Agenda

UK national, based in the UAE for 10 years. Having attended and had poor experiences at crypto events in the region, Gregg reached out to BTC Inc in 2022 to bring the Bitcoin Conference to Abu Dhabi. Using the landmark success of the inaugural Bitcoin MENA conference in 2024 as a launchpad, Gregg is now working on a bigger and better Bitcoin MENA 2025 along with launching Bitcoin Magazine, Bitcoin for Corporations and UTXO Managment into the GCC region. Yacht Captain by trade, Bitcoiner by nature.

I am the author of The Philosophy of Bitcoin, a Spanish-language bestseller. CEO of BTC Consulting 360 and Director of the Bitcoin Master’s Program at the University of the Hespérides.

Alessandro Cecere, also known as El Sultán Bitcoin, is a Venezuelan Industrial Engineer and Economist who embarked on his Bitcoin journey mining at home in 2013. Previously Co Founded one of Venezuela's and Latin America's first Bitcoin mining farm. His passion for Bitcoin's censorship resistant properties, led him to become the first Latin American to connect to Blockstream's South American Bitcoin satellite, which has been extensively documented in various publications and documentaries. He’s held significant marketing roles, contributing to the growth and recognition of major firms within the Bitcoin space, including Luxor Technology. Previously, he was the Product Marketing Manager at Ledn, and Chief Marketing Officer & Co Founder at El Dorado, LATAM's stablecoin-powered SuperApp.

Clara García Prieto is a tax lawyer specializing in Bitcoin. She advises companies on Bitcoin treasury strategy, including tax, accounting, and regulatory matters, and helps individuals with tax and inheritance matters involving Bitcoin. She is the author of Bitcoin: A New Form of Private Property. She is also an educator and speaker, regularly contributing to specialized media and conferences.

Joseph Kelly is the co-founder and CEO of Unchained, a bitcoin-focused financial services company offering custody, lending, and IRA products.

Early adopter and supporter of Bitcoin. Original Mt. Gox account holder. Leader on the Hill for Bitcoin policy.

Zach Herbert is co-founder and CEO of Foundation, a startup working to build the open hardware foundation for Bitcoin and a freedom-centric Internet. Zach studied mechanical engineering at Boston University and dropped out of Harvard Business School’s MBA program after his first year. Zach is passionate about Bitcoin, freedom tech, product design, and hardware.

As a bitcoiner class of 2025, Andy has created a decentralized approach to funding healthcare with the goal of using bitcoin as the primary medium of exchange in healthcare. He has aggregated thousands of bitcoiners as the payers and hundreds of doctors as the service providers. He believes that if we can us bitcoin as a medium of exchange in the $5.6T healthcare industry, it will lead to broader adoption of bitcoin as a medium exchange leading to more efficient transactions and increasing the value of bitcoin.

Jon has been working to integrate bitcoin into healthcare for the past 4 years. After leading business development for CrowdHealth, Jon went on to help doctors, dentists and ecommerce businesses adopt a bitcoin strategy. In early 2025, Jon teamed up with another healthcare veteran, Stu Lackey, to launch SOUND HSA, the first bitcoin health savings platform. SOUND HSA facilitates individual health savings accounts and a wellness program - move to earn - for companies to offer sats for steps to their people to improve health and encourage bitcoin education.

SOUND HSA also enables individuals to save step data to Nostr, and is moving towards decentralizing health data. Jon serves on the board of the Bitcoin Physicians Network. Jon is also a co-founder of NosFabrica, building web of trust tooling on Nostr.

Jon has been studying bitcoin for 5+ years and is an active leader in the Chicago bitcoin community. A certified yoga teacher, Jon believes bitcoin is the best form of money humans have ever discovered and has written extensively on the connection between bitcoin and yoga. He's currently manifesting hyperbitcoinization...

I've been in crypto for a while and it's allowed me to practice medicine on my own terms. Through my efforts to practice DPC, I became completely orange pilled. I see bitcoin as freedom from fiat medicine and authoritarian control over bodies.

Fred Thiel is the Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA) and has over 35 years of experience in the technology sector. Mr. Thiel is an acclaimed innovator and expert, having led organizations across diverse fields including digital assets, AI, semiconductors and enterprise software. Under his leadership, MARA has grown from a market cap of under $30 million to over $5 billion, becoming the largest in the space, with operations spanning four continents. MARA operates 15 data centers, including several across the United States, as well as locations in the UAE and Paraguay, boasting an energy capacity of 1700 MW. The company is fully integrated, enhancing its operational efficiency.
Throughout his career, Mr. Thiel has consistently driven rapid growth and created substantial shareholder value. Prior to MARA, Mr. Thiel served as the CEO of two other public companies, Local Corporation (NASDAQ: LOCM) and Lantronix, Inc (NASDAQ: LTRX). He has successfully raised billions in equity and debt through private and public offerings, led companies through IPOs, executed high-value exits to strategic and financial acquirers, and implemented effective M&A and roll-up strategies.
Mr. Thiel attended the Stockholm School of Economics and executive classes at Harvard Business School, and is fluent in English, Spanish, Swedish, and French. Mr. Thiel is the Chairman of the Board for Oden Technology, Inc. and is active in Young Presidents’ Organization where he has led initiatives in both the FinTech and Technology Networks.
A recognized voice in the industry, Fred frequently shares his insights on energy and technology with major media outlets like Bloomberg TV, CNBC, and FOX Business, contributing to vital discussions about the future of these sectors.

