Speakers

Aaron van Wirdum is the technical editor for Bitcoin Magazine and the cohost of the Bitcoin, Explained podcast. With a background in studying the historical influence of society-shaping technologies, he’s been covering Bitcoin and related projects since 2013. He is known for his ability to explain highly-technical subjects to a layman audience and specializes in topics including Bitcoin’s history, scaling and privacy technology.

Bitcoiner since 2013. Co-founder of BTC.com and Poolin mining pools. Led the Miner-activated-softfork Taproot.

Alessio Quaglini is leading the institutional adoption of digital assets. In 2018, he co-founded Hex Trust, a digital asset financial institution specialising in custody, staking, and markets services. Hex Trust has secured licenses across major financial hubs and become a trusted partner for institutions seeking secure, strategic engagement with digital assets. Hex Trust goes beyond safekeeping to support staking, markets execution, and emerging opportunities in Bitcoin finance.

Alessio brings over 15 years' experience in banking, regulation, and consulting, including roles at BBVA, First Abu Dhabi Bank, and the Italian Financial Services Authority (Consob), where he oversaw equity and derivatives markets in the market abuse department. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in telecommunication engineering from La Sapienza University in Rome, an MBA from IE Business School, and is a CFA Charterholder.

Building on bitcoin with RGB

Independent researcher focusing on the technical architecture of the Bitcoin protocol and its implementations, as well as developer dynamics around the Core software. Previously worked on secure hardware for novel custodial solutions. Coming from a background in open-source systems engineering.

Austin Alexander discovered Bitcoin in 2011 while working at an economic policy think tank in Washington D.C. in 2013 he co-founded the New York Bitcoin Center, the world's first physical Bitcoin exchange. Austin served as the industries first sales executive when he joined kraken in 2014. From 2019-2022 he served as Krakens CEO for the Middle East in the first licensed exchange in the UAE.

Benjamin was recruited to Riot in October 2018, initially to serve as a director and chair of the audit committee of the Board of Directors. He was elected Chairman of the Board in November 2020 and nominated to the role of Executive Chairman in May 2021.

Benjamin is the architect responsible for the Company’s turnaround and position as a leading Bitcoin-driven infrastructure platform company. Under his guidance and leadership, Riot has raised over $1.5 billion, significantly improved its operational and financial profile, reconstituted a more diverse Board of Directors, established a professionalized, cross-functional management team, and successfully integrated two strategic acquisitions.

Benjamin brings a broad portfolio of experience in investment management, strategy, corporate development, and governance to the Company. In addition to having served as a director of several public and private companies, he also brings two decades of unique capital markets experience to the management team, with a particular expertise in fintech-enabled businesses, specialty finance, and special situations investing through a company's capital structure.

Prior to Riot, Benjamin led the capital markets efforts at IOU Financial, a tech-enabled lender to small businesses, which was acquired by Neuberger Berman in 2023. Prior thereto, he worked directly under the late Ned Goodman, a renowned Canadian financier, investor and founder of Dundee Corporation, a Toronto-based conglomerate. Prior to Dundee, Benjamin was a securities analyst at the predecessor to 1832 Asset Management L.P., where he covered energy and special situations investments on a team managing one of North America's largest natural resources-focused investment funds. Benjamin holds a Master of Finance degree from the Rotman School of Management and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Trinity College in the University of Toronto. He is a CFA charter holder and member of the CFA Society Cayman Islands.

I began my journey in Bitcoin development in 2013 as both a wallet and game developer, creating SaruTobi, the first mobile game to integrate Bitcoin. The game rewarded players with real Bitcoin tips as they played. Following SaruTobi, I developed several more Bitcoin-based games and was involved in some of the earliest experiments with NFTs on Bitcoin via Counterparty.

Today, I'm a co-founder of ZBD, a company that leverages the Lightning Network to help game developers seamlessly integrate Bitcoin into their games at scale.

I also continue to release titles through my studio Mandelduck Ltd, most recently adding Lightning payments into SaruTobi—a first for mobile games—and open-sourcing projects like ZBD Kart, a Mario Kart-style racing game powered by Bitcoin.

