Vitalik is the creator of Ethereum. He first discovered blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies through Bitcoin in 2011, and was immediately excited by the technology and its potential. He cofounded Bitcoin Magazine in September 2011, and after two and a half years looking at what the existing blockchain technology and applications had to offer, wrote the Ethereum white paper in November 2013. He now leads Ethereum's research team, working on future versions of the Ethereum protocol.

Arthur Hayes is an entrepreneur, a crypto trader and advocate, and a fintech pioneer. Currently, he serves as the Chief Investment Officer of Maelstrom, his family office. He is also the co-founder of BitMEX and the originator of the perpetual swap, a popular derivatives trading product unique to the digital assets space. He is passionate about helping spread financial literacy and educate investors regarding cryptocurrencies and digital assets.

Arthur began his career as a market maker for Deutsche Bank’s and Citibank’s ETF businesses. He holds a BA in Economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Henry Chang, possessing a bachelor's degree in business
administration from Seoul National University and a master's degree from KAIST, is widely recognized as a pioneering figure in the Korean blockchain industry. With a distinguished professional background encompassing esteemed roles at Nexon and Neowiz, Henry Chang is currently the CEO of WEMADE. His unwavering dedication to expanding the growth of WEMIX and its mega-ecosystem is evident through active engagements in both domestic and international initiatives.

Seonik Jeon is the founder and CEO of FACTBLOCK, an esteemed company renowned for spearheading Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) annually. 

His fateful encounter with the real-world application of Bitcoin for payments in Tokyo, Japan, in 2017, ignited a profound conviction in the boundless potential of blockchain as a technology of tomorrow. This experience served as the impetus for the establishment of FactBlock in 2018, underpinned by the resolute belief that rectifying information asymmetry lies at the core of achieving widespread blockchain adoption. Notably, the incorporation of the word 'Fact' into the company's appellation symbolizes FACTBLOCK's unwavering commitment to delivering information based solely on verified facts. 

As part of accomplishing this mission, KBW was launched in 2018, opening up a thriving communication and knowledge-sharing hub. It fosters seamless dialogue within the esteemed 'Korean Community' and forges direct connections with global leaders in the blockchain industry. During KBW, knowledge and insights are exchanged devoid of any asymmetry, thereby facilitating a harmonious convergence of the domestic and global spheres of blockchain innovation.

Last year, KBW successfully combined tech and music, and this year's event aims to expand even further. The upcoming KBW 2023 will feature a week-long program combining "Tech, Art, and Music," exploring the latest trends in Web3. Notable events like IMPACT, The Gateway: Korea, and Seoulbound are being prepared. 

Besides his role in Factblock, Seonik Jeon also serves as the Vice Chairman of Financial News, a renowned Korean media company. He has previously worked as the Tokyo Bureau Chief in Japan and as a correspondent in Los Angeles, USA, in Financial News. He is actively involved in observing and providing unwavering support to the Korean startup ecosystem.

Simon Seojoon Kim is CEO & Managing Partner at Hashed. He is the leading blockchain thought leader and evangelist in South Korea, working with dominant IT companies including Kakao, Line, Watcha and Spoqa to launch their blockchain initiatives. Prior to Hashed, Simon co-founded an ed-tech startup Knowre in the US and Korea where he served as Chief Product Officer. Knowre was named one of the World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Education by Fast Company later acquired by Daekyo, the largest education company in South Korea. Simon serves as a member of 4th Revolution Committee of the South Korean Parliament. Simon also sits as a Director of Korea Blockchain Association and a member of Busan Blockchain Free zone committee. Simon studied Computer Science and Engineering at Pohang University of Science and Technology.

   

Kima Kim entered the gaming industry with NCsoft, a Korean game company. After his time in NCsoft, he was appointed as a Korean board member of the Japanese game company SEGA, where he served for over a decade.

Since then, he established Caliverse to create various and innovative high-quality content and patent technologies, starting with 'Hana-B', an interactive VR cinema experience. In 2021, Caliverse merged and was acquired by Lotte Group, a leading Korean company, to create a "Hyper-real Metaverse" that connects the digital and real world.

Caliverse offers an amazing experience in the shopping, entertainment, UGC and gaming sector. It is distinctly different from the traditional metaverses, Caliverse are implementing the circulation of the real world and virtual reality through the blockchain technology.

Caliverse received acclaimed reviews for its PC, VR, and 3D TV demonstration at CES 2023 and it is scheduled to launch next year.

Lasse is a co-founder and Director of 1kx Capital. He is a co-founder and Director of the Investment Manager and 1kx GP, the general partner of the Fund. Before joining 1kx, Lasse was one of the most active token angel investors in Europe. Prior to that, from 2015 to 2017, he was the founder and CEO of WeRide GmbH (“WeRide”) in Berlin, a mobility technology company. Lasse was a scholarship recipient at the European Business School in Madrid.

