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J. Christopher Giancarlo

General Counsel, Wilkie Farr & Gallagher LLP; Former Chairman, Commodity Futures Trading Commission

The Honorable J. Christopher Giancarlo served as the thirteenth Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Considered one of “the most influential individuals in financial regulation,” he also was a member of the U.S. Financial Stability Oversight Committee, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, and the Executive Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions. 

Giancarlo is author of “CryptoDad – The Fight for the Future of Money,” an account of his oversight of the world’s first regulated market for Bitcoin derivatives and the coming digital network transformation of financial services. 

Giancarlo is Senior Counsel to the international law firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Digital Dollar Project (https://digitaldollarproject.org), and also board director, advisor and angel investor in numerous public and private technology and financial services companies. 

Among other recent recognitions, Giancarlo was appointed to the rank of Chevalier in the National Order of Merit by French President Macron in recognition of his expertise in “cryptofinance.”

Shayne Coplan

Founder and CEO, Polymarket

Shayne Coplan was born in 1998 and raised on the Upper West Side of New York City. He attended public schools in Hell’s Kitchen. Coplan studied computer science at New York University but left before completing his degree to pursue interests in cryptocurrencies and prediction markets.

Coplan founded Polymarket in 2020, which operates as a prediction market using smart contracts on the Polygon blockchain for settling wagers. Coplan’s Polymarket is now the largest prediction market in the world, facilitating over $3.2 billion in bets during the 2024 United States presidential election and featuring prominently in mainstream media coverage of the election.

Kristin Smith

CEO, Blockchain Association

Kristin runs Blockchain Association, where she leads the crypto industry’s development of a strategic roadmap for public policy. She is an experienced policy professional, with senior-level experience in both House and Senate offices as well as private sector experience advocating for companies in the telecommunications, Internet, and other tech-focused industries. Kristin holds an MBA in Finance from NYU’s Stern School of Business and a graduate degree from Georgetown University.

Sulolit "Raj" Mukherjee

Executive Director, Office of Digital Asset Initiative, IRS

Sulolit “Raj” Mukherjee currently serves the Internal Revenue Service as the Executive Director, Compliance & Implementation, for the Office of Digital Asset Initiative (DAI). The DAI operates as a Program Office helping IRS set consistent, global digital asset strategy, including internal procedure and policy. He brings significant industry expertise in building global tax programs and executing pragmatic strategies that meet regulatory muster and budget parameters.

Formerly, he led the global tax function at ConsenSys and its foreign subsidiaries where he managed all the firm’s tax functions including tax policy, corporate tax, compliance, international tax, M&A and customer reporting. He also served as ConsenSys’ tax policy representative in Washington DC because of his extensive know-how in liaising with governing agencies and industry to help clarify tax regulations in the digital asset space. Previously, he was the Head of Tax & Tax Information Reporting at two digital asset currency exchanges including Coinbase where he oversaw creation of end-to-end tax compliance functions and served as the lead executive focused on emerging US and global tax & regulatory obligations for digital assets.

Raj came to the digital assets world after leading tax advisory functions for investment banks in NYC for over a decade focusing on U.S. and global tax information reporting, FATCA, NRA, 871(m) and Common Reporting Standard (CRS). Raj has a J.D from University of Kansas School of Law, and B.A. degrees in International Relations and English Literature from Washington College in the state of Maryland.

Jon Lenzner

former Chief of Staff, FBI

Jonathan Lenzner has served as FBI Chief of Staff since January 2022. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Lenzner served as the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland. As the chief federal law enforcement official in Maryland, Mr. Lenzner oversaw an office of more than 100 attorneys handling the investigation and litigation of all criminal and civil cases brought in Maryland on behalf of the United States. He previously served as the first assistant U.S. attorney and also created the office’s National Security & Cybercrimes Section and the office’s first-ever Civil Rights Unit.

From 2013 to 2018, Mr. Lenzner led a national risk advisory, corporate investigations, and crisis management firm in Washington, D.C., including three years as its CEO. He also led its adjunct law practice. His clients included Fortune 500 companies, universities, investors, nonprofit entities, and public officials.

As an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland from 2010 to 2013, Mr. Lenzner focused on public corruption, financial crimes, violent gangs, narcotics trafficking, and sex trafficking cases. During his tenure, he investigated corruption within a government agency, prosecuted a violent drug trafficking crew, and successfully tried the leaders of a complex bank fraud scheme.