I'm a former real estate broker and entrepreneur turned bitcoiner. I got seriously into bitcoin at the end of 2020. In early 2021, I started the Bitcoin Gandalf Twitter account and grew it from 0-80,000 followers in 3 years. I also worked in marketing at bitcoin mining company Braiins from 2021-2023. In addition to writing about bitcoin, I'm also focused on helping people become more sovereign by building their personal brands through my ghostwriting and personal branding strategy consulting services.

Co-Founder BitcoinVN
- Vietnam's premier #Bitcoin Exchange & OTC trade desk (est. '13/14)

Holder since 18‘

Emmanuel Montero is the Founder and CEO of Omnes, a Switzerland based institutional Bitcoin mining platform, Omnes provides institutional-grade access to Bitcoin mining hashrate without the need to own or manage hardware. He is also the owner of Terahash Solutions, a top-tier ASIC hosting company based in the UAE. A former U.S. Navy Diver turned serial entrepreneur.

casting spells that trick the code to store jpegs on you node

Bitcoin UX designer at Hoseki. Also focused on Chaumian ecash on bitcoin.

Erin Redwing is a central figure in the Ordinals community, advancing the protocol's open source development through her work at the Open Ordinals Institute and spearheading Inscribing Atlantis as CEO, where she harmonizes technical innovation with artistic expression on Bitcoin. As a co-host of the Hell Money Podcast alongside Casey Rodarmor, Erin works tirelessly to bring the vibes to Bitcoin. She envisions Ordinals and Inscriptions as a form of modern-day hieroglyphics on the Digital Megalith of our era, a testament to the enduring legacy of human creativity within the vast expanse of digital eternity.

Ethan is a former software engineer at Uber, turned Founder and CEO of Pouch.ph, the Philippines-based financial company for lightning payments, stacking sats, and cross-border remittance rails.

Co-Founded Luxor in 2018. Luxor operates a Bitcoin mining software, hardware and financial services company. Prior to Luxor, Ethan worked at Goldman Sachs covering the Blockchain and Bitcoin sector.

Evan Kaloudis is a cybersecurity engineer-turned-entrepreneur deeply embedded in the Bitcoin and Lightning Network ecosystem.

In 2019, he founded ZEUS, a free and open-source, mobile-first Bitcoin and Lightning wallet that enables users to run a full node on their phone or connect remotely to external nodes. ZEUS has since evolved into a company focused on helping individuals and businesses adopt Bitcoin.

Currently serving as Business Development Manager at Citrea, the first zk-rollup on Bitcoin, where I focus on driving strategic partnerships and ecosystem growth. Previously I spent three years as a Bitcoin researcher at Galaxy, where I specialized in Layer 2 solutions, Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs), Ordinals development, on-chain analytics, and mining.

George Mekhail is the Managing Director of Bitcoin for Corporations at BTC Inc., author of I Am Not Your Bruh, and co-author of Thank God for Bitcoin. A passionate advocate for Bitcoin since 2017, George blends his experience in marketing, financial innovation, and community development to guide companies in thoughtfully integrating Bitcoin into their strategic operations, while also advocating for strong family dynamics at home.

Facilitated over 200MW of energy for Bitcoin mining companies.

Facilitated over 30MW of energy for AI companies.

Founding Partner of the Indonesian Digital Council, consulting the Indonesian Government on digital assets like Bitcoin.

Creator of the Circular Approach, leveraging Bitcoin as a catalyst to solve real problems in emerging markets.

Author of The Importance of Tier 0 (Bitcoin Mining and Crypto Mining) for Data Center Evolution (to be published after Summer 2025).

JP is the CEO of Exodus. In 2015, JP co-founded Exodus to build a beautiful, easy-to-use app that empowers customers to secure, swap, and self-custody their portfolio of crypto. In 2021, JP led Exodus as the first US company to conduct an SEC-qualified crypto-only public stock offering, making it the only US company to have its common stock tokenized on the blockchain. Today, Exodus has 5.5 million customers worldwide and employs 225 people who all receive 100% of their salary in Bitcoin.

Jack started in aerospace engineering, applying precision and risk management to digital assets. At TokenInsight, he built APAC’s largest crypto quant fund database and led research and investment, managing a $200M+ AUM trading platform. Now at LTP, Jack drives the development of secure, regulated, and scalable financial infrastructure, bridging traditional finance and blockchain through execution, clearing, settlement, custody, lending, and financing solutions.

