Zubin Koticha is the CEO and cofounder of Raindrop, a San Francisco startup building observability and alerting for AI agents, often described as 'Sentry for AI.' Before Raindrop, he cofounded Opyn, the DeFi options platform that pioneered the power perpetual (Squeeth), crossed $15B+ in volume, and was acquired by Coinbase. A UC Berkeley alum who taught himself to code there, he pairs a fascination with esoteric financial derivatives with bachata, deadlifting, and obscure geography trivia.
Akash Sinha, who goes by 'Sky,' is a Web3 and DeFi commentator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He builds an audience on LinkedIn around Bitcoin, decentralized finance, and the Solana and Ethereum ecosystems, posting frequently from crypto conferences like Solana Breakpoint and Token2049 and weighing in on tech-policy moments such as the TikTok ban debate.
Fun (fun.xyz) is a payments infrastructure company that moves money on and off blockchains for modern fintech apps. Its rails power deposits, withdrawals, orchestration, and checkout for platforms like Polymarket, Aave, and Lighter - processing more than $18 billion a year. Founded in 2022 by Stanford dropout Alex Fine, the company raised a $72 million Series A in early 2026 led by Multicoin Capital and SignalFire, aiming to be 'the front door' to the new digital economy.
David 'Dave' Ripley is Co-CEO of Kraken, one of the world's largest and longest-running cryptocurrency exchanges. He joined via Kraken's 2016 acquisition of Glidera, a bitcoin wallet service he co-founded, and rose from COO to CEO to Co-CEO as Kraken expanded aggressively — completing $1.5B acquisitions, raising $800M in 2025, and filing confidentially for a U.S. IPO. A former BCG principal and electrical engineer turned crypto operator, Ripley has shepherded Kraken from a 50-person startup to a 2,600+ employee global exchange while navigating major SEC enforcement actions and a shifting regulatory landscape.
0x is the open exchange infrastructure powering token swaps for many of crypto's largest apps - Coinbase, Robinhood, Phantom, MetaMask, Matcha and more. Through its Swap API, gasless transactions, and the underlying 0x Protocol, the company aggregates liquidity from hundreds of sources across the major chains so developers can ship trading experiences without building order routing themselves.
Metallicus is a San Francisco-based blockchain company building The Digital Banking Network (TDBN), a compliance-first infrastructure that connects traditional banks, credit unions, and fintechs to Web3. Founded in 2016 by Marshall Hayner and Glenn Mariën, the company is the core developer of Metal Blockchain - a Layer 0 protocol with Bank Secrecy Act compliance built in - and powers stablecoin pilots, digital identity, and crypto-banking products used by community financial institutions across the United States.
Luis Cuello is the Founder and CEO of Minted Protocol (MintedAssociates Corp), building mUSD - the first exclusive Canton-native institutional stable settlement token. With a background spanning BNP Paribas fund administration and M&A at Johnson & Johnson, Cuello brings traditional finance credibility to one of DeFi's most ambitious institutional plays: a GENIUS Act-aligned stablecoin backed 1:1 by HQLA-equivalent reserves on the Canton Network, the blockchain infrastructure processing $6T+ in monthly settlements for the world's largest financial institutions.
Marshall Hayner is the Founder and CEO of Metallicus, a San Francisco-based blockchain infrastructure company building compliant, regulation-forward digital banking tools for credit unions and financial institutions. A Bitcoin miner since 2009, Hayner pioneered social crypto payments with QuickCoin (the first Facebook-integrated Bitcoin wallet) in 2014, then spent a decade building Metallicus into the only blockchain company certified as a service provider for the Federal Reserve's FedNow instant payment rail. His company's flagship products - Metal Pay, Metal Blockchain, and the Digital Banking Network - sit at the intersection of traditional finance and decentralized infrastructure.
