Gavin Wood is co-founder of Ethereum, Polkadot and Kusama, created the Ethereum Virtual Machine and Solidity smart contract language, the JAM protocol, and proposed the Web3 vision for a decentralized internet. He is CEO of Parity Technologies.

Sandeep has been involved with many tech businesses since his very early days. Scaling is Sandeep’s key focus, be it in businesses or blockchains, but he is an all-around business buff. Sandeep had his ‘lightbulb moment’ about the revolutionary nature of blockchain in 2017, found his calling in the scalability arena and co-founded Matic Network (now Polygon) alongside Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun.

Collin is currently serving as the CEO & Founder of Obol Labs Inc. since April 2021. Prior to that, from January 2018 to March 2021, they worked at ConsenSys as the Global Product Strategy - DeFi. In addition, they held the position of Global Head of Business Development at Token Foundry from June 2018 to February 2019. Before venturing into the blockchain industry, Collin worked at MUFG from March 2016 to June 2018 as an Associate in the Corporate & Investment Banking Division, where they managed relationships with corporate clients and spearheaded the implementation of a DLT pilot program for KYC and client onboarding.

Austin Federa is the Co-Founder of DoubleZero, a dedicated high-performance network for modern distributed systems, and President of the DoubleZero Foundation. Prior to co-founding DoubleZero in 2024, Austin served as Head of Strategy at the Solana Foundation where he was responsible for setting the direction of the Foundation and working with projects and developers building across the Solana ecosystem. Previously, Austin worked on marketing and product at Bison Trails, and was Director of Marketing at Republic and Republic Crypto, a private investing platform.

Misha Putatin is the Co-Founder of Symbiotic, a universal staking protocol that redefines how blockchain networks coordinate security. With a background in protocol research, smart contract auditing, and compiler-level vulnerability discovery, Misha brings deep technical fluency and a clear mission: to expand the security surface area of Web3 infrastructure through real, production-grade architecture. Among other infrastructure initiatives Misha was the CEO at MixBytes, a crypto R&D and auditing firm, where he worked across early DeFi systems and led efforts to help Lido expand, launching one of the first cross-chain liquid staking implementations and gaining hands-on experience with shared security and decentralized communication layers like XCM. Misha went on to co-found Statemind, a top-tier auditing firm that surfaced vulnerabilities in major protocols and compilers, including critical bugs in Vyper. But auditing protocol and Blockchain design alone wasn’t enough. The constraints of the model and its inability to scale with crypto’s rising complexity pushed Misha to pursue a broader mandate: securing every link in the crypto transaction pipeline. What began as internal research sprints and freeform “hack retreats” evolved into a deeper investigation into modular infrastructure and the gaps in permissionless security design. In July 2023, that effort crystallized into Symbiotic. After nearly a year of intensive R&D, Symbiotic emerged as the first production-ready shared security protocol, offering real slashing, dynamic rewards, and full-stack economic security without compromising on decentralization. Misha is now leading Symbiotic with a single focus: to build foundational infrastructure that others can rely on, proving that shared security isn’t just a concept, it’s the blueprint for the modular future of crypto.

Founder of TopHat (exited), Founder and CEO of ether.fi, one of the largest LST providers and leader in crypto neobanking.

Mara Schmiedt, CEO and Co-Founder of Alluvial, the development company behind Liquid Collective. 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. Mara is a board member at Obol Labs, a leading DVT provider, and a strategic angel investor in over 20 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.

Working in the crypto space since 2017, Gytis is one of the original co-founders of MEV Capital, the leading DeFi asset management and risk curation company worldwide. With a background in corporate finance and fintech marketing, he previously held strategic roles at Lossless, Bruc Bond, and FCR Media, with a focus on B2B growth and digital transformation. At MEV Capital he is in charge of the firm’s operations, administration and finance, whilst scaling the business through partnership building, client acquisition and B2B integrations of MEV Capital curated vaults. Being a General Partner since inception, Gytis played a key role in helping to scale the firm’s managed assets from under $1M to $2B over the last 5 years and has built a vast network of connections and partners within the decentralized finance space.

Technical PM with a math/physics background. Led Starknet Staking from ideation to deployment; now driving its third major evolution: Bitcoin staking. To date: nearly 500M STRK staked, 65K+ delegators, and 170 validators. Previously kicked off the StarkGate rebrand. Manages staking end-to-end—protocol, roadmap, integrations, ecosystem relations, and dev prioritization.

Ed combines corporate and entrepreneurial experience in energy and finance, having co-founded Energy Web, Grid Singularity, Scytale Ventures, and Dark Forest.

