiency while reducing data duplication, the risk of fraud and overall IT costs. This presentation will discuss transaction flows in a triple-entry accounting system, the companies building those systems and some future implications.
Presented by Daniel Winters, President, Global Tax Accountants and Chairperson, Tax & Accounting Working Committee, Wall Street Blockchain Alliance
5.15pm - Q&A: I'm an Enterprise IT Exec - Ask Me Anything
An opportunity for executives from block chain startups to find out what really matters to their peers in the enterprise IT space.
Participants include:
John Mathon, Independent Enterprise IT and Cloud Consultant
Ray Valdes, Research Director, Internet Platforms & Web Services, Gartner
Speakers - Chairs, Moderators, Presenters and Panelists
The conference program included these experts from the worlds of enterprise IT and block chain projects.
Chairperson: Pete Harris
Principal, Lighthouse Partners
The conference chair is Pete Harris, Principal of Lighthouse Partners, a business, marketing and technology advisory firm. Pete is a former software architect and business leader, with a strong background in technology, journalism, marketing and conference production.
Keynoter: John Wolpert
Global Blockchain Offering Director, IBM
John Wolpert is IBM’s block chain offering director, with responsibility for engineering, products and open source initiatives. Prior to that, John was head of products for IBM’s Watson Ecosystem.
John is a three-time entrepreneur and founder of the popular taxi service, Flywheel. He has created new lines of business for several Fortune 100 companies, ran an international consortium of research labs, and has been an IBMer three times — in the past running the ground-breaking alphaWorks organization and the Extreme Blue incubator lab.
Judd Bagley
Director of Communications at Overstock.com and Chief Evangelist of t0.com
Judd Bagley is Chief Evangelist of t0.com, Overstock.com's crypto-finance unit. He has a background in speechwriting and journalism.
Brad Bailey
Research Director, Capital Markets, Celent
Brad Bailey heads Celent's research and consulting endeavors focused on emerging trading and fintech technologies.
John Bertrand
Industry Value Engineer - Banking, SAP
John Bertrand is an Industry Value Engineer - Banking at SAP. He previously held executive roles at FIS, Misys, Alltel and Citi.
Spencer Bogart
Equity Research Associate (Block Chain & SaaS), Needham & Company
Spencer Bogart covers block chain and SaaS offerings for Needham & Company. He co-authored Needham's publication The Blockchain Report: Welcome to the Internet of Value.
Ethan Buchman
Co-Founder & Blockchain Engineer, Tendermint
Ethan Buchman is Co-Founder and Blockchain Engineer at Tendermint, where he is working on the company's Open Blockchain Platform.
Dustin Byington
Co-Founder & President, Tendermint
Dustin Byington is Tendermint's President and is responsible for corporate and business development.
Olaf Carlson-Wee
Head of Risk, Coinbase
Olaf Carlson-Wee is the Head of Risk at Coinbase, the largest bitcoin company in the world, where he was the first employee.
David Easthope
SVP, Securities and Investments Group, Celent
David Easthope is responsible for Celent's business in the global capital markets.
Andrew 'Flip' Filipowski
Founding Partner, Tally Capital
'Flip' Filipowski is a Founding Partner of Tally Capital and is recognized as one of the world's most successful high-tech entrepreneurs, philanthropists and industry visionaries.
Chris Finan
Co-Founder & CEO, Manifold Technology
Chris Finan is Co-Founder & CEO of Manifold Technology, which provides block chain technology for next-generation financial services. He was formerly with Google, and has worked as a cyber security and warfare expert at DARPA and The White House.
Stepan Gershuni
Co-Founder, Business Development, BlockNotary
Stepan Gershuni is a Co-Founder of BlockNotary with responsibility for business development.
Gideon Greenspan
Founder & CEO, Coin Sciences
Gideon Greenspan is Founder & CEO of Coin Sciences, which has developed the MultiChain platform for private block chains. Gideon's contribution to the program will be a video presentation.
Cheryl Gurz
SVP, Retail Operations, The Bancorp
Cheryl Gurz recently joined The Bancorp as SVP of Retail Operations. Previously she was with BNY Mellon, Citi and HSBC.
Kieren James-Lubin
Founder & Chief Data Scientist, BlockApps
Kieren James-Lubin is a Founder and Chief Data Scientist at BlockApps, a ConsenSys affiliate, which provides tools to create industry-specific block chain applications.
Leanne Kemp
Founder & CEO, Everledger
Leanne Kemp is the Founder & CEO of Everledger, which is applying block chain technology to diamond certification and transaction history.
Jae Kwon
Founder & CEO, Tendermint
Jae Kwon is Tendermint's technology visionary and creator of the Open Blockchain Platform.
Chris Larsen
Co-Founder & CEO, Ripple
Chris Larsen is Co-Founder & CEO of Ripple and Chairman of the Board of Directors. Prior to Ripple, Chris cofounded and served as CEO of Prosper, a peer-to-peer lending marketplace, and E-LOAN, a publicly traded online lender.
Tiana Laurence
CMO, Factom
Tiana Laurence, Founder & CMO at Factom. 5X entrepreneur and dog lover.
Gil Luria
Managing Director, Research, Wedbush Securities
Gil Luria is Managing Director, Equities Research at Wedbush Securities. Gil is primarily focused on financial technology and e-commerce companies.