Ratnesh Ray is the Co-Founder and CTO of Juno, a crypto-native banking platform headquartered in San Francisco that lets users receive salaries directly in cryptocurrency via FDIC-insured accounts. A serial entrepreneur from Bengaluru, Ray previously co-founded BeeWise (acquired by Aditya Birla Money in 2017) and Nuo Network, a ConsenSys-backed DeFi lending protocol. At Juno, he leads technical architecture for a platform that has raised $24M in funding, including an $18M Series A led by ParaFi Capital in 2022, and serves over 75,000 U.S. customers.
Varun Deshpande is the co-founder and CEO of Juno, a San Francisco-based crypto-native digital banking platform that bridges traditional finance and decentralized finance for the US market. A serial entrepreneur from BITS Pilani, he previously co-founded BeeWise (acquired by Aditya Birla Money), Nuo Network (a DeFi lending protocol), and TopTalent.in. With Juno, he has raised $24M across seed and Series A rounds from top-tier investors including Sequoia Surge, Polychain, ParaFi Capital, and Jump Crypto, building a platform that lets users earn, spend, and manage crypto alongside traditional banking.
Raghav Gulati is a San Francisco-based technologist and executive who built CoinList into one of crypto's most recognized token launch platforms before transitioning to partner at Ravikant Capital. A University of Georgia mathematics graduate who cut his teeth as a software engineer at companies like Backplane and Shyp, Gulati rose through CoinList from engineer to CEO, helping orchestrate landmark token sales including Solana's early raise. His vision: make regulated token launches as accessible to 330 million Americans as equity markets, with Solana as the decentralized NASDAQ.
Will Warren co-founded 0x in October 2016 alongside Amir Bandeali, building the open protocol that became foundational DeFi infrastructure for peer-to-peer trading of Ethereum-based digital assets. A former applied physics researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory who left a PhD program in structural engineering to bet everything on Ethereum, Warren grew 0x from a whitepaper into a protocol powering billions in DEX volume and a developer platform serving the broadest ecosystem of DeFi apps, wallets, and market makers. In May 2026 he stepped down as Co-CEO while remaining a major shareholder and board member.
Dan Robinson is a General Partner and Head of Research at Paradigm, one of the most influential crypto venture firms in the world. A former litigation attorney turned protocol engineer, he co-authored 'Ethereum is a Dark Forest' - the paper that defined MEV for the industry - and played a central role in designing Uniswap V2 and V3. Robinson joined Paradigm in 2019 as its first Research Partner, was later promoted to General Partner, and has published foundational work on MEV taxes, Gradual Dutch Auctions, and prediction market AMMs. His rare combination of legal training and deep blockchain engineering makes him one of crypto's most distinctive voices at the intersection of mechanism design and decentralized finance.
Ethel Chen is General Partner at Sentinel Global, a San Francisco-based multi-stage venture capital firm that raised a $213.5 million inaugural fund to back enterprise technology founders worldwide. She brings 20+ years of investing experience across GIC (Singapore's sovereign wealth fund), Sequoia Capital Global Equities, CPP Investments, and Norwest Venture Partners - a career that includes early bets on Anthropic, Databricks, Zoom, Snowflake, Coinbase, Airbnb, DoorDash, Affirm, Chainalysis, and Uber, collectively contributing to 20+ IPOs and tens of billions in returns.
Spencer Bogart is a General Partner at Blockchain Capital, one of the oldest and most active venture firms in the crypto industry. A CFA charter holder who started his crypto career writing Wall Street's first blockchain research report at Needham & Company, Bogart now leads research across Blockchain Capital's five funds and 85+ investments. Known on Twitter as @CremeDeLaCrypto, he made early bets on DeFi before the term existed and has been a consistent voice for Bitcoin fundamentals and crypto infrastructure since 2014.