Mr. Lenzner also served for six years as a prosecutor in the New York County District Attorney’s Office, working in the Sex Crimes Unit and in the Major Economics Crime Bureau.

Prior to law school, Mr. Lenzner was a press secretary for a member of Congress and for a congressional committee. He graduated from the Cardozo School of Law, of which he is a member of the Board of Overseers.

Marta Belcher

President & Chair – Filecoin Foundation / Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web

Marta Belcher is the President and Board Chair of Filecoin Foundation and Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web and the General Counsel and Head of Policy at Protocol Labs. She also serves as special counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Marta is a pioneer in cryptocurrency law and has spoken on the topic around the world, including in U.S. Congress, European Parliament, the New York Senate, the OECD, and in Davos during the World Economic Forum.

Julie Stitzel

Vice President of Public Policy, Digital Currency Group

Julie Stitzel is the VP of Public Policy for DCG, a company focusing on building and supporting bitcoin and blockchain companies by leveraging their insights, network, and access to capital. Prior to her time at DCG, Julie was the Head of Policy for Cash App and the Vice President of the Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness at U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Marco Santori

Chief Legal Officer, Kraken

Known as the “Dean of Digital Currency Lawyers,” Marco is a recognized authority in the law and policy of blockchain technologies. Prior to his move to Kraken, Marco was the Chief Legal Officer of Blockchain.com, as well as a Partner at both Cooley LLP and Pillsbury Winthrop, where he counseled banks, broker-dealers and fintech companies making new and exciting uses of distributed ledger technology.

Michael Mosier

Co-Founder, Arktouros PLLC; Former Acting Director, FinCEN,
U.S. Department of the Treasury

Michael Mosier is a partner in ex/ante, an early-stage venture 

fund investing in technology that advances democratic resilience and human agency. He co-founded Arktouros legal boutique of former federal prosecutors dedicated to civil society and emergent technology. He has twice been the first in-house counsel at tech companies: Chainalysis blockchain analytics and Espresso Systems building configurable private computation. 

In public service, Michael served as Acting Director, Deputy Director, and the first Digital Innovation Officer of the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), driving initiatives on privacy and digital identity to advance personal sovereignty within the financial system.  Previously, he served as Associate Director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).  Before Treasury, Michael was a Deputy Chief in the Department of Justice’s Money Laundering & Asset Recovery Section and served at the White House National Security Council as a Director.  He has been an adjunct professor (Advanced Evidence for Trial) at Georgetown University Law Center and began his public service as a prosecutor with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

Amanda Tuminelli

CLO, DeFi Education Fund

Amanda serves as the DEF’s Chief Legal Officer where she leads the organization’s impact litigation and policy efforts. Prior to joining DEF, Amanda was a lawyer at Kobre & Kim, where she defended clients against criminal and regulatory investigations, government enforcement actions, and large scale litigation. Before Kobre & Kim, she served as a law clerk for the Honorable Ann M. Donnelly of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Prior to her clerkship, Amanda practiced at Dechert LLP in their white-collar and securities litigation group, where she defended corporations and C-suite executives in government investigations and class-action securities disputes.

Katherine Minarik

Chief Legal Officer, Uniswap Labs

Katherine Minarik is the Chief Legal Officer at Uniswap Labs, where she manages the company’s legal and policy work.

She was previously Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Coinbase (COIN), where she managed the company’s global litigation and investigations, IP, employment legal, and international legal teams. Katherine designed and led the litigation strategy for multiple cases with industry-wide significance and brought multiple cases to the US Supreme Court.

Prior to Coinbase, Katherine was General Counsel Americas for Dyson, Chief Administrative Officer and Global General Counsel at Cleverbridge, and a partner at Bartlit Beck. She is also a former McKinsey consultant and former law clerk for the Honorable Diane P. Wood on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Katherine is the Chair of the Board of Directors of ChIPs, a past-President of the Coalition for Women’s Initiatives in Law, a founding member of the US Soccer Development Council, and a member of the American Law Institute. Katherine was named a Best Lawyers’ Women of Influence and one of Crain’s Most Influential Women Lawyers in Chicago in 2017, one of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois’s Top Women Lawyers in Leadership in 2016, and one of the Law Bulletin’s “40 Under 40” Illinois attorneys in 2014.