Arthur Hayes is the CIO of Maelstrom, a family office that invests across the crypto and web3 ecosystem. He is also the co-founder of BitMEX – the first crypto unicorn. Prior to entering the crypto industry, he worked as a trader in the capital markets divisions of Deutsche Bank and Citibank. Arthur holds a Bachelors of Economics from the Wharton School of Business. He has appeared on major business news networks including Bloomberg and CNBC. He is active on X (@cryptohayes) and releases a monthly newsletter (Crypto Trader Digest) read by thousands of investors globally.

A decade of teaching Bitcoin mining on YouTube
Founder of Bitcoin Merch since 2017

Korok is the Founder and Executive Director of BEI. He’s also an Associate Professor at the Mays Business School of Texas A&M University and the Founder and President of the Southwest Innovation Research Lab, another 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Korok teaches and researches Bitcoin. He also cofounded the Blockchain and Energy Research Consortium, which is dedicated to researching bitcoin mining in Texas. As an applied game theorist, Korok focuses his research on the intersection of economics and computation, specifically in distributed systems, computer networking, cybersecurity, and cryptocurrencies. Naturally, Korok’s work in this space led him to Bitcoin.

Korok teaches two classes on Bitcoin at Texas A&M. The Bitcoin Protocol is an engineering course that examines the technical codebase underneath Bitcoin, including cryptography, distributed computing, and computer networking. Bitcoin: Accounting for Digital Transactions, on the other hand, explores the business, economics, and policy of the Bitcoin industry, especially Bitcoin mining. These courses represent the first – and, so far, only – Bitcoin-only classes offered by a major US research university.

Korok writes a popular Bitcoin newsletter, Principles of Bitcoin. He speaks regularly on podcasts and conferences; notably, he delivered the keynote speech on Bitcoin and AI at MicroStrategy World 2024.

Prior to joining the faculty at Mays, Korok served on the Council of Economic Advisers at the White House from 2007 to 2009. During this time, he witnessed the Great Financial Crisis up close – it wasn’t his fault! Korok’s policy portfolio covered technology and financial services, and he was on the President’s Working Group for Financial Markets.

Korok earned a BS in mathematics from the University of Chicago and a PhD in economics from Stanford University. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Georgetown University, The George Washington University, and, now, Texas A&M.

Ella Hough works where Bitcoin meets people.

She is a Bitcoin Advocacy Associate at Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and a Junior Fellow at Cornell University’s Brooks School Tech Policy Institute. She also co-founded the Bitcoin Students Network (501c4) and advises Generation Bitcoin (501c3), helping scale grassroots education worldwide.

A TEDx speaker and Cornell alumna, Ella’s honors thesis “Bitcoin: The Language for Discovering, Speaking, Settling, and Preserving Truth” positions Bitcoin as a protocol for truth and global coordination. At Cornell, she built the first-ever self-directed Bitcoin-focused major through the College Scholar Program, alongside studies in Cognitive Science, Business, Information Science (Networks, Crowds & Markets), and Moral Psychology, and founded the Cornell Bitcoin Club.

Her experience spans Bitcoin’s digital and physical layers, including roles at Galaxy (asset management, mining, research) and Gridless in Kenya. Previously, she worked on IBM Canada’s CSR team, managing STEM learning experiences for 75,000+ students.

Sal Pineda is a strategist and researcher focused on Bitcoin’s role in capital markets, energy systems, and the emerging digital economy. With experience across Latin America and the United States, he brings a distinctive blend of capital markets fluency, operational execution, and systems-level analysis to the study of Bitcoin, economic resilience, and institutional design. His work develops the concept of the “Knowledge Network of Bitcoin”: the decentralized ecosystem of miners, institutional allocators, policymakers, builders, educators, and grassroots advocates advancing Bitcoin adoption across finance, energy, and digital infrastructure.

His research examines how Bitcoin intersects with capital formation, treasury strategy, energy markets, and the convergence of Bitcoin, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing with national security, monetary sovereignty, and nation-state strategy. His work has been shared through research papers, educational guides, podcasts, X Spaces, and media interviews. His current research focuses on Bitcoin, policy development, and financial innovation in Washington, D.C., and the broader evolution of digital financial markets.

Sal brings a multidisciplinary background spanning diplomacy, strategy consulting, venture advisory, private equity, and capital markets research across fintech and emerging technologies. He is also a founding member and former co-president of the Cornell Bitcoin Club, the university’s student organization dedicated exclusively to Bitcoin education and research.

He holds an MBA from Cornell University and a Master’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Having grown up experiencing the consequences of political instability and government failure, Sal approaches Bitcoin as a tool for strengthening economic sovereignty, institutional resilience, and long-term capital formation in the digital age.

Fabian works on Bitcoin Core but also supports other related Bitcoin open source projects. He is also researching protocol innovations enabled by Schnorr signatures such as CISA.