Esteban Castano is the Co-founder and CEO of TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence company he built into a billion-dollar unicorn on a mission to fight crypto crime. A Dartmouth-educated, Stanford MBA dropout, Castano co-founded TRM in 2018 after recognizing that the coming wave of digital asset adoption would need a trust layer - a platform to detect fraud, trace illicit funds, and keep crypto safe for governments, banks, and legitimate users. With $279.9M raised, clients including Goldman Sachs, Coinbase, and the US Department of Justice, and the world's first FedRAMP High-authorized blockchain intelligence platform, TRM Labs now sits at the center of crypto's fight against money laundering, terrorism financing, and organized crime.
Ali Yahya is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) where he leads the firm's crypto investing practice. A Stanford computer scientist and former Google Brain TensorFlow developer, he discovered Bitcoin in 2010 during security research and joined a16z in 2017 as its first full-time crypto investor. He has backed landmark bets including Solana and LayerZero, and is known for his deep technical thesis on privacy, zero-knowledge proofs, and the intersection of AI and crypto infrastructure. Off the charts, he runs a personal life operating system called walrOS built on 16 daily tracked habits and a spaced-repetition learning system.
Carra Wu is a Partner on the a16z crypto investment team, where she leads investments in gaming, media, consumer, and infrastructure. She became the youngest check signer in the firm's history at age 23, ascending from intern to deal partner in under a year - a trajectory that started with a six-sentence cold email to Arianna Simpson. A Harvard applied math dropout fluent in three languages, former HoloLens AR/VR engineer at Microsoft, and one-time ballet dancer, Wu brings a builder's instincts to some of crypto's biggest bets, including Axie Infinity, Friends With Benefits, Yield Guild Games, Story Protocol, and CCP Games.
Ross Shuel is Network Operations Partner at a16z Crypto, the crypto-focused arm of Andreessen Horowitz. A West Point graduate and former U.S. Army Ranger with seven years of military service including a deployment to Afghanistan, Shuel brought a systems-thinker's discipline to crypto governance. At a16z Crypto, he helps portfolio companies navigate the full arc of decentralized governance - from network launch and governance design to on-chain participation as protocols mature. He co-authored research on application token economics and has appeared on the web3 with a16z podcast discussing DAO governance attacks. His ENS identity, shuel.eth, reflects his deep embeddedness in the on-chain world he helps shape.
Lucian Todea is a Romanian-born serial entrepreneur and early-stage investor who built Soft32 from a $3/month passion project into one of the world's largest software distribution platforms, co-founded MultiversX (formerly Elrond) - a pioneering layer-1 blockchain - and now serves as Partner at 2048 Ventures in New York, where he has invested in 200+ companies including Anthropic, Perplexity, Chainalysis, Suno, and Kraken. An Ironman finisher and relentless builder, Todea embodies the conviction that technology exists not for its own sake, but to improve and enrich human lives.
Katie Haun is the founder and CEO of Haun Ventures, a $1.5 billion crypto and frontier technology venture firm she launched in 2022 after co-leading a16z Crypto. A former federal prosecutor who created the DOJ's first cryptocurrency task force, she is one of the most credible voices at the intersection of law, policy, and digital assets - a former skeptic turned crypto believer, converted by the very Silk Road case she was assigned to prosecute.
Chris Dixon is the founder and managing partner of a16z crypto, the largest dedicated crypto venture fund in the world with over $7 billion in committed capital. A Columbia philosophy graduate turned software engineer turned serial entrepreneur (SiteAdvisor, Hunch), he joined Andreessen Horowitz in 2012 and has since become Silicon Valley's most prominent crypto bull, leading investments in Coinbase, Uniswap, and dozens of foundational web3 companies. His 2018 essay 'Why Decentralization Matters' became a manifesto for the open internet movement, and his 2024 book 'Read Write Own' extended that thesis into a New York Times-listed blueprint for the next era of the internet.
Alexander Pack is a crypto venture capitalist who co-founded Hack VC and Dragonfly Capital, pioneering early-stage Web3 investments across the U.S. and Asia. A former Bain Capital Ventures director who launched their crypto practice, he's been the first institutional investor in three unicorns and has seeded hundreds of Web3 startups. Pack manages over $425 million in crypto-focused venture funds and co-founded Imperii Partners, a global crypto-native investment bank.
