Past Speakers

Michael K. Dershem, aka Dersh, is a seasoned business development entrepreneur who has assisted multiple ventures and attracted millions of dollars of capital. Dersh is currently CEO of MAPay, a leader in blockchain vision & deployment for the healthcare industry; today providing use-cases impacting both the financial and clinical well-being of the sector. He possesses an outstanding track record in strategic business planning and development, capital sourcing, multi-disciplinary problem solving; in addition to a strong technology-transfer background from government and university research to private sector commercialization.

Hon. Sir John Swan is a real estate developer, political luminary and philanthropist. He served as Premier for 13 ½ years and is Chairman of the Swan Group. In 1962 he founded John W. Swan Agency, a real estate development, savings and loan company. He has completed many commercial and residential building projects. He was elected to Parliament in 1972 and retired in 1997. In 1985 he successfully negotiated the Tax Treaty with the USA which resulted in the development of the reinsurance industry. Recipient of many awards including Knight Commander of the British Empire and National Hero of Bermuda.

Julien Auchecorne serves as Chief Operating Officer of XBTO International, the offshore arm of the XBTO Group, one of the world’s largest and most diversified participants in the cryptocurrency markets. The Group is involved in systematic trading, market making, OTC trading, asset management, mining, blockchain development, and strategic venture investing. XBTO is primarily located in New York, Paris, and Bermuda.

Rob Odell is Head of Product and Marketing at SALT where he is responsible for managing the product and marketing teams, creating the product roadmap, and developing the marketing strategy. He is responsible for gathering insight into business problems, obtaining user feedback, and turning stakeholder ideas into products and features. Additionally, Rob works closely with the marketing and design teams to improve the user experience and communicate the value, benefits and differentiators for SALT. Prior to his role at SALT, Rob held product manager roles at Skookum and Search Scientists. Rob has been a Bitcoin believer since 2013 after being introduced to it by a Bali-based coffee roaster selling his beans for Bitcoin.

Chainstone Labs is a private incubator and advisory company that invests in the digital securities ecosystem. Chainstone owns Watchdog Capital, an SEC registered FINRA broker dealer, Atlantic Financial, an RIA and the Satoshi Roundtable, an industry event series. Fenton is a former FINRA principal and economic advisor specializing in emerging markets and technology. Bruce has worked on Bitcoin since 2012, with the Bitcoin Foundation and co-founder of the Bitcoin Association. He’s been active in Ethereum, Ravencoin and other projects. Previously, Fenton worked in Saudi Arabia for a large private equity firm and a multinational foundation.

Grant Fondo, an experienced federal prosecutor and former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of California, is head of the Litigation Department for Goodwin’s California offices, founder and Co-Chair of its Digital Currency & Blockchain Technology practice, and a partner in the firm's Securities Litigation & White Collar Defense group, and in its Privacy & Cybersecurity practice. He represents technology, Fintech, blockchain, digital currency, private equity, and venture capital clients in a wide range of regulatory and contested matters. Mr. Fondo is recognized by Chambers USA for his White Collar Defense practice, recommended by The Legal 500 U.S. for Financial Services Litigation, White Collar Defense, and Fintech, by U.S. News Best Lawyers for his White Collar Defense work, and by Benchmark Litigation as a “Future Star” litigator.

Barbara Jones is a seasoned corporate and securities shareholder based in Greenberg Traurig’s Los Angeles office. Barbara co-chairs the firm’s 80+ attorney interdisciplinary Blockchain and Cryptocurrency practice group, which is ranked in the Chambers and Partners 2019 FinTech Guide.  Barbara is a member of the Bermuda Global Fintech Advisory Board and a contributing editor to Thomson Reuters for articles on U.S. and international regulations relating to token offerings. In 2018, Barbara was named by the National Law Journal as a Trailblazer for Cryptocurrency, Blockchain and FinTech and has received recognition from Chambers, The Legal 500 and SuperLawyers.

