Crypto Investing: There’s a Spring After Every Winter
Thursday, February 16 | 3:00 p.m. - 3:50 p.m. ET
Virtual Event
FTX’s collapse in November capped a punishing crypto winter that saw bitcoin plunge 75% from November 2021 when it reached its all-time high. Yet, many investors expect to see an uptick in the cryptocurrency market in 2023. We’ll discuss why they remain bullish on the long-term viability of the digital asset ecosystem, what lessons can be learned from 2022, and oxymoron or not – discuss safer alternatives for those willing to take the risk.
Prior to joining ADAM, Michelle Bond has served as the global head of policy and regulatory affairs at two fintech companies, where she developed and executed global regulatory strategy for digital assets, blockchain, and global payments. Ms. Bond has also worked at Bloomberg LP, serving as head of global regulatory affairs – and she is an expert in securities, derivatives, banking, and fintech regulation. Ms. Bond previously served as international counsel at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act. Bond was also a subject matter expert on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs for the Dodd-Frank Act, as well as the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act).
Jack is the Global Head of Wealth and Asset Management at Barron’s Group. Previously, Jack was the Editor-at-Large for Barron’s Group and the Executive Editor of Barrons.com, where he assigned and edited articles, promoted the site through social media and built a video operation. Jack launched Barron’s Next, a new site aimed at millennials. Jack is the author of Worth It…Not Worth It: Simple and Profitable Answers to Life’s Tough Financial Questions (Hachette). Before coming to Barron’s, Jack was executive editor of CBS MoneyWatch.com, and he has 18 years of experience as a business journalist, having been features editor of SmartMoney magazine and a columnist at Newsday. Jack has also written for The Wall Street Journal, O magazine, Men’s Health and The New Yorker. Jack frequently appears on television to talk about investing and personal finance, and has been seen on NBC's “Today,” CBS “This Morning,” CNN, CNBC and Fox. Jack currently hosts “Barron’s Roundtable,” an all-new show on FOX Business News.
Brooke Stoddard is a director on the client team at Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest digital currency asset manager. Since joining Grayscale in 2019, Mr. Stoddard has educated institutional and high net worth investors about the digital currency asset class and helped to raise billions of dollars in new capital into Grayscale products. Prior to joining Grayscale, Mr. Stoddard was a private wealth advisor at Goldman Sachs, where he advised institutional and high net worth investors on asset allocation strategies and portfolio management. Mr. Stoddard earned his bachelor of arts in history from Princeton and his M.B.A. from Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania.
David LaValle is senior managing director, global head of ETFs at Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest digital currency asset manager. Mr. LaValle has over 20 years of experience in financial services and a proven executive management track record. Mr. LaValle’s expertise covers the broad finance industry, the indexing landscape, and the exchange- traded product (ETP) ecosystem, including extensive knowledge in trading, distribution, capital markets, stock exchanges and regulatory engagements.
Prior to joining Grayscale, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Alerian and S-Network Global Indexes. In that role, Mr. LaValle was responsible for all facets of the business including leading the firm’s growth and business transformation strategy, formulating and overseeing the executive management team and representing the firm as a frequent spokesperson for press engagements and events. Previously, he was the U.S. head of SPDR ETF capital markets and a member of the senior leadership team at State Street Global Advisors, a $3.5 trillion-dollar global asset manager. Prior to State Street, Mr. LaValle led Nasdaq’s exchange traded product marketplace where he was responsible for all aspects of strategy and business development for Nasdaq’s ETP listing and trading businesses. Before joining Nasdaq, he was a member of the New York Stock Exchange and American Stock Exchange where he managed trading businesses.
Mr. LaValle earned his bachelor of arts degree from Georgetown University, served on the Security Traders Association of New York (STANY) Board and is a current member of the Wall Street Rides FAR charity advisory board.