Mateo Ward is Co-Founder of Malbec Labs, a core contributor to the DoubleZero Protocol, a dedicated high-performance network for modern distributed systems. Mateo has built and scaled multiple ventures in telecom, cybersecurity, and tech infrastructure. Prior to co-founding DoubleZero, he was the CEO & Co-Founder of Neutrona Networks, an international fiber network operator who also built low-latency networks for finance/HFT firms. Prior to Neutrona, he worked at Global Crossing (now Lumen), the first independent owner and operator of a global undersea fiber optic cable system. He is also a Co-Founder and early investor in Enveedo, a cybersecurity SaaS platform.

Mirko has been researching Proof-of-Stake networks and yield-bearing digital assets since 2013, turning his early passion into a career. He now leads a team of 20 on a mission to make passive income from digital assets accessible to everyone. Before founding Staking Rewards, he ran a Bitcoin mining operation in Southeast Asia.

Luca Prosperi is Co-Founder and CEO of M0. With a 20-year career dedicated to building, advising, researching, and investing in financial intermediaries, Luca Prosperi has been at the forefront of transformative change in the financial sector. Before founding M0, his journey has seen him contribute to the evolution of some of the most impactful DeFi protocols, including his previous role in Lending Oversight at MakerDAO, advising investors operating in the space, and publishing his research at Dirt Roads.

Devin Walsh is the Executive Director and Co-founder of the Uniswap Foundation, founded via community governance proposal in 2022. Before diving full-time into crypto, Devin worked at BlackRock, where she spent nearly 5 years working on the Aladdin platform and leading integration initiatives. Her transition into DeFi began at ConsenSys, where she focused on product and strategy for uPort, a pioneering digital identity platform. Before posting the proposal to create the UF, she was Chief of Staff at Uniswap Labs.

Building crypto tools since 2017 & former Lead PM at Blocknative. Cornell Tech MBA.

BraveNewDeFi is Head of Risk at Nexus Mutual, the first crypto insurance alternative. In this role, Brave is responsible for conducting onchain risk research, developing new cover products, maintaining the Mutual's hacks database and base pricing model, and handling feasibility assessments for new listings.

CEO & Founder of Hyve, developing high-throughput data infrastructure that powers the next generation of high-performance web3 applications.

Co-founder and CTO at Catalysis Network, Previously Senior Engineer at Prysm (Offchain Labs), Obol

MEVVOR

Ash Morgan leads RWA and Stablecoin initiatives at the Ethereum Foundation, where he focuses on bridging traditional financial infrastructure with decentralized technology that align with Ethereum’s long-term vision of open, neutral, and resilient global finance. Before this, he co-founded PierTwo, APAC's largest institutional non—custodial staking network.

Founder/CEO of Cap

Julian is a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation’s Robust Incentives Group. He helps design Ethereum’s markets and has contributed to the transaction fee market, the builder market, and now leads prover market research. Next to the economics work, he is interested in Decentralized Finance and market microstructure.

Crypto OG. Started in BTC in 2013. Did VC, worked in multiple crypto companies in DeFi. Currently building Hyperwave in the Hyperliquid ecosystem :)

Researcher at the EF focused on scaling and securing the world computer.

Matt Pearring, Sr. Director of Product at Offchain Labs, leads the development of Arbitrum, one of the largest and most advanced scaling solutions in the Ethereum ecosystem, and ZeroDev, a developer platform focused on bringing account abstraction to Ethereum and beyond. He helped launch Arbitrum One, Nova and Orbit, and designed the protocol’s governance system that supports its decentralized growth. Before joining Offchain Labs, Matt worked at Google, where he applied behavioral science to scale products including Search, Gmail and YouTube, and later advanced open-source platforms such as Android, Chrome and TensorFlow. Matt studied economics and has been active in blockchain since mining Bitcoin on his home computer.

Dennison Bertram is building Tally.xyz, the credibly neutral governance layer for the future of digital applications. Tally.xyz powers layer 2 blockchains, DeFi protocols, Stablecoins, RWAs, automated market makers, messaging bridges, data availability layers, and more.

Rongxin Zhang is the founder of the Whitepaper Reading Club, a 650-member community spanning Singapore and three regional chapters dedicated to deepening technical understanding of blockchain systems. Previously, he led developer tooling and experience at Cobo Custody and Nervos Network. Earlier, he conducted research on decentralized file storage and identity at Cornell University and Pratt Institute, and was part of the founding team of a data startup acquired by Zillow in 2015.