Timo is a well-known figure in the Bitcoin mining industry. He discovered the technology in 2014 and built the first professional mining farm in Africa in 2016. Since then, he has expanded his operations globally.

As the founder of MIM, Timo aims to democratize the Bitcoin mining industry and make it accessible to every enthusiast in Europe. His commitment to decentralization and his expertise continue to drive innovation in Bitcoin mining.

Alessandro Cecere, also known as El Sultán Bitcoin, is a Venezuelan Industrial Engineer and Economist who embarked on his Bitcoin journey mining at home in 2013. Previously Co Founded one of Venezuela's and Latin America's first Bitcoin mining farm. His passion for Bitcoin's censorship resistant properties, led him to become the first Latin American to connect to Blockstream's South American Bitcoin satellite, which has been extensively documented in various publications and documentaries. He’s held significant marketing roles, contributing to the growth and recognition of major firms within the Bitcoin space, including Luxor Technology. Previously, he was the Product Marketing Manager at Ledn, and Chief Marketing Officer & Co Founder at El Dorado, LATAM's stablecoin-powered SuperApp.

Daniel is the CEO of newly launched mgmt Digital Infrastructure, a company focused on bitcoin mining where energy is low cost, stranded or curtailed and leveraging mining with additional revenue streams such as grid balancing and heat reuse in the Nordics and eventually throughout Europe. mgmt Digital Infrastructure is in the process of launching its first Digital Infrastructure fund.

A passionate miner since 2017, Daniel has been active in the industry founding and leading companies such as mgmt Energy (formerly GreenBlocks), a bitcoin mining company and Viska Digital Assets, Iceland's first digital asset focused hedge fund.

Daniel has been an active angel investor in recent years.

Daniel is a firm believer in proof of work and doing hard things.

Arthur Hayes is the CIO of Maelstrom, a family office that invests across the crypto and web3 ecosystem. He is also the co-founder of BitMEX – the first crypto unicorn. Prior to entering the crypto industry, he worked as a trader in the capital markets divisions of Deutsche Bank and Citibank. Arthur holds a Bachelors of Economics from the Wharton School of Business. He has appeared on major business news networks including Bloomberg and CNBC. He is active on X (@cryptohayes) and releases a monthly newsletter (Crypto Trader Digest) read by thousands of investors globally.

Brent Johnson brings twenty-six years of experience in the financial markets to his position as CEO of Santiago Capital where he manages the assets of high net worth families via a combination of separately managed accounts and private funds.

He enjoyed more than nine years as a Managing Director at BakerAvenue, a $4 Billion Asset Manager and Wealth Management firm, with offices in San Francisco, Dallas and New York. During his time there he was the lead advisor for several of the firms largest clients.

Prior to joining BakerAvenue, Brent spent nine years at Credit Suisse in their private client group. He got his start as part of the training program at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) in New York prior to moving to San Francisco. He joined Credit Suisse in the fall of 2000 when the bank purchased DLJ.

Earlier in his career, Brent was a financial auditor for Philip Morris Management Company in New York City where he performed audits at the company’s headquarters as well as subsidiaries in Germany, Hong Kong, and Richmond, Virginia.

In addition to his role at Santiago Capital, he is also a member of the Advisory Board for Monetary Metals, a platform that allows investors to earn a yield on gold, paid in gold, by leasing and lending to qualified precious metals businesses in the industry.

Brent regularly gives interviews and speaks at conferences regarding precious metals, currencies & macroeconomic trends. He is well known as the originator of the “Dollar Milkshake Theory” and his views have been quoted in numerous print, online and television outlets. He lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico with his wife Mary and son Moses.

A FinTech expert and multiple business owner based in Lockhart, Texas, Dan brings years of hands-on experience in IT engineering and enterprise-level crypto mining consulting.

With a solid foundation in information technology, he has led and overseen major infrastructure projects, from the design of scalable crypto farms in desert environments to the implementation of efficient, high-performance mining systems. Known for technical precision and forward-thinking strategies, Dan provides tailored equipment recommendations, optimizes mining performance, and delivers expert support to ensure every client gets the most from their investment.

His mission is simple: to empower miners, both new and experienced, by streamlining operations, solving technical challenges, and helping them thrive in the fast-paced world of cryptocurrency mining.

Whether it’s setting up a first miner or scaling a commercial operation, Dan is committed to helping clients succeed.

Blockchain & DeFi Expert, Advisor, Journalist | Global Head of Sales at VNISH

Bradley Peak is a blockchain and DeFi expert, award-winning journalist, and global sales leader with extensive experience at the intersection of crypto technology, media, cybersecurity, and global business development.

Over the course of his career, Bradley has published more than 2 million words on blockchain, cryptocurrency, and financial technology across leading industry platforms, including Cointelegraph and Cryptoprocessing.com. His work has helped shape public understanding of crypto markets, regulation, mining, and emerging technologies, making him a trusted voice within the global Web3 ecosystem.

In addition to his editorial career, Bradley has built a strong on-camera presence as the blockchain and cybersecurity host at Sumsub, where content featuring him has generated over 35 million views on YouTube. Through interviews, explainers, and expert discussions, he has translated complex technical and regulatory topics into accessible insights for a global audience.