Jeff Pulver is an American Internet entrepreneur known for his work as founder and chief executive of Skrumble, pulver.com and co-founder of Free World Dialup, Vonage, the VON Coalition, MoNage, Blockchain Token Association and Zula (app). Pulver has been called a Voice over Internet Protocol pioneer, and has written extensively on VoIP telephony, and the need to develop an alternative to government regulation of its applications layer.

Denis Pitcher is the Chief Fintech Advisor to the Premier of Bermuda and is responsible for driving national strategy and direction for fintech for Bermuda. He is a tech entrepreneur and previously worked in financial services building currency hedging recommendation systems. He also writes a Fintech column in the local newspaper The Royal Gazette.

An attorney in Paris and Brussels since 1993, Thibault Verbiest founded Ulys, a law firm dedicated to new technologies. He was notably able to develop a renowned expertise in legislation pertaining to payments and e-money, gaming and other regulated online activities. He is also the co-author of several books, including the first book on blockchain in French and the seminal piece ‘Fintech et Droit”. He regularly contributes to the public debate on blockchain, and is a speaker at fintech-blockchain focused events. He is a legal advisor for a number of Blockchain ventures, exchanges and crypto funds in Europe. He also acts as expert with the European Blockchain Observatory and Forum and with the World Bank.

Sakhib Waseem is Chief Innovation Officer for Proof of Trust, lending expertise from his years as an executive-level technology expert in the finance sector. Sakhib has consulted a number of top-tier financial institutions, designing and implementing transformative technology-driven solutions from inception for high profile, regulatory-driven projects.

Liz advises growth stage technology companies on a spectrum of strategic business development initiatives. For over two decades, she has consulted with founders, partners, and investors to create scalable sales and marketing structures. Prior to entering the blockchain and crypto arena, she worked with a variety of technology and BPO companies in accessibility/assistive technology, VoIP, publishing, biotech, and healthcare. She is a current Activator at SheEO, a global initiative designed to radically transform the way investors finance and support female entrepreneurs; she has served on the boards of several startup ventures. Liz has a BA in English from Barnard College, Columbia University.

Darren Wolfberg brings extensive experience in both startup and institutional finance with a penchant for digital assets and the Blockchain. Darren serves as CEO of Blockchain Triangle in Bermuda as well as Head of Fintech at Bay Crest Partners on Wall Street. Prior to joining Bay Crest, Darren spent 13 years at Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas and BTIG in leadership and management roles. Darren was also the founder of a venture-backed startup called Broadform, and was previously part of Sony’s Venture Capital Group, as well as the product development team at Sony.

Ivan is a financial technology entrepreneur, investor, and early adopter of digital assets. He is Co-Founder and CEO of MoonPay, the leading payments API for fiat to crypto. He is also a General Partner at HODL, a venture capital fund and company builder with offices in New York City, London, and Seoul.

Miami-born and raised, Scott Moskowitz developed his first photographs at the Miami Museum of Science in 1974 at age 5, shot with his parents' Kodak Instamatic. A few years of innovation, he created a solar hot dog cooker and begin course work at Miami Dade Community College at age 12. Mr. Moskowitz graduated cum laude from The Wharton School (BSE) and College of Arts & Sciences (BA) at University of Pennsylvania. He started Wistaria Trading 28 years ago in Japan primarily for consumer goods trade and consulting, successes include becoming the largest importer of compact discs and developing the plan that resulted in the “Hearts on Fire” diamond brand. Mr. Moskowitz holds over 110 patents for inventions including digital watermarks, product license keys, address space location randomization (“ASLR”), content recognition, transactional security & “bandwidth as currency” and packet tracing.

Alyson Thompson is a Bermudian filmmaker who has worked in the film industry in New York and Bermuda. She obtained her Master of Arts in Media Studies from The New School and has worked for Belafonte Enterprise, Inc. on numerous creative projects including a role as Production Coordinator for the upcoming feature documentary Another Night in the Free World. Over the years Alyson has dedicated her craft to telling engaging stories about the world around us. Alyson is a Producer for Detained, a short narrative film currently being screened at film festivals throughout the US. Detained was fully funded through blockchain technology.