Jacob Phillips is Co-Founder of Lombard, the leading platform accelerating Bitcoin capital markets and unlocking the full potential of the most important asset of our generation. Under his leadership, Lombard pioneered Bitcoin's integration into DeFi with LBTC, which reached $1 billion TVL in just 92 days and became the first Bitcoin LST trusted by blue-chip protocols including Aave, Spark, and EigenLayer. Secured by a consortium of leading digital asset institutions, Lombard is expanding beyond liquid staking to offer Bitcoin financial products, developer tools, and middleware to support a Bitcoin-based on-chain economy. Previously, Jacob served as Partner at Polychain Capital, one of crypto's most prominent venture funds, where he led venture investments and governance initiatives. He also held Product & Strategy roles at Perennial Labs, a DeFi derivatives protocol. Jacob holds degrees in Economics and Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University.

Amir is the Cofounder and CEO of Puffer Finance, a leading innovator in Ethereum infrastructure, focused on next-generation rollups supported by liquid restaking (LRT) and preconfirmation as an AVS. Under his leadership, Puffer has introduced breakthrough products such as Puffer UniFi (Based Rollups) and Puffer UniFi AVS, driving Ethereum’s scalability and decentralization forward. Before founding Puffer, Amir served as a lead engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, where he proposed the use of private blockchains to safeguard Deep Space Network data and explored zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to enhance the privacy and security of edge computing in space missions.

Yair Cleper is a contributor to Lava Network, the standard for blockchain data access powering global apps, wallets and enterprises across chains. He co-founded Magma Devs, the team building Lava Network’s decentralised RPC, and is a serial founder behind Supersmart, Octopai (acquired by Cloudera), and Ogmenti.

I hold a PhD in Computer Science, specializing in theoretical computer science and machine learning. I co-founded several startups, including Pendulum, a Polkadot-based blockchain for DeFi and stablecoin applications. I also served as CTO at SatoshiPay, where I built blockchain payment infrastructure. I am now an Engineering Manager at Parity Technologies, leading the team building Polkadot’s next-generation high performance smart contract platform to enable new classes of decentralized applications.

Guiding and vibing onchain

Will Shannon has been contributing to the Lido DAO for over three years, now as the Head of the Node Operator Mechanisms (NOM) workstream. Over the last year, Will’s main focus has been working with the over 600 Node Operators utilizing Lido to run validators, in addition to product responsibilities across Lido Core, stVaults, the Mellow Decentralized Validator Vault and other initiatives supporting the growth and development of the Lido ecosystem. Prior to contributing to the Lido DAO, Will worked in Institutional TMT Equity Sales. He studied Finance and Accounting.

Prior to RockSolid Steve was Head of Product at the Mina Protocol devco, a zk L1. Before that, Steve was a Director of Product at Cloudflare. Steve started his career in software & product in high frequency trading in TradFi. He is a home staker and runs Rocket Pool nodes.

Building in the crypto space since 2016, prev. exec at fintechs and bigtech companies.

With +12 years in crypto and more than 15 years in tech. Elay is co-founder & CEO of Polli, overseeing product vision and engineering. He previously headed product at Eat24 through its acquisition by Yelp, served as Sr. Product at Yelp post-acquisition, and was CIO at The Bloom, a global cannabis super brand where he built supply chain management systems and compliance automation. Elay founded Polli from his own experience of manually optimizing staking and balancing above market yield rates. He holds a BA in Business & Finance from Reichman University and combines entrepreneurial grit with hands-on execution.

Julien is the founder of Stake Capital Group, an investment firm, and its Venture Studio, which includes StakeDAO, BlackPool Finance, Rekt News, and others. He was also one of the first team members of Curve Finance. Julien holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from both the USA and France, specializing in machine learning and peer-to-peer systems since 2009. He has built multiple tech businesses and won various hackathons worldwide. Julien was first introduced to Bitcoin in late 2010 and Ethereum in 2015. He is now dedicated to developing tools that foster an open, transparent, and fair financial ecosystem.

Co-founder at Stakin.com, a leading institutional staking provider securing $2B+ in digital assets. Building reliable Proof-of-Stake infrastructure since 2018.

Occasionally emails back.

Benjamin Hunter has been building in the Ethereum ecosystem for nearly five years, with a focus on MEV infrastructure and validator economics. He contributed to the early design of Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) during his time at bloXroute, and today serves as VP of Engineering at BTCS, the first Nasdaq-listed Digital Asset Treasury (DAT). At BTCS, he leads both validator and DeFi operations, overseeing staking at scale, on chain asset deployment, MEV infrastructure, and vertical integration across validators, builders, and relays.

Robert Mordzon is the leader of Web3 Pi, an open-source project making Ethereum node operation accessible to everyone. Combining his background in software engineering, electronics, and systems design, he explores how small, energy-efficient devices like the Raspberry Pi 5 can power real-world solo staking on Ethereum Mainnet. His mission is to help decentralize the network by lowering the technical and energy barriers to participation.

