Crypto Task Force Roundtable - DeFi and the American Spirit

Jill Gunter – Co-Founder, Espresso Systems

Ms. Gunter has worked in the digital assets space for more than 10 years, running business relationships and holding advisory roles with institutions like Nasdaq, the IMF, and the Bank of England. She is co-founder of Espresso Systems, the decentralized interoperability layer securely connecting activity across chains.

Previously, Ms. Gunter spent time as an early-stage investor, both with Slow Ventures and independently. She was involved in the seed stage investment round of Solana as well as early-stage rounds of projects like Optimism and Eigenlayer.

Ms. Gunter conducted academic research on cryptocurrency at the University of Oxford, where she focused on the economic and political implications of bitcoin. She began her career as a credit trader at Goldman Sachs covering sovereign debt and derivatives. She holds a MSc from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an AB from Harvard, where she studied classics.

Michael Jordan – Co-Founder and General Partner, DBA

Mr. Jordan co-founded DBA, a New York-based crypto investment firm rooted in technical research that’s subjective, declarative, and opinionated.

Prior to DBA, Mr. Jordan was co-head of investments at Galaxy Digital, where he worked from 2017 to 2022.

He led investments in foundational winners such as Fireblocks, Tagomi (now Coinbase Institutional), Bison Trails (now Coinbase Cloud), CipherTrace (acquired by Mastercard), and others.

Omid Malekan – Adjunct Professor, Columbia Business School

Mr. Malekan has been teaching crypto since 2019. He’s the self-anointed explainer-in-chief of blockchain technology and the author of two books: The Story of the Blockchain: A Beginner’s Guide to the Technology That Nobody Understands (2018) and Re-Architecting Trust: The Curse of History and the Crypto Cure for Money, Markets, and Platforms (2022), which has a chapter on markets, the evolution of securities, and the benefits of DeFi.

An 11-year veteran of the crypto industry, his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review as well as his own blog on Medium and in several academic journals.

When not teaching, Malekan plays the role of interpreter between the worlds of traditional finance and crypto, helping established firms understand this disruptive technology and startups avoid re-learning the harsh lessons of history. 

Publications:

Michael Mosier – Co-Founder, Arktouros pllc

Mr. Mosier co-founded Arktouros pllc, a legal boutique of former in-house counsel and senior government officials dedicated to emergent technology, financial integrity, and civil society. He helped launch ex/ante, an early-stage fund investing in tools that advance human agency and democratic resilience.

He twice has been the first in-house counsel at tech companies: Chainalysis (blockchain analytics) and EspressoSystems (developing cross-chain composability & configurable privacy). 

In public service, Mr. Mosier served as acting director, deputy director, and the first digital innovation officer of the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). He also served as counselor (for Cybersecurity & Emerging Technology) to the deputy secretary of the Treasury; associate director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC); a deputy chief in the Department of Justice’s Money Laundering & Asset Recovery Section; and a director at the White House National Security Council.

Publications: 

• Genuine DeFi as Critical Infrastructure: A Conceptual Framework for Combating Illicit Finance Activity in Decentralized Finance
• Congressional Testimony: “Crypto Crime in Context Part II: Examining Approaches to Combat Illicit Activity.”
• Opinion: Stablecoin and other digital assets are falsely framed as a choice between personal privacy and national security. We can have both.

Troy Paredes – (Moderator). Founder, Paredes Strategies LLC

From 2008 to 2013, Mr. Paredes was an SEC Commissioner, appointed by President George W. Bush. Presently, he is the founder of Paredes Strategies LLC, a consulting firm advising on financial regulation, compliance, risk management, and corporate governance. 

Mr. Paredes was a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis before joining the SEC. He also has been a Distinguished Policy Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at NYU School of Law, and a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School.

Mr. Paredes is the author of numerous academic articles on securities regulation, corporate governance, innovation, behavioral economics, and administrative agencies. He is a co-author (beginning with the 4th edition) of a multi-volume securities regulation treatise with Louis Loss and Joel Seligman entitled Securities Regulation. Mr. Paredes holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from UC Berkeley and earned his J.D. from Yale Law School.

Rebecca Rettig – Chief Legal Officer, Jito Labs

Gabriel Shapiro  – Founder and CEO, MetaLeX

Mr. Shapiro is a crypto lawyer and co-founder/CEO of MetaLeX, a hybrid law firm and technology company focused on innovating legal frameworks for decentralized systems, including cybernetic organizations and tokenized corporate stock.

With more than a decade of experience in corporate M&A, Mr. Shapiro has advised on major transactions and complex legal issues. He previously served as general counsel at Delphi Labs, where he focused on legal strategy for blockchain and DeFi projects.

Since entering the crypto space in 2018, Mr. Shapiro has become a recognized thought leader in crypto law and has written about topics such as decentralized governance, DAOs, and tokenized equity. He is known for championing crypto’s core values.

Peter Van Valkenburgh – Executive Director, Coin Center

Erik Voorhees – Venice AI

Kevin Werbach – Professor and Chair of the Department of Legal Studies and Business Ethics, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Mr. Werbach is an expert on emerging technologies and directs the Wharton Blockchain and Digital Asset Project and the Wharton Accountable AI Lab.

Mr. Werbach served on the Obama Administration’s Presidential Transition Team, and he helped develop the U.S. approach to internet policy at the Federal Communications Commission during the Clinton Administration.

His books, translated into six languages, include The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust (2018; paperback 2023), For the Win (2012; updated 2020), and After the Digital Tornado (2020; paperback 2022).