Max Wolff is the Co-Founder at Multivariate and at Clio. Previously, Max split his career between late stage venture and hedge funds, applying cutting edge quantitive techniques to map alternative assets opportunities. He teaches graduate finance and economics at the New School. Max has made over 2000 news and print appearances in leading outlets including CNBC, Bloomberg, The Financial Times, CBS Evening News, PBS, CGTN China, Globo Brazil, ABC News, BBC, and The Wall Street Journal. .

Chris Garrod is a Director in the Corporate department of Conyers. He is the Head of their Fintech Group and is also a member of the Firm’s insurance practice. Chris advises clients on matters regarding Bermuda digital token issuers and digital asset businesses generally. He has formed Bermuda cryptocurrency and token issuers using blockchain-based technology and assists clients with respect to all matters involving Bermuda’s growing Fintech and Insurtech industries. In particular he advised on and assisted with setting up the first digital token issuer to launch in Bermuda, as well as the first three companies to be approved to conduct offerings by the Island’s Minister of Finance. His practice also includes advising on reinsurance structures and working with or forming large commercial insurers, ILS vehicles and segregated account companies. He also generally advises on all aspects of Bermuda corporate law, including M&A deals, takeovers, reorganisations and re-domestications.

Gurps Rai is the inventor of an Ai and machine learning algorithm that makes video players ‘smart' and is the CEO of shoppable media company DroppTV. He architected a carbon offset deal with Hub Culture, Nike, WinRock, and the American Carbon Registry. In 2011 he successfully facilitated a commodity trade using the Ven virtual currency. Gurps also designed and engineered the world's most expensive sneaker 'The Fire Monkey' sneaker. Engineered and co-designed the Micheal Jackson Diamond anniversary sneakers with Giuseppe Zanotti.

Gin Chao currently serves as Strategy Officer for Binance where he leads the corporate development department, which covers M&A, JV and strategic partnerships, Binance Labs (venture investments), Binance Launchpad (advisory services), and Binance X (developer platform). He previously spent 10 years in Asia working for NBA and Dell in senior corporate development roles. Prior to that, he worked for 15 years in the US at Sovereign Investment Company leading acquisitions, Deutsche Bank's investment banking group raising over $2 billion in capital for Web 1.0 companies, and Price Waterhouse’s management consulting division. He received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA in Finance from New York University's Stern School of Business.

Matthew Ebbs-Brewer is a partner in the Corporate department of Appleby’s Bermuda office. He is also a member of Appleby’s global Technology & Innovation team, providing comprehensive advice in connection with all aspects of initial coin offerings and the carrying on of digital asset business. Matthew has advised corporations, funds and high-net-worth individuals on a range of both contentious and non-contentious matters with notable experience in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, as well as the establishment and development of multinational group structures, joint ventures and both standalone and master/feeder fund structures (including those investing in insurance-linked securities). Prior to joining Appleby, Matthew worked in the London office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (UK) LLP.

Natalie Neo is a Partner in the Corporate, Finance, Funds & Insurance Group. She advises FinTech clients and investors with respect to Bermuda's evolving ICO legislation and blockchain and digital asset framework including the establishment, licensing and ongoing compliance obligations of digital asset businesses. She advises on a wide range of Bermuda-based and international corporate and regulatory matters, including directors' fiduciary duties and responsibilities, with significant transactional experience advising on M&A transactions for public and private companies, including takeovers, tender offers and squeeze outs, amalgamations, mergers, and schemes of arrangement. Natalie's practice also includes private equity investments, debt and equity capital markets transactions, banking and finance matters.

Sam Schatz, Managing Director & Global Head of Farm Development for AeroFarms, joined as an investor and first employee after the company founders in 2012. The company has since grown to over 150 employees and operates the world’s largest vertical farm in Newark, NJ. Sam leads the company’s expansion to new markets and other strategic initiatives and is an Advisor to the St. Louis based AgTech accelerator The Yield Lab.