Purchased my first bitcoin in 2013，and then joined BitShares community as committee member. Founded Waterdrip Capital in 2017，and then invested in over 150 startups. Currently managing three funds in Hongkong，including a bitcoin liquid fund，an altcoin liquid fund and a VC fund.

Jason is the Founder and Managing Partner at Sora Ventures. Sora Ventures was key in creating the first “Asia’s MicroStrategy” by partnering with a Japanese-listed company, Metaplanet. Sora Ventures also acquired Moon Inc. (HKG:1723) with UTXO Management to create "Hong Kong's MicroStrategy". Sora Ventures further announced the launch of a $150M fund dedicated to the proliferation of microstrategies across Asia, aimed at enabling more agile and targeted approaches to accumulating and managing Bitcoin reserves. With investments supporting over 30 companies in the Bitcoin utility sector in 2023 and 2024, Sora Ventures is one of the most active funds dedicated to Bitcoin ecosystem. Sora Ventures debuted Sora Summit 2023 in Taipei, bringing over 30 distinguished speakers and global leaders from the Bitcoin ecosystem, including the Creator of Ordinals Protocol and BRC20. Before starting Sora Ventures, Jason was responsible for US investments at Fenbushi Capital from 2015 until 2017.

First Bitcoin Candidate in Singapore's Elections

Jesse Myers is the Head of Bitcoin Strategy at Moon Inc. (HKG-1723), a Hong Kong Stock Exchange listed Bitcoin Treasury company.

Jesse is a Bitcoin analyst and author, known for "Once-in-a-Species" and "Bitcoin's Full Potential Valuation," which Michael Saylor adopted as the basis for his valuation model. Previously, Jesse co-founded Onramp Bitcoin, was a management consultant at Bain & Company, and received his MBA from Stanford.

Jimmy Kostro, Founding Partner of Bitcoin Chiang Mai, is a seasoned entrepreneur, founder, and investor with a passion for impact. He established the Bitcoin Learning Center, one of Asia’s largest and most active Bitcoin hubs, and the first to collaborate with local city government and major academic institutions.

With 12 years as CEO of a Meal Plan Delivery, a company that scaled to 24 major U.S. markets at its peak, Jimmy brings extensive expertise to his ventures. His vision is to expand Bitcoin education across all 11 Southeast Asian countries, using Chiang Mai, Thailand, as the central hub to empower communities through knowledge.

John Riggins is the CEO of Moon Inc. (HKG-1723), a Hong Kong Stock Exchange listed Bitcoin Treasury company.

Prior to Moon Inc, John was a founding partner of UTXO Management’s Bitcoin Ecosystem Fund, the most active early-stage venture capital fund across the Bitcoin landscape and led Asia business for BTC Media, the world’s preeminent Bitcoin focused media group, with brands including Bitcoin Magazine and The Bitcoin Conference

Kevin is responsible for the strategic direction and growth of Foundry’s mining services. Since entering the crypto mining industry in 2014, Kevin has built large-scale bitcoin mining facilities, and worked closely with mining equipment manufacturers, mining pools, and datacenter operators. He held senior positions overseeing mining operations at Greenidge Generation and Bitcoin.com. Kevin started his career at Ford Motor Company, after studying finance, international business, and Chinese at Indiana University. An avid gamer, Kevin credits World of Warcraft with sparking his interest in digital currencies.

I have been into bitcoin and zk for a long time and have been working on it full time since 2020. Previously worked on zkSNARK research at Blockstream. Currently research at Alpen Labs trying verify SNARKs on bitcoin to bring about the private, permissionless, decentralized digital cash we were promised.

I've worked in the Bitcoin space for 5 years, with over different 20 Bitcoin YouTube channels as a growth strategist, including names such as Mark Moss, Ben from Btc Sessions, TFTC, and Simply Bitcoin.

I like to practice what I preach, as I'm also the face of the 2 fastest growing Bitcoin YouTube channels under 50,000 subscribers.

As a 2nd generation oil & gas professional, Mario is passionate about the intersection of Bitcoin, Bitcoin mining, and energy. He serves as VP of Business Development at Giga Energy, a leading Bitcoin mining and power infrastructure company.

