Jordan Birnholtz is a serial founder turned intellectual-property litigator who keeps building at the seam between law, finance, and technology. He co-founded PawnGuru, a marketplace that brought 1.5M+ underbanked Americans online to pawn shops; helped progressives organize through The Tuesday Company's Team app; and as co-founder and CMO of Neon put the world's first NFT vending machine on a New York sidewalk. After earning his J.D. cum laude from Northwestern, he now practices IP litigation at Kirkland & Ellis while co-founding Trarian, a venture underwriting patent-invalidity risk across what he calls the trillion-dollar patent asset class.
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.
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.
Alfred Chuang is the General Partner of Race Capital, a San Francisco venture firm investing in Web2 and Web3 infrastructure. Before becoming a VC, he co-founded BEA Systems in 1995 and led it as CEO until Oracle bought it in 2008 for $8.6 billion. Andreessen Horowitz has called him the Silicon Valley CEO's CEO.
Shamal Ranasinghe is the Chief Business Officer at Audius, the decentralized blockchain-based music streaming platform. A 25-year music-tech veteran, he co-founded Topspin Media in 2007 - one of the first direct-to-fan platforms for musicians - before spending eight years as VP of Product at Pandora/SiriusXM building creator tools. At Audius, he leads major label and publishing deals, including a landmark global licensing agreement with Kobalt Music in 2024, while championing a world where artists own their music, keep 90% of revenue, and connect directly with fans without gatekeepers.
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.
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.
Chris Burniske is a partner and co-founder of Placeholder, a venture capital firm that has invested in over 75 blockchain companies and networks since 2017. He co-authored the influential book 'Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond' and led ARK Invest to become the first public fund manager to offer bitcoin exposure in 2015. Known for his unconventional approach - famously rolling up barefoot on a skateboard to pitch Cathie Wood - Burniske combines deep technical knowledge with a surfer's mentality toward finding uncrowded opportunities in crypto markets.
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.
Nader Dabit is a developer relations leader, educator, and engineer who built a career from scratch after starting to code at 30. From React Native expert to AWS advocate to Web3 bridge-builder, he has spent the last decade making complex technology accessible to developers everywhere. A founder of DeveloperDAO, author of two O'Reilly-family books, and now working at Cognition on AI software agents, Nader is the rare person who connects technical depth with community instinct - and has the self-taught story to prove it.