   

Dan believes that Bitcoin is for everyone. He has been a marketing leader committed to making crypto products accessible and approachable, leveraging more than decade of knowledge and relationships. He’s currently a Bitcoin educator with over 850,000 followers on social media, and marketing advisor at Trust Machines. He was formerly the Director of Growth Marketing at Kraken, one of the world’s biggest and most well-known crypto exchanges. He is a serial crypto entrepreneur with two exits (Interchange > Kraken, ZeroBlock > Blockchain.com), and has a wide span of experience across 5 Bitcoin companies over 10 years. In between his time in crypto, he was on the Growth Product and Marketing teams at Uber. He was part of the original 2013 crypto meetup group in SF which was comprised with the founders of Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, and others.

Sergey Nazarov is the co-founder of Chainlink, the industry-standard Web3 services platform used by global enterprises and leading Web3 projects at the forefront of the blockchain industry. Chainlink oracle networks enable smart contracts on any blockchain to reliably connect to any external API and leverage secure off-chain computations for building feature-rich applications. Chainlink currently secures tens of billions of dollars in value for smart contracts across decentralized finance (DeFi), insurance, gaming, and other major industries. Contributing to building an industry-standard oracle solution used by leading banks, insurance companies, and large technology firms has given Nazarov a unique perspective on what is required to drive the mainstream adoption of blockchain technology and build a world based on cryptographic truth.

Ed Felten is co-founder and Chief Scientist of Offchain Labs, the initial team
behind the development of Arbitrum. In addition to his role at Offchain Labs, Ed is a professor at Princeton University, where he has been educating students in Computer Science and Public Affairs for nearly 30 years. Ed had a stint as the White House’s Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer from June 2015 until January 2017. From January 2011 to August 2012, Ed served as Chief Technologist of the Federal Trade Commission. He currently sits as a Board Member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Ed graduated from Caltech with a B.S. in Physics and received his Ph.D in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington.

Pacman is one of the core contributors and founders of Blur. He started his career as a software engineer at Teespring and later founded StrongIntro, a venture that went through Y Combinator. Following this, Pacman studied Math and Computer Science at MIT, during which he was awarded the Thiel Fellowship. This led him to dropout, and create Namebase. He later sold Namebase to Namecheap, after which he immediately started working on Blur.

Sebastien also became the President of the Blockchain Game Alliance
in 2020, a non-profit organization of 500 key members of the industry. He was recently named #4 in the Top #100 2022 most influential people in crypto by CoinTelegraph The Sandbox has been featured in TIME100 Top 100 most influential companies of 2022 by Times magazine.

Carole House is an Executive in Residence at Terranet Ventures, Inc., and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.

She also currently serves as the Chair of the Technology Advisory Committee (TAC) to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and recently served at the White House National Security Council (NSC) as the Director for Cybersecurity and Secure Digital Innovation.

Carole joined the NSC from the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), where she led cybersecurity, virtual currency, and emerging technology policy efforts as a Senior Cyber and Emerging Technology Policy Officer.

Prior to FinCEN, she worked as a Presidential Management Fellow supporting the White House Office of Management and Budget's Cyber and National Security Unit and the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on cybersecurity, supply chain risk management, and critical infrastructure protection policy issues.

Carole is a former Army Captain who served in chemical defense and military intelligence until November 2014, including a deployment to Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, from 2012 to 2013 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. She holds a BA in international affairs from the University of Georgia and an MA in security studies from Georgetown University.

Mara Schmiedt, CEO of Alluvial, oversees business, operations, and strategy. She previously worked at Coinbase as Head of Sales for Coinbase Cloud, managed Business Development at Bison Trails, and served as Strategy Manager at ConsenSys, focusing on Codefi. Mara is a board member at Obol Labs, a leading DVT provider, and a strategic angel investor in over 15 projects. Passionate about open-source technology, she has published research on liquid staking and led a working group with the Ethereum Foundation that developed the Ethereum Launchpad and the first DVT proof of concepts.

   

Björn Wagner is CEO and Founder of Parity Technologies, which he founded alongside Dr. Gavin Wood in 2015. Björn has been instrumental in driving the company’s strategic positioning as an innovation-focused blockchain solutions company.