Dan Robinson is General Partner and Head of Research at Paradigm, one of crypto's most influential investment and research firms. A Harvard-trained lawyer turned protocol engineer, Robinson has co-authored landmark papers including the 'Ethereum is a Dark Forest' MEV essay, the Uniswap v3 whitepaper, and the Blend NFT lending protocol. His work sits at the intersection of mechanism design, mathematical finance, and open-source software - making him one of the rare figures who shapes both how DeFi protocols are built and how capital flows into them.
Fred Ehrsam (Frederick Ernest Ehrsam III) is a serial founder and investor who co-founded Coinbase in 2012 — the crypto exchange that went public on Nasdaq in 2021 — and Paradigm in 2018, the research-driven crypto VC firm that raised a $2.5 billion fund. Now he's chasing his next frontier: Nudge, a non-invasive brain-computer interface startup using focused ultrasound to modulate brain states, which raised $100 million in Series A funding in 2025. A Duke computer science graduate turned Goldman Sachs FX trader, Ehrsam discovered Bitcoin in 2011 and never looked back — quietly becoming one of the most influential architects of the crypto industry while building a reputation as a deep thinker obsessed with pushing the boundaries of human capability.
Meltem Demirors is a Turkish-American crypto investor, venture capitalist, and the founder and general partner of Crucible Capital - a $50M seed fund at the intersection of energy, compute, and crypto. Previously Chief Strategy Officer at CoinShares (where she helped grow AUM to $7B and take the firm public), she's also a prolific angel investor with 250+ bets, an Oxford lecturer, a World Economic Forum council member, and the self-described 'benevolent mischief-maker' who testified before Congress on Facebook's Libra in 2019.
Vitalik Buterin is the Russian-Canadian programmer who, at age 19, wrote the Ethereum whitepaper and changed what a blockchain could be. He turned a programmable ledger into an idea engine - smart contracts, DeFi, NFTs, DAOs - and then spent years fighting to keep it decentralized. He travels with a single suitcase, posts thousand-word blog essays at 2am, and once cried over a World of Warcraft nerf that indirectly launched a $200B ecosystem.
Haseeb Qureshi is the Managing Partner at Dragonfly Capital, one of crypto's largest VC firms with $4B+ AUM. A former professional poker player who turned $50 into seven figures by age 19, he walked away from the game, gave away his earnings, taught himself to code at a bootcamp, worked at Airbnb, then bet everything on crypto. He is one of the most distinctive voices in Web3 - part philosopher, part strategist, part contrarian - known for rigorous long-form essays, sharp market predictions, and an improbable career arc that no resume template could contain.
Joel Monegro is a Managing Partner and Co-founder of Placeholder, a New York City-based venture capital firm that invests exclusively in decentralized blockchain networks and cryptoassets. Best known for authoring the seminal 2016 essay 'Fat Protocols' - one of the most influential frameworks in crypto investing - he built Union Square Ventures' blockchain thesis before launching Placeholder in 2017 with Chris Burniske. A former Dominican Republic government technology official turned VC, he is also an amateur competitive racing driver who races under @racingpapi with the Dominican flag proudly displayed.
Kathleen Breitman is the co-founder and CEO of Dynamic Ledger Solutions, the company behind Tezos — the self-amending blockchain that raised $232 million in a 2017 ICO, then the largest in history. A Cornell-educated economist turned crypto builder, Breitman navigated one of the most turbulent governance crises in blockchain history to deliver a live, functioning network. Known for her blunt wit, anti-hype stance, and combative advocacy during the Tezos legal battles, she has become a defining voice in the 'build it or shut up' wing of the crypto world. She is currently building Coase, a software company focused on reducing transaction costs, while serving as a venture partner at Social Impact Capital and writing pointed op-eds for Fortune about crypto culture, women in tech, and the industry's credibility problem.