Roman Mandeleil
Founder & CEO, <ether.camp>
Roman Mandeleil is Founder & CEO of <ether.camp>, a block chain infrastructure and services company.
John Mathon
Independent Enterprise IT and Cloud Consultant
John Mathon was Co-Founder & CTO of TIBCO Software, which pioneered the deployment of enterprise messaging middleware - the Information Bus - on Wall Street. A widely read blogger on cloud and other advanced technologies, he has also held IT architect and product management roles at Bridgewater Associates, CA Technologies and WSO2.
R. Jesse McWaters
Project Lead - Disruptive Innovation in Financial Services, World Economic Forum USA
Jesse McWaters is responsible for overseeing the WEF's work on disruptive innovations and their impact on the financial services community.
Sergey Nazarov
Co-Founder & CEO, SmartContract
Sergey Nazarov is Co-Founder and CEO of SmartContract, a San Francisco-based company providing enterprise-grade smart contracts to the trade finance, insurance and advertising industries.
Bruce Pon
Founder & CEO, Ascribe
Bruce Pon is Founder and CEO of Ascribe, a Berlin, Germany startup that helps to legitimize digital-based art work by providing a concrete system of authenticity. He was previously with Daimler and Accenture.
Ron Quaranta
Chairman, Wall Street Blockchain Alliance
Ron Quaranta serves as Chairman of the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance, an advocacy group whose mission is to guide and promote comprehensive adoption of digital currency technology across financial markets.
Pete Rizzo
U.S. East Coast Editor, CoinDesk
Pete Rizzo is responsible for setting the editorial direction for CoinDesk. Pete has served as Editor for CoinDesk since 2013, and was formerly Editor of the payments industry trade publication PYMNTS.com.
Patrick Salami
Founder & CTO, HitFin
Patrick Salami is the Founder and CTO of HitFin, a San Mateo, CA-based startup applying block chain and smart contract technologies to clearing and settlement of OTC derivatives.
Ryan Singer
Founder & CEO, Blockchain Clearing Corp.
Ryan Singer is Founder and CEO of Blockchain Clearing Corp. which is focusing on re-architecting the clearing and settlement infrastructure for the U.S. equities market using block chain technologies.
James Slazas
CFO, Enterprise Capital Markets, ConsenSys
James Slazas is CFO at ConsenSys, with responsibility for enterprise capital markets. He has more than 15 years of financial markets experience, including at Lehman Brothers where he worked on derivatives and structured products, as well as risk management.
Mark Smith
Founder & CEO, Symbiont
Mark Smith is Founder & CEO of Symbiont, the merger of MathMoney f(x), which was founded by Mr. Smith, and the founding team of bitcoin 2.0 project Counterparty. During his career, Mark has been a founder of 4 FinTech companies that have gone from start-up to exit.
P. Bart Stephens
Founder & Managing Partner, Blockchain Capital
Bart Stephens is a Founder and Managing Partner of Blockchain Capital, the General Partner of Crypto Currency Partners funds. He has a background as both an operating entrepreneur and a venture capitalist, holding management positions at Oncology.com and E*TRADE.
Ray Valdes
Research Director, Internet Platforms & Web Services, Gartner
Ray Valdes is an analyst at Gartner covering Internet platforms, Web services, metacoin platforms and blockchain technology.
Micah Winkelspecht
Founder & CEO, Gem
Micah Winkelspecht is the Founder and CEO of Gem, which provides a platform to simplify and demystify block chain technology, and helps to scale and automate its deployment.
Daniel Winters
President, Global Tax Accountants
Daniel Winters is the President of Global Tax Accountants, which specializes in International Tax and accounting for companies in the digital currency and block chain space.
Advisory Board
These expert and seasoned individuals helped to shape the conference agenda and the overall format of the day.
Chris Keene
Enterprise IT Visionary
Chris Keene is EVP and GM for Enterprise Cloud at Mirantis, joining the company from BMC Software where he headed its Cloud and Automation Business Unit. Previously, he played a key role in the creation and spin out of the Pivotal Initiative from EMC. He founded Persistence Software in 1991, which was sold to Progress Software in 2004. He then founded WaveMaker in 2007, selling to VMware in 2011, where he became Vice President of Cloud Solutions.
John Mathon
CTO Who Digitized Wall Street
John Mathon was Co-Founder and CTO of TIBCO Software, which pioneered the deployment of enterprise messaging middleware - the Information Bus - on Wall Street. A widely read blogger on cloud and other advanced technologies, he has also held IT architect and product management roles at Bridgewater Associates, CA Technologies and WSO2.
Miko Matsumura
Tech Marketing Guru
Miko Matsumura is CMO of Gradleware, which develops open source build automation software. He has a vast experience of tech marketing, at companies like Hazelcast, Kii, Software AG, Infravio and Sun Microsystems.
Matthew Roszak
Leading Crypto Investor
Matt Roszak is founder and CEO of Tally Capital, a private investment firm focused on the digital currency ecosystem. Named as one of the “who’s who of the crypto-currency world” by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Roszak is a Bitcoin investor, advocate and speaker. Mr. Roszak has invested in over a dozen Bitcoin start-ups, including BitFury, BitGo, Coinsetter, ExpressCoin and Kraken. Mr. Roszak is also a founding partner with Crypto Currency Partners and BitAngels.