Worked 5 years in quantitative risk management for financial institutions. Started the first and largest solver on CowSwap. Settled +12B USD in order flow across chains. Now co-founder at of GlueX Protocol, the only suite of APIs devs need to give their users the best execution experience across chains.

Aki Balogh is the Co-founder and CEO of BitSafe, a wrapped Bitcoin and vault provider serving the Canton blockchain. He formerly Co-founded and led MarketMuse, an AI-powered content optimization platform that was acquired by SiteImprove. In addition, Aki serves as an advisor to Dakai.io, the software development firm that built Chivo, the official Bitcoin wallet of El Salvador. He holds two patents in semantic analysis related to topic modeling for search and information retrieval. Earlier in his career, he was a Venture Capital Associate at OpenView Venture Partners, where he focused on investments in data infrastructure and machine learning.

As Chief Business Officer, Johann oversees the integration process for developers and protocols looking to build with Chainlink. Projects implementing Chainlink span a vast array of decentralized applications, including decentralized finance (DeFi), NFTs, gaming, insurance, and more. Johann has been involved in shaping the DeFi space through the use of Chainlink since its inception in 2019, when he worked with now-leading DeFi protocols like Aave and Synthetix. He is a firm believer that blockchain technology and hybrid smart contracts are set to revolutionize modern financial systems and our relationships with them

Lorenzo Barbantini Scanni is a seasoned entrepreneur, investor, and thought leader with over 20 years of experience in scaling ventures, driving digital transformation, and pioneering blockchain innovation. As the co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Colossus Digital, Lorenzo has been instrumental in building a European institutional-grade regulated custodian that leverages cutting-edge platforms like Fireblocks, Ledger Enterprise, and Dfns. Under his leadership, Colossus launched the Institutional Hub—a groundbreaking B2B marketplace connecting custodians and their clients to validators for staking on 24 blockchains, governance, and advanced transaction solutions. Lorenzo’s entrepreneurial journey includes founding and scaling successful ventures such as Stamplay (acquired by Apple) and Pick1 (acquired by Events.com), as well as leading the growth and exit of Xaltia. His expertise spans angel investing, business development, and fostering innovation in the technology and media sectors. Known for his professional yet empathetic approach, Lorenzo is committed to advancing institutional adoption of digital assets and establishing himself as a leading voice in the blockchain space.

Co-Founder of Paxos Labs, focused on bringing stablecoin yield and DeFi capabilities to the enterprises globally

Co-Founder & CTO of Turtle Previous ParaFi Capital & NASA

Andre Serrano is the Senior Product Lead at Stacks Labs, a core development company advancing the Stacks blockchain. He led the development of sBTC, a Bitcoin-backed asset exceeding $500M in total value locked, and designed new mechanisms for Bitcoin-native yield. Previously, Andre was an early team member at Electric Coin Co. (Zcash) and an investor at Novablock Capital.

..

Oisín Kyne is the Co-Founder and CTO of Obol Labs, where he leads the development of Distributed Validator Technology to enhance decentralization and resilience in Proof-of-Stake Ethereum. A computer science graduate with over a decade in the technology sector, Oisín previously managed large-scale infrastructure serving over 8 million users and contributed to Accenture’s Centre for Innovation in Dublin. He has published “The Staking Problem”, an influential paper identifying early risks in PoS systems, and brings deep expertise in blockchain, distributed systems, and DevOps.

Maghnus Mareneck is the co-CEO of Cosmos Labs (formerly Skip Protocol), which builds tools to enhance blockchain scalability and developer efficiency. As co-founder of Skip Protocol, Maghnus brings hands-on experience designing tools that optimize blockchain scalability and streamline builder workflows. He focuses on creating tools that drive innovation and growth across the Interchain Stack. Maghnus has focused on product excellence in his career, having previously worked at Atlassian in Product. He has a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jacob Laufer is Chief Growth Officer at M0, where he leads efforts to expand the M0 network. Jacob has extensive experience in stablecoins and DeFi, having served as a leadership council member for a large DeFi protocol while leading its treasury, partnership and core product teams. Jacob began his career at Solomon Partners, where he spent nine years as a restructuring and M&A investment banker.

