Seward & Kissel’s 2021 Blockchain Symposium will highlight thought-provoking discussions with industry leaders addressing the key challenges impacting the blockchain and cryptocurrency industries.
The Symposium will include speaker panels covering cutting edge legal, compliance, and business issues impacting the industry, including sanctions and anti-money laundering, a view from regulated institutions, and the emergence of decentralized finance and how it can operate within existing financial regulations.
Symposium Agenda (all times in EST)
1:30 PM Financial Crimes: New Challenges Impacting the Crypto and Blockchain Industries
This panel will focus on the key financial crimes challenges impacting the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries, with a particular emphasis on U.S. economic sanctions and anti-money laundering laws. The panelists will address evolutions in the law, as well as innovations in compliance practices and technology, and discuss how financial regulators (as well as C Suite) are thinking of financial crimes risk mitigation in the era of crypto. Finally, the panelists will look to the future, previewing the present and future regulatory enforcement environment, trends, and how the industry can keep up with the ever-changing sophistication of threats.
Panelists:
- Mike Carter, Chief Compliance Officer, Bittrex
- Elena Hughes, Chief Compliance Officer, Gemini
- Minakshi Yerra, Global Head of AML/Sanctions, Ripple
- Moderated by Andrew Jacobson, Associate, Seward & Kissel
2:30 PM The Importance of Regulated Exchanges and Intermediaries
Legislators and regulators keep calling for regulation of intermediaries in the cryptocurrency world, such as exchanges and custodians. This panel features representatives of leading institutions that have gone through the arduous process of licensing, and will discuss the benefits of being a regulated intermediary, or in crypto parlance, being CeFi in a DeFi world.
Panelists:
- Ji Kim, Associate General Counsel & Head of Regulatory Affairs, Gemini
- Marissa MacDonald, Chief Compliance Officer, Fidelity Digital Assets
- Leighton Dellinger, Senior Regulatory Counsel, Paxos
- Matthew Trudeau, Chief Operating Officer, ErisX
- Moderated by Casey Jennings, Associate, Seward & Kissel
3:30 PM Structured Finance in DeFi
The panel will focus on a discussion of structured finance applications and possibilities using decentralized finance platforms, along with a discussion of legal and regulatory risks facing DeFi platforms and users. The panel features panelists that have successfully launched a number of such structured finance projects and products, who will share their insights and experiences while introducing concepts and discussing pitfalls to avoid.
Panelists:
- Avtar Sehra, President of Nivaura
- Sébastien Derivaux, Head of Senior Tranches of Securitizations, MakerDao
- Anthony Tu-Sekine, Partner, Seward & Kissel
- Moderated by Akiva Dubrofsky, CEO of Akiva Capital Management LLC and Member of Maker Open Market Committee
4:30 PM Keynote Address
- Anthony Scaramucci, founder and co-managing partner, SkyBridge