Supporting the Developer Ecosystem

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Available at 12 pm PDT

Session 1: Unpacking Open Source Development

Session 2: The Bitcoin Developer Landscape

Session 3: Solutions Panel

Session 4: A Call to Action

Thanks to millions of open-source developer hours, Bitcoin no longer is considered an obscure cryptographic toy. Instead, it has become an open-source financial network. In this track, our speakers explain why Bitcoin’s long-term success requires a sustainable funding model for open-source developers to maintain and extend the protocol.

Speakers on this Track

John Newbery Unpacking Open Source Development

John co-founded Brink in 2020 to support Bitcoin protocol development and onboard future Bitcoin protocol developers. John has been contributing to Bitcoin Core since 2016. He co-founded Bitcoin Optech in 2018 to help Bitcoin companies adopt scaling technologies. He helped organize the bitdevs NYC meetups, the Chaincode Residency programs and the weekly Bitcoin Core PR review club.

John Pfeffer The Bitcoin Developer Landscape

John is an entrepreneur and investor. In the 2000s, John was a London-based partner at private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and in the 1990s, he was Chairman of the Executive Board of leading French IT company Groupe Allium S.A. Before that, he advised on turnarounds while with McKinsey in Europe and Latin America.

Peter McCormack The Bitcoin Developer Landscape (Moderator)

Peter McCormack is a full-time podcaster and filmmaker covering topics such as Freedom, Human Rights, Censorship and Bitcoin. Peter created and hosts the What Bitcoin Did Podcast, a twice-weekly Bitcoin podcast where he interviews experts in the world of Bitcoin development, privacy, investment and adoption. Launched in November of 2017, the podcast has grown to over 350 episodes with a guest list that is a testament to the diversity of knowledge and opinions that represent the broader Bitcoin community.

Beth Kurteson Solutions Panel

Beth Kurteson is Managing Director at Gemini, a crypto platform that allows customers to buy, sell, store and earn interest on cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ether and DeFi tokens. An advisor to the CEO and President, she focuses on strategic initiatives such as Gemini Green, Gemini Opportunity Fund and other special projects. Beth initially joined Winklevoss Capital in 2013 and expanded her role there as Chief of Staff to Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to include Gemini, where she helped launch and scale the business, taking the company from five employees in New York City to more than 500+ globally. Prior to Gemini, Ms. Kurteson worked in PR/Marketing at Stylesight, a trend forecasting and product development agency acquired in 2013 by WGSN. Ms. Kurteson graduated from Fashion Institute of Technology in 2010 with a bachelor's of science in Fashion Merchandising Management and received her MBA from Columbia Business School in 2019.

Hong Fang Solutions Panel

Hong Fang is the CEO of Okcoin, a global, US-licensed cryptocurrency platform serving 184 countries — the largest reach of any US-based exchange. She joined Okcoin in 2019 and comes from a Wall Street background, having spent almost a decade at Goldman Sachs where she focused on M&A, capital markets, investment, restructuring and various other corporate development activities for both traditional financial institutions and fintech companies. Hong holds an MBA in Finance, Accounting and Entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Conor Okus Solutions Panel

Conor was a former Square Crypto grantee working as part of the Bitcoin Design Community. He's now joined the Square Crypto team as Product Manager and manages their grant program.

Adam Jonas Solutions Panel (Moderator)

Adam Jonas searches for and supports Bitcoin open-source contributors, fills gaps, and generally brings things to life at Chaincode Labs in New York.

Mike Schmidt A Call to Action

Mike joined the Bitcoin ecosystem in 2018 as a product manager at Blockstream and a contributor to Bitcoin Optech. With Optech, he contributes to the newsletters in addition to organizing and presenting technical content at member workshops. Mike has also contributed to Bitcoin Core by organizing events, assisting in running the taproot review sessions, and performing testing and outreach in the space.

Dr. Neha Narula A Call to Action

Neha Narula is the Director of the Digital Currency Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, where she leads research and development on central bank digital currency and securing decentralized cryptocurrencies. She received her Ph.D. in computer science from MIT in 2015, where she published work on fast, scalable databases. Neha was named to WIRED's list of 25 leaders shaping the next 25 years of technology, was listed on Fortune's Ledger 40 under 40, and her TED talk on the future of money has been viewed by over 2 million people.

Alex Gladstein A Call to Action

Alex Gladstein is Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation. He has also served as Vice President of Strategy for the Oslo Freedom Forum since its inception in 2009. In his work Alex has connected hundreds of dissidents and civil society groups with business leaders, technologists, journalists, philanthropists, policymakers, and artists to promote free and open societies. Alex's writing and views on human rights and technology have appeared in media outlets across the world including The Atlantic, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, The New York Times, NPR, TIME, The Washington Post, WIRED, and The Wall Street Journal. He has spoken at universities ranging from MIT to Stanford, briefed the European Parliament and US State Department, and serves as faculty at Singularity University and as an advisor to Blockchain Capital, a leading venture firm in the fintech industry. He frequently speaks and writes about why Bitcoin matters for freedom, and co-authored "The Little Bitcoin Book" in 2019.

Yassine Elmandjra A Call to Action (Host)

Yassine is the Blockchain/Cryptoasset Analyst for ARK. His research focuses on cryptoasset portfolio allocation, cryptoasset institutionalization, and Bitcoin mining. Prior to ARK, Yassine was a Summer Analyst at Rembrandt Venture Partners, a SaaS focused early stage venture capital firm; and Arena Investors, a registered investment adviser that originates investments with borrowers and other counterparties who need access to financing and are otherwise not able to access conventional sources. Yassine graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Wharton and a Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering from The School of Engineering. Yassine has been quoted on Yahoo, Yahoo Finance, Coindesk, Bitcoin Magazine, and Asia Times, among other publications. Additionally, Yassine was a featured speaker at The Fidelity Mining Summit and has been a guest on notable crypto-focused podcasts, including Marty Bent’s Tales from the Crypt, Laura Shin’s Unchained, Bitcoin Magazine, and Anthony Pompliano’s Off The Chain.

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