Bradley has also served as an advisor to major blockchain events and projects, including TOKEN2049, Lumia, and Symbiosis, contributing strategic insight on industry positioning, narrative development, and market trends.

Currently, Bradley is the Global Head of Sales at VNISH, where he leads international growth initiatives, partnerships, and enterprise relationships within the Bitcoin mining and infrastructure space. His work focuses on advancing crypto adoption, mining efficiency, post-quantum cryptography readiness, and the convergence of blockchain with AI and next-generation security models.

Bradley is a University of Cambridge alumnus and regularly speaks on topics including Bitcoin mining, crypto adoption, consensus mechanisms, DeFi, CBDCs, post-quantum cryptography, and artificial intelligence.

Alexander Lozben is IT entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Interhash. He is an expert in mining and fintech, who develops projects in sustainable mining, Web3, blockchain analysis, AI+Blockchain, robotics, and the digital economy.

Interhash is a compnay which provides a professional crypto mining service where innovation and expertise help achieve maximum efficiency and confidence in the future.
Website https://interhash.com/en

Jennifer Harding-Marlin is a Canadian-Caribbean attorney, entrepreneur, and global mobility strategist specializing in Bitcoin-aligned citizenship, residency, and asset-protection frameworks.

As Founder and Managing Director of JH Marlin Law, she advises Bitcoin founders, early adopters, and internationally mobile families on jurisdictional strategy, second citizenship, residency planning, and long-term sovereign risk mitigation. She has advised some of the earliest participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem and helped the world’s first Bitcoin investor design and implement a multi-jurisdictional passport portfolio as part of a long-term sovereignty and risk-mitigation strategy.

JH Marlin Law actively operates and maintains strategic partnerships across the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and the Pacific.

Michelle has over twenty years of experience working in emerging technologies and ten years specifically in the Bitcoin industry. She is the Director of Product Development at Byte Federal which was one of the first bitcoin ATM networks and now spans more than 40 states and three countries.

Before Bitcoin she lived in the UAE and worked in China.

She is a global corruption whistleblower and a free speech advocate.

Dan Hersey is the Founder of the Rhode Island Bitcoin Policy Initiative, where he works with legislators, state officials, and community stakeholders to advance pragmatic Bitcoin policy in a small, traditionally blue, and highly regulated state. In Rhode Island, Dan has written and testified on behalf of multiple Bitcoin-specific bills, including tax and financial policy reforms.

His work focuses on framing Bitcoin as sound money, consumer protection, and public digital infrastructure rather than ideology. With a background in financial services marketing and journalism, Dan brings a ground-level perspective on how Bitcoin legislation actually moves through statehouses; and how smaller states can play an outsized leadership role.

Colin Crossman is a Wyoming-licensed attorney and Bitcoin maximalist serving as Deputy Secretary of State for Wyoming. A prolific writer for Bitcoin Magazine, he has authored articles on key issues including Wyoming’s Bitcoin strategic reserve, the Custodia Bank v. Federal Reserve litigation, Operation Choke Point 2.0, patent threats to Bitcoin mining, and strategies against financial suppression of Bitcoin businesses.

As in-house counsel for Distributed Hash, he directed regulatory compliance for crypto-adjacent infrastructure and developed Python-based tools for operational monitoring. Crossman advocates for Bitcoin sovereignty, co-authoring amicus briefs on state authority and digital assets. He codes in Python for compliance systems and explores patent work in Bitcoin tech.

I’ve been fascinated with computers since the early days of the internet, teaching myself HTML in the late 1990s and building websites for small businesses in my hometown, often trading my work for dance and karate lessons for my kids. One night I stumbled across a Bitcoin faucet, had no idea what Bitcoin was, assumed it was just gamer money, and casually entered my email address and then my wife’s, receiving 10 BTC total before completely forgetting about it. Years later, after being elected as a Mississippi State Representative in 2016, a friend reintroduced me to Bitcoin and I began seriously studying it, cautiously investing, getting shaken out by volatility, and then watching it climb as I slowly came to understand what it truly represented. Only a couple of years ago I suddenly remembered those original 10 bitcoin and asked my wife about the hard drive, and she reminded me that it was the one we had given our son Josiah to take apart because he wanted to see what was inside. Losing 10 BTC stung, but what changed me was not the price, it was seeing from inside government how easily money is manipulated, borrowed against, and debased, and realizing that Bitcoin cannot be printed, controlled, or politically weaponized. That is why I believe Bitcoin is the answer, not as speculation but as sound money, and why today, after seeing the system from the inside, I save in BTC.

Chief Revenue Officer at Blockware.

10+ years of various sales roles of increasing responsibility leading to Vice President, Enterprise Sales at Fusion Risk Management.

B.S. in Finance and Certificate in Entrepreneurship from University of Colorado, Boulder's Leeds School of Business.

University of Colorado Men's Hockey Team.

FinTax offers crypto accounting suite, tax calculator and professional tax consulting services.