Rebecca Rettig

Chief Legal & Policy Officer, Polygon Labs

Rebecca Rettig previously was the General Counsel of the Aave Companies, a group of software development companies in Europe that build open source, blockchain-based software. Rebecca began her legal career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York, litigating complex commercial disputes; prior to joining the Aave Companies, Rebecca was a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP in the financial services group, representing blockchain and crypto clients. With unique and deep-rooted expertise representing companies at the forefront of the financial services industry’s digital transformation, Rebecca spent the past four and a half years advising blockchain and cryptocurrency clients on legal and regulatory matters—with a particular focus advising DeFi projects over the past two years; she also represented clients in all aspects of litigation and regulatory enforcement proceedings as well as in licensing matters. In 2019, Rebecca was recognized as one of the top 100 women lawyers in New York City by Crain’s New York Business.​

Lauren Belive

Head of U.S. Policy, Ripple

Lauren Belive serves as Head of U.S. Public Policy at Ripple. She was most recently the Director of Government Affairs at SoftBank Group International, bringing nearly two decades of public policy and government relations experience. Prior to this role, she served as Head of U.S. Government Relations for Zoom, building their public policy operations during the height of the pandemic. Before that, Lauren launched Lyft’s Federal team in Washington DC, and spearheaded the company’s national policy engagement.

Lauren also worked on Capitol Hill, the White House, and political campaigns. She served as the Policy Director for the House Rules Committee. From 2009 to 2012, Lauren served in the Obama White House in the Office of Legislative Affairs. She worked in the Chicago headquarters of the 2008 Obama for America Campaign. She began her career on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, then chaired by Representative Henry Waxman of California.

Bill Hughes

Senior Counsel and Director of Global Regulatory Matters, Consensys

Bill Hughes is Senior Counsel and Director of Global Regulatory Matters for Consensys, the leading Ethereum blockchain software company. Bill focuses on the diverse and ever evolving crypto global regulatory landscape, and the legal and public policy issues with which Consensys and the broader crypto ecosystem is grappling. Bill joined Consensys after serving as an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, where he managed, among other things, the Department’s work on prospective regulations, legislative proposals, and policies across a broad spectrum of legal and operational issues. He worked closely with the White House and other federal agencies on regulatory and policy initiatives and coordinated DOJ’s law enforcement response to COVID-19-related consumer fraud and money laundering. Bill began his career as a clerk for a federal judge in New York and litigating with the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Bill received his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law and his BA from Vanderbilt University.

Nilmini Rubin

Chief Policy Officer, Hedera

Nilmini Rubin is the Chief Policy Officer for Hedera, a green, fast and secure distributed ledger technology or public blockchain. Hedera provides a layer of trusted, open source, internet infrastructure for applications with real-world impact. Nilmini advocates globally for innovation policy and serves on the Board’s Risk Committee.

Prior to joining Hedera, Nilmini worked on the global policy team at Meta and co-founded Fix the System, a coalition of organizations committed to election integrity and democracy strengthening in the United States. Nilmini was the turnaround and growth leader of Tetra Tech’s $70M global business unit implementing energy and internet projects within $3B company that resulted in millions of people gaining access to electricity for the first time.

For roughly twelve years, she served as a senior aide on both the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, where she spearheaded the passage of legislation to provide electricity access in Africa, increase global internet access, reduce corruption through transparency, and reform U.S. foreign assistance. As a director at the National Security Council, Nilmini helped secure agreements on non-proliferation, international health, and foreign aid.

Nilmini was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and is a member of its Experts Network and Digital ID Working Group. Nilmini earned her MBA and B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley. She is a competitive adult ice skater. Nilmini and her husband have three daughters.

Kara Calvert

VP, US Policy, Coinbase

Kara Calvert is the Head of US Policy at Coinbase. She has been working at the intersection of public policy and the innovation industry for more than 20 years. Prior to joining Coinbase, Kara was a partner at Franklin Square Group, where she specialized in issues related to financial services, export controls, privacy, and health technology. Kara previously worked as the Director of Government Relations at the Information Technology Industry Council. She began her career working for U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY).