Bart Smith is global head of digital asset strategy for the Susquehanna International Group of Companies (“SIG”). In this role, Mr. Smith is involved in developing all of SIG’s business activities in this area, including proprietary trading, direct investments, market making and counterparty relationships. Previously, he was responsible for the FICC, ETF and portfolio trading groups at SIG, where he oversaw SIG’s ETF lead market making and exchange-related business, ETF issuer relationships, ETF and fixed income institutional counterparty trading (through Susquehanna Financial Group, LLLP (“SFG”), a member of SIG), global equity and fixed income portfolio trading (also through SFG), and other strategic ETF and fixed income initiatives. Prior to his current role, he helped Emerging Global Advisors launch its EGShares lineup of ETFs. Mr. Smith has also worked at AllianceBernstein and UBS in a variety of sales and consulting roles.
Craig Salm is the chief legal officer at Grayscale Investments. Mr. Salm oversees the daily legal and regulatory operations of the business and its products. Prior to joining Grayscale, he was a corporate associate at Paul Weiss and a member of its capital markets and securities group – primarily focused on representing issuers, private equity sponsors, investment banks, hedge funds, and other stakeholders in corporate finance transactions, as well as advising on securities law and corporate governance matters. Mr. Salm earned his bachelor of science from the University of Michigan and his Juris Doctor from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He serves as a board member of the Ethereum Classic Cooperative and as the co-chair of the Securities Law Working Group for the Blockchain Association.
Faryar Shirzad is the Chief People Officer at Coinbase.
During his 15 year tenure at Goldman Sachs, Faryar played a leading role in managing the firm’s government relations and public policy strategy, regularly engaging with policymakers around the world to help the firm navigate complex legislative and regulatory developments.
Prior to joining Goldman Sachs in 2006, Faryar held several government positions, serving on the staff of the National Security Council at the White House as Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs and as the U.S. G-8 Sherpa. He also served as Assistant Secretary for Import Administration at the US Department of Commerce and previously as International Trade Counsel to the US Senate Committee on Finance. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and in 2010 received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
Michael is an Executive Editor at The Trust, the custom content studio of The Wall Street Journal. He oversees the creation of branded content programs, which feature articles, video, podcasts and data graphics. Michael brings more than 20 years of editorial experience to a diverse range of programs, including financial, healthcare, technology and entertainment, and is responsible for the end-to-end creative process, from strategy and ideation to writing and editing. Previously, he directed the Content Strategy group at the Publicis digital agency Razorfish and worked in the editorial department at The New Yorker magazine.
As Head of Investor Relations at Grayscale Investments, Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary leads Grayscale’s efforts to liaise with Grayscale’s private and public investors. She manages Grayscale’s growing investor base of family offices, hedge funds, institutional investors, and high net-worth individuals. Since joining Grayscale in 2018, Ray has helped raise billions in new capital into Grayscale’s products and been on the cutting edge of bringing the digital currency asset class to some of the world’s most sophisticated and significant investors.
Prior to joining Grayscale, Ray was a Director in the Leveraged Finance Distribution group at UBS Investment Bank. Over the span of her ten years at UBS, Ray also held positions in the Leveraged Finance and Financial Sponsors Investment Banking and Leveraged Capital Markets divisions. She graduated magna cum laude from Duke with a Bachelor of Science in Economics. Ray was named as one of Business Insider’s 2020 Rising Stars of Wall Street.
Michael Saylor is executive chairman of MicroStrategy, a position he has held since August 2022. Mr. Syalor is the co-founder of MicroStrategy and previously served as chief executive officer from 1989 to 2022. He has also served as the chairman of the board of directors of MicroStrategy since co-founding the company. Under his leadership, MicroStrategy has emerged as a global leader in enterprise analytics and mobility software, serving thousands of organizations around the world.
Mr. Saylor is a named inventor on more than 40 patents. In addition to being credited as the inventor of relational analytics, he led MicroStrategy into the fields of web analytics, distributed analytics, mobile analytics, cloud computing, mobile identity, and IoT. He was also the creator and founder of Alarm.com (NASDAQ: ALRM), one of the first home automation and security companies, and Angel.com (sold to Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories for $110 million in 2013), one of the first cloud-based interactive voice response service providers.