Roland Bewick is the lead developer of Alby Hub, Alby's self-custodial, next-generation NWC-first lightning wallet. He also works on development SDKs and agent-first tools for the bitcoin lightning network. 2x BOLT FUN lightning hackathon winner with Bitcoin Connect and Lightsats. First in the world to create an OpenClaw that could spawn a child agent completely autonomously by paying for services with bitcoin.

Current: PubKey. Formerly: Fidelity, Stronghold, HODL Capital, and Hash Function

Matt is General Partner at Axiom. He also sits on the board of Cathedra Bitcoin Inc. and is the curator of Bitcoin Jawn. Previously, he served as General Counsel of Cathedra Bitcoin and in various in-house legal roles at BitGo and FIS.

American Hodl is some guy from the internet.

Sisun Lee leads crypto at Aven, where he drives product strategy across digital assets. He previously built and scaled global consumer products at Facebook, Uber and Tesla, and served as chief product officer at Argo. Lee is also a two-time founder of More Labs and Ramper, an embedded crypto wallet provider.

Roya Mahboob is an entrepreneur and Afghanistan’s first female tech CEO, but her impact extends far beyond the sphere of business. Ms. Mahboob has used her success and tech expertise to help educate and empower Afghan women and girls, and she has been an outspoken advocate for their rights. She founded the Digital Citizen Fund (DCF), which aims to increase Afghan women’s technological and financial literacy. She also co-founded and supports the Afghan Girls Robotics Team. Ms. Mahboob has worked to build Innovation/Tech Centers across Afghanistan and has launched an online platform to strengthen the voices of Afghan women and journalists. Ancillary to this, she regularly speaks and writes eloquently about the vital importance of STEAM education and economic opportunity for women and girls as they pertain to human rights. Ms. Mahboob was named to TIME’s 2013 list of 100 Most Influential People and received the 2014 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award, The Advancement of Gender Equality through Education Award, Young Leader of World Economic Forum 2015 , Asia Game changer 2019, Doha forum award of 2022, LantosHumanRights awards, the prestigious Presidential Leadership Scholarship and is a founding Leader of The NewNow, a group of rising global leaders tackling global challenges.

Jeremy Singer is currently the High Performance Computing (HPC) Systems manager at ExxonMobil, responsible for a portfolio of supercomputing assets and mission driven algorithms at scale. In addition to HPC, Jeremy is also active in market development of ExxonMobil Data Center cooling fluids as well as Venture execution of Low Carbon Data Center assets. Jeremy is passionate about bitcoin and open source computing projects.

Changzhou Bingrui Heat Transfer Technology Co., Ltd. is a leading provider of advanced thermal management solutions for Bitcoin mining and high-density data centers. The company specializes in dry coolers, liquid cold plates, and customized hydro-cooled container systems designed to optimize the performance and longevity of mining hardware.

With a strong focus on efficiency, reliability, and scalable deployment, Bingrui supports global mining operations by addressing one of the industry’s core challenges: heat. Its solutions enable higher computing density, reduced energy consumption, and more stable long-term operation across diverse environments.

By bridging thermal engineering with Bitcoin infrastructure, Bingrui plays a key role in advancing the sustainability and industrialization of next-generation mining systems.

Long time Miner, investor and business owner, have started/operated/owned/advised on over 500MW of projects over the last 12 years in 10+ countries and 3+ continents, as well as sitting on the Board of Satoshi Action and helping craft/testify for Pro-bitcoin policy in several US States.

Kara Calvert has been at the intersection of public policy and the innovation industry for over 20 years. She is currently the Vice President of US Policy for Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the United States, and works with lawmakers, regulators, and the crypto community across the country to advocate for sensible crypto policy.
Kara began her career in Washington working for U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY). Most recently, she was a partner at the Franklin Square team, where she represented the world’s most innovative and impactful technology companies for 13 years. Prior to her time at the Franklin Square Group, Kara worked for the Information Technology Industry Council.

Jayson Browder
Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Corporate Responsibility

Jayson is the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at MARA, a global leader in digital asset compute and largest publicly traded bitcoin miner. He is a committed public servant, bringing close to two decades of experience in governmental and non-governmental work. A trained United States Air Force engineer, he has spent the last 13 years post-military service managing projects and developing policy covering Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Eurasia, Central America, and Mexico. Jayson has served in the White House, U.S. State Department, USAID, and on Capitol Hill. He is an Iraq veteran and a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Turkey. Jayson holds a Global Executive M.P.A. from New York University and University College London. He was awarded 40 Under 40 at the Middle East Policy Council and 40 Under 40 Latinos in Foreign Policy at New America, Diversity in National Security Network, and Huffington Post.

Janessa Lopez is the Head of Digital Assets Policy at Block, a global technology company made up of Square, Cash App, Afterpay, TIDAL, Bitkey, and Proto. She is a strategic public policy leader with more than a decade of experience at the intersection of financial services and emerging technology, advocating for pro-innovation frameworks at the state, federal, and global level. Prior to this role, she worked at Gemini, where she helped build-out a government relations and public policy function for one of the world’s leading crypto exchanges. Before fully entering the fintech space, Janessa built her career in Washington, DC, serving as a Senior Policy Advisor in both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

Dennis Porter is the CEO and Co-Founder of Satoshi Action, the premier state-focused organization advancing Bitcoin and digital asset policy across the United States. Under his leadership, Satoshi Action has passed 11 of its model bills into law across 11 different states. He works directly with state and federal lawmakers nationwide to develop forward-looking policy frameworks that protect consumers, strengthen innovation, and enhance American competitiveness. Dennis is recognized globally as a leading voice at the intersection of technology and public policy.