After his tenure in ExxonMobil's upstream technology company, Mario has spent time in the Bitcoin space across financial services (Unchained Capital), private equity (AEXA Digital), and consulting (Vibe Energy).

Mario helps organize the Houston Bitcoin Meet Up, is active in supporting the Bitcoin adoption in his home country of Colombia and the greater Latam region, and advises startups across the Bitcoin technology space.

As CIO of Build Asset Management, Matt is responsible for portfolio management, capital allocation, and strategy for the firm and its clients. As a star manager in investment grade credit, Matt has become a leading proponent for Bitcoin-centric asset backed lending within the private credit space. He is proud to have helped launch a Bitcoin-backed direct lending fund in partnership with Unchained Inc. in 2023.

Hey Hey! The Muzz Man puts the FUN in Funding. Managing Partner of Lightning Ventures and CEO of Thunder Funder. Evangelizing early-stage investing for plebs and whales alike. Muzz is passionate about early-stage investing and helping founders raise capital for their Bitcoin companies. With over 40 Bitcoin-only companies in his portfolio and more than 2000 personal angel investments, he's got a serious angel investing addiction. If you want to learn more about investing or need help as an entrepreneur, chat him up!

Coder and Bitcoin enthusiast, on a mission to supercharge the web economy with Bitcoin. Building getAlby.com and Alby Hub.

Lead Maintainer of the Ordinals Protocol

Rockstar Dev is a Core Contributor @ BTCPay Server, a self-hosted, free open-source Bitcoin payment processor. Rockstar also serves as the Head of Bitcoin @ Strike, where he leads non-profit efforts.

1. Expert in Security Protocols, a Computer Science cyberpunk currently working on applied miniscript use cases i.e Future of Inheritance in Bitcoin, BitVM and Hardware/Software B2B Wallets + HSMs specially for enterprise offerings like Banks to upgrade to Bitcoin standard for their clients.

2. 10+ yrs in Bitcoin (Class of 2013) as a Bitcoin Maxi, a Bitcoin Globe trotter from Shanghai, Bangalore, NewYork, Las Vegas, Ireland, Austin, Hong Kong, Prague, Lugano, Zurich and Amsterdam attending Bitcoin Conferences and meetups orange pilling my extended family and friends

3. He has Angel invested in 28+ Bitcoin native startups

4. Cool Bitcoin Story: He got his first Trezor from OG Slush in person at the Shanghai conference in 2014 and bought his Bitcoin via an ATM in Shanghai. He has been a big believer in self custody of keys ever since.

5. He has 15+yrs experience as a Founder/CTO(serial entrepreneur-venture capital backed) who has built/sold 3 AI/ML startups in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong & India)

A self educated Bitcoiner producing educational content since 2016. Technical and Opinion Editor at Bitcoin Magazine.

started as a personal investment to hedge against traditional assets class of equity and gold. having realised the depth of an asset such as bitcoin pivoted a 40 year old organisation to hold bitcoin on its balance sheet making it the first publicly listed company in India to do so. Ambition to navigate a complex regulatory market of India to bring bitcoin or associated stock to a 100M people in India.

Stephen Duan is the Core Contributor of GOAT Network, Dev Lead at ZKM, former Co-founder of Baidu Blockchain, former Founder of Eigen Network, and holds a Master's degree from Peking University.

Investor in BTC, BTC Treasury companies, Board member

KWM will pursue the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Plan starting in summer 2025.

Leading Fulgur’s Japan initiatives since 2021. Recently launched Tokyo Bitcoin Base—a physical hub to unite Bitcoiners in Satoshi’s homeland. Co-organizer of Bitcoin Tokyo conference. Japanese translator of The Bitcoin Standard, The Bullish Case for Bitcoin, The Little Bitcoin Book, and Check Your Financial Privilege. Creator of educational resources lostinbitcoin.jp.

Tyler is a co-founder of BTC Inc., the publisher of Bitcoin Magazine and organizer of Bitcoin 2023. He is a general partner at UTXO Management, an asset management firm focused on the Bitcoin ecosystem. He also leads early stage venture capital into Bitcoin companies as a the managing partner of the Bitcoin Magazine Ecosystem Fund.