Previously, as Parity’s CCO, he drove the development of partnerships and products, leading the company’s business and go-to-market strategy. Björn is from Siegburg, Germany. He has expertise in industrial automation and digitization and holds an MSc. in

Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration from RWTH Aachen University. He also studied at University of California Santa Barbara and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

   

Woosuk Kim successfully introduced LINE's crypto asset LINK and blockchain platforms in 2018 as an early member of LINE’s blockchain business. Since then, he has contributed to the expansion of LINE's blockchain and token economy ecosystem by leading the global LINE blockchain business, such as developing a reward solution for issuance of LINK and launching various DApps through the LINE blockchain platform. In addition, Woosuk is a fintech business expert who graduated from the Department of Business Administration at Yonsei University. He co-founded Sentbe, a fintech company specializing in foreign exchange, and served as CMO.

Mo was the Founder and CEO of Meridio, a ConsenSys-backed, blockchain-based company that issued the world’s first fractional share of real estate. Mo also led ConsenSys strategy as an early employee and founded the ConsenSys’ Middle East Office. He has consulted the World Economic Forum on their global blockchain strategy including Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDCs). Prior to Meridio, Mo also consulted Sovereign Wealth Funds, energy, and telecom companies with BCG’s Private Equity practice.

Before Animoca, Mr Lau is Executive Chairman of WeSure, one of China’s leading FinTech insurance businesses. Backed by Tencent, Fubon Insurance and Boyu Capital, WeSure works with insurance and technology companies to develop affordable protection products for Internet users. Mr Lau founded WeSure in 2016, and built the startup to a 500-strong team over 4 years. WeSure was named #1 InsurTech company in multiple industry rankings, including China’s Hurun and UK’s InsurancePost. To-date, WeSure served over 100m users.

Before WeSure, Mr Lau was a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Co, and was part of the team that created the Firm’s Asia Corporate Finance Division in the late 1990s. He was later promoted as Asia Pacific Head for McKinsey Digital, leading digital transformations and projects in AI, Big Data, Digital Marketing, and User Experience Design. Outside of his technology work, Mr Lau contributes actively to arts development. He is Chairman of ParaSite, the longest standing non-profit art space in HK. Mr Lau also Co-Chairs the Asia Pacific Acquisition Committee of Tate and the Asia Art Circle of Guggenheim, to help the two institutions build a global art collection. He is the Vice-Chair of M+, a new visual arts and culture museums in HK; and sits on LCSD’s Museum Advisory Committee.

Mr Alan Lau graduated from Oxford University with a MSc in Engineering in 1997. He has 10 years of work experience in Finance, and 15 years in Internet & TMT.

   

Robbie Ferguson is the Co-Founder and President of Immutable, the world’s leading Web3 gaming platform. Robbie is a Thiel Fellow and has led Immutable to achieve #1 in gaming market share with nearly ~$1bn invested in games building on their ecosystem and 150+ games (including TikTok, Disney, and Illuvium). Immutable has raised $300M+ USD from Temasek, Tencent, Bitkraft, and more and was most recently valued at $2.5B.

   

David Schwartz is Co-Founder of Polygon and Engineering Lead, managing the teams and execution in these two initiatives. He helps shape strategy at Polygon to bring the best scaling solutions in Web3. With over 20 years of experience in the IT industry–from engineering to executive positions in telecom and ISP companies–David has experience in every iteration of the web. He began working during the nascent stages of the commercial internet, a time that resonates with Web3. He currently lives in Switzerland.

Pascal Gauthier is the Chairman & CEO of Ledger, a tech company that specializes in developing secure consumer devices for storing and managing cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

He began his career at Kelkoo, later acquired by Yahoo, and was COO at Criteo, where he played a key role in the company's pivot to advertising and global expansion. Pascal Gauthier also worked as a Venture Partner at Mosaic Ventures, a London-based VC firm, and is non-executive chairman of Kaiko, a leading digital data analytics provider. 

Since he became Chairman & CEO of Ledger in 2019, Pascal Gauthier has expanded the company's product line with Ledger Live, an intuitive digital asset management app, and a next-generation consumer device, Ledger Stax. He is committed to driving ownership and security in the cryptocurrency industry.

Eric is the co-founder of Taproot Wizards together with Udi Wertheimer. Longtime Bitcoin and Ethereum enthusiast. Eric is a Msc. Eng. in CompSci with a backround at Cinnober/Nasdaq and as a hedge fund manager. He serves as board member of the Starknet Foundation, an Ethereum L2 zk-rollup.

Nu Dao is the Co-Founder and General Partner of Rubik Ventures, an early-stage web3 focused venture fund investing in the next generation of teams that abstract away the complexities of blockchain technology for both consumer and enterprise adoption. We are based in New York & Hong Kong and seek to invest in teams building in the US and Asia Pacific Region.

Collectively, we have made over 110+ early-stage investments across both web2 and web3, most of which were alongside and/or followed by top investors. Our combined web3 portfolio includes Kraken, Animoca Brands, Opensea, Dapper Labs, Amber Group, ImmutableX, LayerZero, Spectral Finance, Storyverse, Odsy, and more in stealth.