Co-Founder of BitPolito
Product Manager for MOS/MDK at Tether
Freedom Maxi --> Bitcoin Maxi

Lead Engineer LibreBoard 256 Foundation, Geek, Bitcoin Home Heater, Open Source Maxi

Bitcoiner working to bring open source back to Bitcoin mining.

Ryan is the lead developer of Mujina, the 256 Foundation's Open-Source Bitcoin Mining Firmware.

Lauren is the devoted wife of Keonne Rodriguez, co-founder of Samourai Wallet, who is currently serving a five-year federal prison sentence for developing non-custodial, open-source privacy software. She passionately advocates for cryptocurrency privacy rights and criminal justice reform, focusing on securing clemency for her husband and bringing attention to others who have suffered similar injustice under the previous administration.

Lauren campaigns to highlights the broader implications of the Samourai case, drawing parallels to other privacy-focused projects, and calls attention to the lawfare against innovators in the Bitcoin and crypto space. Resilient and outspoken, she balances her personal grief with determined activism, emphasizing that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" as she strives for her husband’s freedom and systemic reform.

Janice McAfee is a fierce advocate for privacy, personal liberty, and a decentralized future. As the wife and partner of the late cybersecurity pioneer John McAfee, Janice saw first hand the needs of people for Bitcoin, privacy, and freedom.

Lyn Ulbricht is an activist and supporter of individual freedom, privacy and criminal justice reform. She is also the mother and former advocate of Ross Ulbricht, who received a double life sentence, with no parole, for all non-violent charges associated with his role in the Silk Road website. After almost 12 years fighting for Ross’s freedom, Lyn saw President Trump issue her son a full and unconditional pardon, partially in her honor.
Having had her only son sentenced to die in prison, Lyn is now dedicated to calling attention to the many thousands of others who have been victimized by excessive sentences. To that end, she has launched the nonprofit Mothers Against Cruel Sentencing (MACS).

Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks is a Congressional leader helping shape America’s financial freedom and digital future, serving as a prominent voice on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A steadfast advocate for financial innovation, she is at the forefront of establishing a clear, pro-growth regulatory framework for digital assets. By supporting landmark legislation such as the CLARITY Act and the GENIUS Act, Dr. Miller-Meeks is working to provide the essential "rules of the road" that protect consumer privacy and empower American entrepreneurs to lead on the global stage.

Driven by a commitment to national security, Representative Miller-Meeks views digital asset leadership as a strategic imperative to outcompete the Chinese Communist Party and secure U.S. dominance in the next era of financial technology. Her work bridges the gap between digital innovation and energy resilience, ensuring that our nation’s infrastructure is prepared to support a 21st-century economy. Through consistent engagement with industry stakeholders and her constituents in Iowa, she remains dedicated to fostering an environment where digital assets can thrive, decentralization is protected, and American economic leadership remains unrivaled.

Congressman Zach Nunn serves on the House Financial Services Committee, the House Agriculture Committee, and the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, where he is helping shape policies that ensure America leads in financial innovation and digital asset development.

A strong advocate for responsible innovation, Rep. Nunn has advanced policies designed to keep Bitcoin development, mining, and capital formation anchored in the United States rather than driven offshore to adversarial regimes such as the Chinese Communist Party. His approach emphasizes regulatory clarity, technological competitiveness, and market-driven growth to strengthen America’s economic leadership in the digital age.

Leveraging his background in cybersecurity and national security, Rep. Nunn introduced and successfully passed the bipartisan Financial Technology Protection Act unanimously through the House. The legislation targets illicit finance while protecting decentralized technologies—reflecting his belief that Bitcoin’s transparency, resilience, and security can reinforce, not undermine, the global financial system.

Rep. Nunn focuses on advancing policies that promote innovation, safeguard national security, and position the United States as the world’s premier environment for Bitcoin infrastructure and digital asset entrepreneurship.

Congressman Mike Lawler proudly represents New York's 17th Congressional District, just north of New York City, encompassing all or parts of Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess, and Westchester Counties. A lifelong Hudson Valley resident and former State Assemblyman, Congressman Lawler is widely recognized for his common-sense approach to legislating.

Congressman Lawler serves on the House Financial Services Committee, where he is Vice Chair of Communications, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He is one of Washington's most committed advocates for Bitcoin and digital assets — earning an "A" grade from Stand With Crypto. Congressman Lawler supports President Trump's Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and has been a driving force behind both the GENIUS Act and the Clarity Act, fighting to give American innovators the regulatory clarity they need to compete and win globally.

Prior to his election to Congress, Representative Jack was one of President Trump’s longest-serving aides. During President Trump’s Administration, Jack served as the White House Political Director. Following President Trump’s Administration, he worked as the principal liaison between Congressional Republicans and President Trump.