Candace Kelly

Chief Legal Officer, Stellar Development Foundation

Candace Kelly is the Chief Legal Officer of the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a non-profit organization that supports the development and growth of Stellar, an open-source network that connects the world’s financial infrastructure. At SDF, she leads legal, policy, and government relations, focused on bridging the gap between the public and private sectors, fostering dialogue and growing partnerships with global regulators and policymakers.Prior to joining Stellar, Candace worked for Uber Technologies, Inc., where she held a variety of positions, helping to navigate the company’s response to regulatory investigations and advising on safety, security, privacy, consumer protection, and law enforcement response. Candace brings her vast legal experience to SDF, most notably her 17 year career at the United States Department of Justice, where she held positions as a legal and policy advisor on national security, criminal, and civil rights issues in leadership offices in Washington D.C. and as a prosecutor in the Northern District of California.

Seth Hertlein

Global Head of Policy, Ledger

Hertlein brings deep experience in blockchain policy to Ledger, having previously served as the first Head of Policy and Government Relations for the Stellar Development Foundation, where he oversaw all aspects of the organization’s engagement on digital asset policy, legislation and regulation globally.

Jason Somensatto

Head of Policy for North America, Chainalysis

Jason Somensatto serves as Chainalysis’ Head of Policy for North America, where he leads the company’s engagement with lawmakers and regulators across the region, and serves as a senior, strategic advisor to Chainalysis leadership on the rapidly evolving regulation of digital assets. Prior to joining Chainalysis, Jason served as an advisor and FinTech and digital assets lead for CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam, and also led the CFTC’s Office of Technology Innovation. Jason has also served in positions at a blockchain API leader, and at a boutique litigation firm in DC. Jason is based in Chainalysis’ DC office.

Nikhil Raghuveera

Co-Founder and CEO, Predicate

Nikhil is Co-Founder and CEO of Predicate, a network built to simplify transaction prerequisites. Nikhil is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, a leading think tank focused on global economic policy. Prior to Predicate, Nikhil was Head of Strategy & Innovation at the Celo Foundation. He also worked in management consulting, nonprofit management and economic consulting. Nikhil graduated with an MBA from The Wharton School and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Dave Grimaldi

EVP of Government Relations, Blockchain Association

As Executive Vice President of Government Relations for Blockchain Association, Dave is the face of the crypto industry on Capitol Hill. Prior to joining the Association, he led the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s policy team as an executive vice president. Prior to this position, Dave opened Pandora’s DC office and also held roles in the federal government, serving as Senior Counsel for the Office of Majority Whip Jim Clyburn and Chief of Staff to FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Dave earned a bachelor’s degree in English at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, followed by a J.D. at Catholic University Law School.

Marisa Coppel

Head of Legal, Blockchain Association

As Head of Legal for Blockchain Association, Marisa helps develop and advocate for policy positions on behalf of the crypto industry as well as manages long-term legal projects and strategic litigation. Prior to joining the Association, Marisa represented corporate clients in regulatory enforcement actions, internal investigations, and civil litigation matters at Covington & Burling LLP. Marisa earned her B.A. from Brandeis University, and her J.D. from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Sarah Milby

Head of Policy, Blockchain Association

Sarah leads the development and implementation of policy decisions on behalf of the Association. A rising industry star, she joined Blockchain Association in the summer of 2020 and currently heads the Policy department. Sarah and her team provide members with deep policy analysis on proposed legislation and regulatory actions. Sarah has been a featured speaker at major industry conferences and her opinion pieces have been published in national outlets. Sarah graduated from the University of Chicago magna cum laude, is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and earned honors in her major. She has a B.A. in Law, Letters, and Society.

Ron Hammond

Director of Government Relations, Blockchain Association

Ron represents the association on Capitol Hill as Director of Government Relations. Ron’s background in crafting a bipartisan crypto regulatory framework via legislation dates back to 2016 when he served as the Financial Services Policy Lead for Rep. Warren Davidson (OH-8). During Ron’s five years on Capitol Hill, he authored several pieces of legislation including the Token Taxonomy Act, Federal Reserve Regulatory Oversight Act, and the Derivatives Fairness Act. Before coming to Capitol Hill, he was the campaign manager for three successful Texas State Senate races. Ron received his B.A. from Georgetown University.

Laura Sanders

Senior Counsel, Blockchain Association

Laura is Policy Counsel for Blockchain Association. She advocates for policy positions on behalf of the crypto industry and supports long-term legal strategies and litigation. Laura joined the Association from Compass, Inc., where she served as Litigation Counsel. Before that, she spent several years representing corporate clients in civil litigation matters as an Associate with Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Laura earned her B.A. with High Distinction from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She earned her J.D. from Harvard Law School.