Marcin leads strategy and go-to-market at RedStone, the fastest-growing blockchain Oracle. RedStone holds the 3rd position globally by the number of clients (180+ B2B clients) and Total Value of Assets Secured ($10+ billion). RedStone is the official oracle for Securitize, BlackRock BUIDL, Apollo ACRED, VanEck VBILL, Hamilton Lane SCOPE and other tokenized funds, backed by veterans like Mike Arrington, co-founder of Crunchbase. Marcin has been in the blockchain industry since 2018, ex-Google Cloud PM with a background in quantitative methods in economics. Co-founder of ETHWarsaw, the largest technical crypto conference in the CEE region. Laureate of Forbes 30 under 30 Poland. Speaker at global crypto events including Consensus, Token2049, ETHDenver, Ethereum Zurich and more.

With over 20 years of experience in finance and technology, Kevin is a visionary leader and innovator in the field of decentralized finance (DeFi). He is the founder and CEO of ETHGas.com pioneering blockspace markets, making Ethereum realtime and boosting validator yields .

As Managing Director, Daniel established and scaled Finoa Consensus Services into a institutional-grade staking provider with over $2 billion in assets under delegation.

Veteran DeFi user, Decentralized Finance advocate, DEV, and educator/builder.

Thiago Rudiger is the CEO of the Tanssi Foundation, where he oversees ecosystem growth and decentralization for Tanssi’s modular blockchain infrastructure. He brings over 15 years of experience across technology, finance, and blockchain strategy. Prior to Tanssi, he led global growth and new ventures at Transfero Group, driving adoption of BRZ—the largest stablecoin in Latin America. He also served as Head of Operations and Blockchain Analyst at Squadra Investimentos, a leading Brazilian asset manager with over $2.3 billion AUM. His background spans infrastructure, investment, and real-world asset tokenization, positioning him to lead Tanssi’s long-term expansion.

I’m Kurt Gallo—DeFi builder and Ecosystem Lead at HypurrFi on Hyperliquid. I translate complex trading and lending into simple, secure products while driving growth and educating the broader ecosystem. Previously, I ran esports ops at Evil Geniuses for pros across global events off the back of my own 5 year professional player stint in various gaming titles.

Aytunc Yildizli joins 0G as Chief Growth Officer, bringing a proven track record in scaling ecosystems and driving global adoption. As the former CEO of the Avalanche Foundation and a founding team member, he played a pivotal role in growing Avalanche into one of the leading Layer-1 blockchains in the industry. Now, Aytunç is spearheading growth at 0G, helping shape the frontier of decentralized AI. His mission: to accelerate 0G’s position as the execution layer for Web3 AI, enabling a new generation of intelligent, permissionless, and scalable applications.

As Vice President of Institutions at P2P.org, I drive strategic partnerships, institutional growth, and product development for the world’s leading non-custodial staking provider. With over $10 billion in staked assets under management, P2P.org is at the forefront of blockchain infrastructure, empowering institutions to maximize the potential of staking and decentralized finance. Leveraging my deep expertise in product leadership and innovation across the crypto ecosystem, I have successfully advanced Staking products, Multichain Staking APIs, and next-generation gas market solutions. I am passionate about fostering decentralization, addressing builder centralization challenges, and shaping the future of blockchain scalability As a regular speaker at industry-leading events, including DevCon, ETHDenver, Staking Summit, Paris Blockchain Week, I bring insights into staking, DeFi, preconfirmations, and emerging trends that benefit both institutions and the broader blockchain ecosystem.

Ivan is leading tokenomics services at Aragon. Previously, he led DeFi teams at KPK and Nexo.

Binji works at the Ethereum Foundation where he focuses on ecosystem growth and helping builders bring useful products to life. Before joining the Foundation he helped scale Optimism from a small group of early applications into a growing ecosystem and supported the rise of multiple L2s across Ethereum. Earlier in his career he worked at Coinbase on onboarding and product growth. As someone forced into crypto (you should ask him about it), his core goal is to help crypto reach real people at global scale, the same way it reached him.

Robert serves as Head of Research at Edge Capital, a $600M+ institutional DeFi hedge fund, where he leads the firm’s research and investment strategy efforts.

Xavier is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Frachtis, a thesis-led, crypto-native pre-seed fund investing in decentralized infrastructure, AI, middleware, and consumer apps. He draws on deep technical and operational experience to help founders build with clarity, conviction, and craft.

Sebastien Couture is Co-Founder & General Partner of Interop Ventures, an early stage fund backing founders developing the sovereign, interconnected systems that underpin the new web of value. As a founder of Epicenter, the first and longest-running blockchain-focused podcast, Sebastien has been at the heart of the web3 community for over a decade. Today he continues to cultivate that community of leading builders, especially through Interop’s landmark events, its podcast, and Epicenter. Prior to launching Interop, Sebastien co-founded Stratumn, an enterprise blockchain solutions company backed by Nasdaq Ventures and acquired by Sia Partners.