Representative Jack is a resident of Peachtree City, Georgia and a graduate of Woodward Academy and Pepperdine University.

Representative Jack represents Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District, which includes the following counties:
Carroll County
Coweta County
Parts of Douglas County
Parts of Fayette County
Haralson County
Harris County
Heard County
Parts of Henry County
Lamar County
Meriwether County
Parts of Muscogee County
Pike County
Spalding County
Troup County
Upson County

Worked for exchanges helping with self custody and payments, moved to help people directly to ensure they have no counterparty risk by giving free tutorials, creating a marketplace for concierge and providing an e-commerce store to buy everything you need privately.

Called this bear market. Authored Why Buy Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Support Specialist at Coinkite

Interested in all things bitcoin, finding ways to improve bitcoin privacy and usability

Founder Jacksonville Bitcoin Meetup 2014, Counterparty Board of Directors 2017, Rare Pepe Scientist (Digital Art Curator 2016-2018), 3x Featured Artist in 'On NFTs' by TASCHEN

Artist and record producer at the intersection of memes and Bitcoin. Everything is fake.

Creative at BTC Inc since 2017, Bitcoin Magazine Artist in Residence from 2023–2026, currently building the Bitcoin Museum & Art Gallery (BMAG).

Matt Schultz is co-founder, CEO and Chairman of CleanSpark (CLSK). Matt led CleanSpark from its early days as an alternative energy generator focused on converting biomass into energy using CleanSpark’s patented gasifier technology. He then transitioned CleanSpark into the renewable energy sector, helping to identify critical software that was used to deploy microgrids, most notably at Camp Pendleton. Matt has helped raise over a billion dollars in capital. His leadership has been instrumental in making CleanSpark one of the largest and most recognizable data center developers in North America.

Fred Thiel is the Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA) and has over 35 years of experience in the technology sector. Mr. Thiel is an acclaimed innovator and expert, having led organizations across diverse fields including digital assets, AI, semiconductors and enterprise software. Under his leadership, MARA has grown from a market cap of under $30 million to over $5 billion, becoming the largest in the space, with operations spanning four continents. MARA operates 15 data centers, including several across the United States, as well as locations in the UAE and Paraguay, boasting an energy capacity of 1700 MW. The company is fully integrated, enhancing its operational efficiency.
Throughout his career, Mr. Thiel has consistently driven rapid growth and created substantial shareholder value. Prior to MARA, Mr. Thiel served as the CEO of two other public companies, Local Corporation (NASDAQ: LOCM) and Lantronix, Inc (NASDAQ: LTRX). He has successfully raised billions in equity and debt through private and public offerings, led companies through IPOs, executed high-value exits to strategic and financial acquirers, and implemented effective M&A and roll-up strategies.
Mr. Thiel attended the Stockholm School of Economics and executive classes at Harvard Business School, and is fluent in English, Spanish, Swedish, and French. Mr. Thiel is the Chairman of the Board for Oden Technology, Inc. and is active in Young Presidents’ Organization where he has led initiatives in both the FinTech and Technology Networks.
A recognized voice in the industry, Fred frequently shares his insights on energy and technology with major media outlets like Bloomberg TV, CNBC, and FOX Business, contributing to vital discussions about the future of these sectors.

Derar Islim, Ph.D. – Chief Operating Officer, Antalpha Platform Holding Company and CEO, Americas & EMEA

Derar Islim, PhD, is a seasoned financial executive with significant experience in the digital asset industry, building and managing premier digital assets financial services and products globally. Islim’s career reflects a blend of academic rigor and practical experience in high-stakes financial environments. Derar’s leadership at Genesis, particularly during its crisis, showcased his ability to navigate complex operational and financial challenges from execution and governance perspectives.

Derar formerly held the roles of Interim CEO and COO at Genesis and, prior to that, Head of Risk at Hard Yaka. He has an established track record of leading at the forefront of modern financial markets. Early in his career, he served as a senior trader at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he co-managed the Funding Valuation Adjustment (FVA) trading desk and worked on modeling, pricing, and hedging credit structured products.

Derar holds a Ph.D. in Financial Mathematics from Florida State University, focusing on financial derivatives and applied partial differential equations.

Derar is a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, alongside other academic and professional awards.

Aviral Shukla is the founder of Altair Technology. He holds a Ph.D. in engineering from Purdue University and has prior work experience with Intel Corporation and Bayer AG. Aviral holds multiple US Patents in the field of data science and his work is widely published and cited in a multitude of peer-reviewed publications. Aviral started mining Bitcoin in 2016 in St. Charles, Missouri. What started as a hobby with a few ASIC miners in his basement, slowly grew into a megawatt scale mining operation. Aviral founded Altair Technology in 2021 with a goal to simplify hardware procurement and demystify bitcoin mining for new miners. Altair Technology is one of the largest US-based retailers of commercial and home mining hardware.

