Peter Phelan is Vice President of Strategic Advisory at Elliptic, where he brings extensive experience at the intersection of banking, public policy, and market infrastructure. In his role, Peter helps financial institutions explore opportunities in the digital asset space, guiding them on trusted, compliant pathways to innovation and effective regulatory engagement.
Previously, Peter served as Head of Regulatory Management for Citi’s Client business line, where he coordinated interactions with U.S. and global regulators across Citi’s Institutional Credit Management (wholesale credit, transaction management) and Digital Asset/Distributed Ledger Technology functions. Before that, he was Chief Administrative Officer for Citi’s North American Institutional Clients Group, overseeing all control functions and leading Citi’s LIBOR transition program.
In June 2023, Peter was named Chair of the Federal Reserve–convened Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC), successfully leading the global, industry‑wide transition from LIBOR to SOFR.
Prior to Citi, Peter served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Capital Markets at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he led policy work on the GSEs, securitization markets, and the LIBOR transition, and was awarded the Treasury Medal for his service. He also co‑led the implementation of Uniform Mortgage‑Backed Securities (UMBS) with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and contributed to the Secretary’s pandemic emergency response team, coordinating with the Federal Reserve on market stabilization facilities.
Earlier in his career, Peter held roles at CIT Group and Commerzbank, managing capital markets teams delivering interest rate and foreign exchange risk management solutions and overseeing asset/liability management across multiple markets.
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.
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.
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.
Cynthia Lo Bessette is head of Fidelity Investment’s Digital Asset Management division. Fidelity Investments is a leading provider of investment management, retirement planning, portfolio guidance, brokerage, benefits outsourcing, and other financial products and services to institutions, financial intermediaries, and individuals.
In her role, Ms. Lo Bessette oversees the strategic vision and priorities for the digital asset investment, operations, and ecosystem groups, including research analysts, portfolio construction, trading, data science and blockchain engineering, investment product, operations and digital asset strategists teams. In addition to developing and managing investment products and advisory services, Ms. Lo Bessette’s team engages with clients on digital asset education including investment and ecosystem perspectives, as well as opportunities to create new utilities and access in using digital assets.
Ms. Lo Bessette has extensive experience working with asset management firms investing globally across asset classes and serving a worldwide investor base, including retail and institutional investors. She has broad experience working with global asset managers on strategic transactions and on start-up and establishment of new businesses in global markets, investment product development and distribution, and portfolio management matters involving U.S. and foreign regulations and local market practices. She leverages this deep asset management experience to lead the development and design of investment solutions investing across digital assets and using blockchain and smart contract technology to enhance the utility of assets and capital allocation between traditional and digital finance. She has been in the financial industry since 1995.
Yueqi Yang is a crypto reporter at The Information, covering exchanges, stablecoins and crypto banking. She previously worked at Bloomberg News, where she covered crypto exchanges and the intersection of digital assets and finance. A native of Shenzhen, China, she studied finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and business journalism at New York University.