Ron Shevlin is the Chief Research Officer at Cornerstone Advisors, where his research on banking and fintech trends helps shape the direction of financial institutions and fintechs. Author of the Fintech Snark Tank on Forbes and host of the What’s Going On in Banking podcast, Ron is ranked among the top banking and fintech thought leaders globally and is a frequent keynote speaker at banking and fintech industry events.
Kristin Smith is President of Solana Policy Institute, a non-profit organization devoted to advocating for public policies that allow networks like Solana to flourish. She serves as a liaison between policymakers and the Solana ecosystem to assist in the creation of legislation and regulation that promotes the growth of the industry in the U.S. Prior to SPI, Kristin was CEO of Blockchain Association, the Washington, D.C.-based trade association representing the crypto industry’s leading companies.
Kristin has been a renowned voice for the industry, having been featured on Fortune’s 40 under 40 list, Washingtonian’s Most Influential People and Tech Titans, CoinDesk’s 50 people who defined the year in crypto, The Hill’s Top Lobbyists, and CoinTelegraph’s top 100 Influencers in Crypto and Blockchain. Prior to leading Blockchain Association, Kristin helped blockchain and technology companies achieve their public policy objectives in Washington. She served as a Senate and congressional aide on Capitol Hill for nearly 10 years, much of which was spent focusing on technology policy.
Nikhilesh De is CoinDesk’s managing editor for global policy and regulation, covering regulators, lawmakers and institutions. When he’s not reporting on digital assets and policy, he can be found admiring Amtrak or building LEGO trains. He owns < $50 in BTC and < $20 in ETH. He was named the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers’ Journalist of the Year in 2020.
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Brett Tejpaul is Co-CEO of Coinbase Institutional, the leading platform architecting the future of institutional crypto investing. He commands the strategic vision and execution for institutions navigating the digital asset economy – from understanding emerging opportunities to deploying capital at scale.
With nearly three decades of elite experience spanning institutional sales, trading, and digital assets, Brett has worked to establish Coinbase Institutional as the definitive bridge between traditional finance and the future of money. Under his leadership, the platform has become the infrastructure of choice for institutions executing sophisticated crypto strategies, delivering integrated custody, trading, financing, staking, research, and asset management solutions.
Brett drives growth across Coinbase Institutional’s Prime Platform, marketplaces, and Asset Management division, serving global clients across crypto-native protocols, hedge funds, pensions, endowments, global asset managers, wealth platforms, banks, brokers, RIAs, and payment platforms. Since launch, he has rapidly scaled the institutional client base while pioneering new capabilities and supporting institutional-grade research that positions cryptocurrencies as a critical component of diversified portfolios.
Prior to joining Coinbase, Brett served on the Markets Executive Committee at Barclays Investment Bank, leading Global Sales across FICC and Equities while serving as Head of Digital. His career spans leadership across every major asset class including credit, equities, rates, commodities, emerging markets, prime services, and structured products. He previously held senior roles at JPMorgan across rates, credit, exotics, trading, and sales.
Brett’s rare combination of traditional markets mastery and crypto-native innovation makes him one of the industry’s most influential voices in institutional digital assets.
Brooke Ybarra is the Senior Vice President, Innovation & Strategy for the American Bankers
Association, where she leads the Office of Innovation. In this role, Brooke supports banks to
define innovation strategies and helps shape the technology marketplace by identifying
promising startups that complement the banking industry. She also works with policymakers to
advocate for policies that allow for and promote responsible innovation in banking. Brooke
received her MBA from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and
completed her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University.
BitGo (NYSE: BTGO) is the digital asset infrastructure company delivering custody, wallets, staking, trading, financing, stablecoins, and settlement services from regulated cold storage. Since 2013, BitGo has focused on accelerating the transition of the financial system to a digital asset economy. BitGo maintains a global presence and multiple regulated entities, including BitGo Bank & Trust, National Association, a federally chartered digital asset bank. Today, BitGo serves thousands of institutions, including many of the industry’s top brands, financial institutions, exchanges, and platforms, and millions of investors worldwide. For more information, visit www.bitgo.com.
Jack McDonald is SVP of Stablecoins at Ripple, as well as CEO of Standard Custody & Trust Co., a New York-licensed digital asset custodian acquired by Ripple in 2024. At Ripple, Jack leads the company’s stablecoin strategy, including the development and rollout of Ripple USD (RLUSD), a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin issued on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum, and licensed by the New York Department of Financial Services.
Previously, Jack spent a decade as CEO of Conifer Financial Services, where he grew assets under administration from $5 billion to $125 billion, leading to a successful exit in 2016. He also spent several years on the sell-side at major investment banks, including senior roles at UBS Investment Bank as Managing Director and Head of Equity Sales, and at Schroders in institutional sales.
He holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.S.F.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. Jack lives in San Francisco.
Matthew Leising was one of the first mainstream journalists to understand the implications of blockchain technology for finance, culture and industry in general when he began covering it for Bloomberg News in 2015. After working for Bloomberg for 17 years, he co-founded Decential Media in 2021 to focus exclusively on telling the stories of the founders, builders and visionaries who are creating a new decentralized economy and Internet experience.
His expertise lies in Ethereum, where his sources include the people who invented and then built the world’s most-used blockchain. His 2020 book Out of the Ether is the definitive history of how the Ethereum blockchain was created.