Marshall Long is a Bitcoin OG and Class of 2010 miner who has been hashing since the network's earliest days. With a strong background in hardware engineering, this 10th-generation Texan and serial entrepreneur brings over 15 years of deep technical expertise in Bitcoin mining, hardware optimization, global infrastructure deployment, and protocol economics. He has deployed mining operations across continents, including pioneering hydro-powered sites with Gridless in Kenya and championing innovations like immersion cooling. Marshall has held key leadership roles in the industry and responsible for founding PlebSource and serving as a General Partner at Alloyed Strategies. A frequent podcast guest, panelist, and respected voice in the mining community, Marshall delivers battle-tested insights on energy markets, hardware supply chains, chip design challenges, international operations, and the relentless pursuit of stacking sats through proof-of-work. Follow him on X at @OGBTC for unfiltered perspectives on Bitcoin's evolving frontier.

I started with Bitcoin in 2012. At first, I was just interested in the fact that it was easily accessible and could be transferred anywhere without any verification. This is what made me stick with it. I quickly delved deeper into Bitcoin, purchasing my first miner and experimenting with it. I wrote some basic scripts to make use of my miner. Initially, Bitcoin was not what it is for me today. It started as an online currency that was nice to have and turned into something that is necessary for me today. After finishing my Business Computer Science degree in 2022, I wrote more and more code, and eventually discovered the Bitaxe project, which hooked me. I instantly understood why open source is so important, and why Bitcoin is so far removed from open source these days. I became a contributor and then a maintainer, and now I am the lead software developer of this project. I am driving forward innovation and updates for anyone interested in using open-source mining equipment.

Co-Founder of BitPolito
Product Manager for MOS/MDK at Tether
Freedom Maxi --> Bitcoin Maxi

Nick Hansen is CEO of Luxor, building institutional-grade infrastructure and markets for Bitcoin miners globally. He is a systems-focused builder with deep expertise in mining economics, scale, and efficiency.

Director of Engineering, MARA
Volunteer Lifeguard, MaraPool
Product Owner, Slipstream

Author: Speculative Bitcoin Adoption/Price Theory (https://medium.com/@mcasey0827/speculative-bitcoin-adoption-price-theory-2eed48ecf7da) as referenced in "The Bullish Case for Bitcoin" by Vijay Boyapati.

Bitcoin Class of 2012

Podcast host, entrepreneur, and Chairman of Real Bedford FC, exploring the failures of modern systems and the ideas shaping culture, money, and power.

Founder of TFTC.io, a media company focused on #Bitcoin, Beauty, and Freedom in the Digital Age. Partner at Ten31. Director at Cathedra Bitcoin.

American Hodl is some guy from the internet.

macro writer, former fintech analyst at Carta.

Roger Huang was one of the first writers in 2014 to write about the intersection of Bitcoin in remittance payments and drug policy. Since then, he’s been a HODLer of Bitcoin, and he’s built several mini-projects with them for fun. He’s written for Forbes and TechCrunch and is the author of a book on Bitcoin + China (Would Mao Hold Bitcoin)

Matt Hougan is the Chief Investment Officer for Bitwise Asset Management, a specialist crypto asset manager that manages more than $15 billion across a suite of US ETFs, European ETFs, SMAs, staking solutions, onchain vaults, and active strategies.

Before joining Bitwise in 2018, Hougan was CEO of ETF .com, where he created the first ETF data, ratings, and classification system, and built the world’s largest ETF conference. A regular guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business, Hougan’s thoughts on investing have been widely profiled in the media. He is a three-time member of the
Barron’s ETF Roundtable and co-author of two publications for the CFA Institute Research Foundation: “A Comprehensive Guide to Exchange-Traded Funds” and “Cryptoassets: The Guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrency for Investment Professionals.”

In addition to his role at Bitwise, Hougan is the co-founder of FutureProof, creator of the world’s largest financial services conference; a board member of QuantumStreet AI, a AI-driven investing company with $7 billion in assets under management; and a strategic advisor to Blockworks, a crypto data and research company. Hougan graduated from Bowdoin College with a B.A. in philosophy.

Steve founded Upstream Data in 2017 after 10 years working in the oil and gas industry as a mechanical engineer focused on optimizing upstream oil and gas facilities. Steve is passionate about conserving energy waste and is an industry leader in bitcoin mining infrastructure design and optimization for distributed energy systems. Steve holds numerous patents in bitcoin mining and oilfield technology.

Sean founded New West Data in 2020, leveraging his expertise from leading the New Ventures division at Enercapita Energy, a Canadian oil and gas firm. Since 2019, he has pioneered off-grid distributed computing, integrating digital infrastructure with stranded energy assets like flared gas to power Bitcoin mining and high-performance computing (HPC). Sean holds a Bachelor’s in Development Economics and an MBA from the University of Calgary.

Daniel is the CEO of newly launched mgmt Digital Infrastructure, a company focused on bitcoin mining where energy is low cost, stranded or curtailed and leveraging mining with additional revenue streams such as grid balancing and heat reuse in the Nordics and eventually throughout Europe. mgmt Digital Infrastructure is in the process of launching its first Digital Infrastructure fund.

A passionate miner since 2017, Daniel has been active in the industry founding and leading companies such as mgmt Energy (formerly GreenBlocks), a bitcoin mining company and Viska Digital Assets, Iceland's first digital asset focused hedge fund.

Daniel has been an active angel investor in recent years.

Daniel is a firm believer in proof of work and doing hard things.