YakiHonne Creator & Researcher in Decentralized Social Networks

Bitcoin core, lightning and nostr dev. founder @ damus.io.

With 20+ years of technical expertise, Wright Wang joined MicroBT in 2018 and contributed to the development of two generations of ASICs. Subsequently, he transitioned from R&D to marketing and was promoted to Marketing Director in 2019. Wright possesses a profound understanding of the technical challenges faced by MicroBT’s customers and has successfully collaborated with numerous clients to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. In 2023, he was bestowed with the Outstanding Contribution Award of MicroBT, led the key client project team and won the award for outstanding team.

Yat Siu
Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Animoca Brands
Founder and CEO, Outblaze

A veteran technology entrepreneur/investor based in Hong Kong, Yat Siu is the co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, a global leader in blockchain and gaming with the mission to deliver digital property rights to the world's gamers and Internet users, thereby creating a new asset class, play-and-earn economies, and a more equitable digital framework contributing to the building of the open metaverse.

Yat began his career at Atari Germany in 1990. In 1995 he moved to Hong Kong to establish Hong Kong Cybercity/Freenation, the first free web page and email provider in Asia. In 1998 he set up Outblaze, an award-winning pioneer of multilingual white label web services. In 2009, he sold Outblaze’s messaging unit to IBM and pivoted Outblaze to become an incubator of projects and companies to develop digital entertainment services and products. One of those incubated companies is Animoca Brands, which was created in 2014.

In 2017 he set up the Dalton Learning Lab, an afterschool digital lab for skills not emphasized by most education systems, including divergent thinking and design thinking. He is the founder of ThinkBlaze, the research arm of Outblaze investigating socially meaningful issues in technology.

Since 2018, Yat has been an early advocate for the use of blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the gaming industry, which will allow gamers to enjoy true ownership of their own game assets, data, and, consequently, equity. With a clear vision of the potential of decentralized apps and assets, Yat quickly steered Animoca Brands to a leadership position in blockchain, gaming, NFTs, and the open metaverse. Animoca Brands operates a series of NFT-centric subsidiaries and products, and has invested in over 540 blockchain-related companies to build one of the largest blockchain portfolios in the world.

Yat has earned numerous accolades including Global Leader of Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum, Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the DHL/SCMP Awards, and recognition as one of the Cointelegraph top 100 notable people in blockchain.

A classically trained musician, Yat is a member of the advisory board of BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and a director of the Asian Youth Orchestra.

btcviv is a Bitcoin advocate focused on marketing, communications, and experience. She’s the Event Director of Bitcoin Asia, part of the global Bitcoin Conference series, where she helps connect East and West through community and culture.

She also hosts Life with Bitcoin, a podcast exploring personal transformation through the lens of Bitcoin. As singer-songwriter Ivy Lumi, she shares the emotional side of Bitcoin through music and storytelling.
Through it all, btcviv is dedicated to shaping how Bitcoin is understood — not just as technology, but as a way of life.

Calvadev is a free market maximalist, ecash respecter, and the founder of Shopstr, a permissionless marketplace for Bitcoin commerce. Having attended the alma mater of Ross Ulbricht, working from the inside of JPMorgan, and dealing with the bloat of Big Tech, the discovery of Bitcoin and Nostr allowed him to tie in all of the values and lessons learned throughout his journey down the rabbit hole and fully realize his sovereignty to go all-in on freedom tech. He now dedicates his time to making it as easy as possible for anyone and everyone to tap into the parallel economy and exit the grasp of the state.

Keypleb is a founder of Code Orange Dev School, a Bali-based initiative empowering bitcoiners, developers and community leaders in financially repressed Asian regions with technical Bitcoin skills. The school strengthens Bitcoin's decentralisation and security by growing a bitcoiner social layer through online and in-person community building.

Through advanced in-person workshops, online study cohorts and train-the-trainer program, Code Orange Dev School drives adoption by addressing the shortage of Bitcoin developers and node runners, targeting 21,000 new full nodes deployed by 2030.

Before launching Code Orange Dev School, keypleb co-founded Bitcoin House Bali and helped establish 36+ monthly meetups across Indonesia since 2022.