Confused about Crypto?
Thursday, June 1
2:20 P.M. – 3:20 P.M.
Northwest Labs
Summary:
If crypto is supposed to revolutionize the financial system, why hasn’t that happened after 14 years? But if it’s only a speculative bubble, why does it persist? And if you were graduating today, would you decline traditional job offers on Wall Street or Main Street and take a flyer on a crypto start up instead? Classmate Timothy Massad will offer a few thoughts on how to understand what’s happening with crypto, its potential and its limitations, and be joined by several recent Harvard graduates who have chosen to make it their professional focus. They will discuss what motivated them to jump into this space and how they see it evolving. As the Buffalo Springfield sang, “There’s something happening here . . .What it is ain’t exactly clear.” We hope this session can shed some light!
Panelists:
Timothy Massad, ‘78
Timothy Massad is currently a Research Fellow and Director of the Digital Assets Policy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has been following crypto since 2014, when he was Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (2014-2017). He was previously Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability during the Obama Administration. Prior to his government service, he was a partner at the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. He has written several papers on digital assets published by the Brookings Institution, where he is a nonresident senior fellow, as well as op-eds on the subject for the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Barron’s, and other publications.
Thomas Cowan is a graduate of the joint degree program at the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School. He most recently worked at Paxos, the stablecoin issuer, with its strategy team and at Ripple with its Central Bank Digital Currency team. He also recently published a paper for Tim Massad at HKS’s Digital Assets Policy Project on the payment uses of regulated stablecoins. Before graduate school, Thomas worked with the Boston Federal Reserve Bank’s CBDC team and as an Asia tech analyst at the CIA. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and History from MIT.
Izzi Steinhaus is an investor at Nyca Partners, a fintech-focused venture capital fund based out of New York, where she spends much of her time researching, meeting and investing in companies in and around the digital asset ecosystem. Prior to joining Nyca, Izzi was an Associate at Goldman Sachs in the Investment Banking Division covering banks and fintechs within the Financial Institutions Group. Izzi started her journey in fintech as an undergrad, where her deep interest in the space served as a launch point for her thesis research. Izzi graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Applied Mathematics and a focus in Economics.
Amira Valliani is Head of Policy at the Solana Foundation, whose mission is to support the decentralization, security, and adoption of the Solana blockchain, a Layer 1 blockchain, and its community. In this role, she works with lawmakers, operators, and web3 community members on building the policy architecture for the next generation of the internet. Amira came to the Solana Foundation having spent time as both a policymaker and entrepreneur. Most recently, she founded a creator economy company called Glow, which helped podcasters monetize their content and which was acquired by Libsyn (LSYN) in 2021. Amira previously served as Senior Advisor to the Deputy National Security Advisor in the Obama White House and as an advisor in the State Department Office of Policy Planning under Jake Sullivan. Amira has an MBA/MPA from the Wharton School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Maude Wilson is Policy Counsel for Uniswap Labs, which supports the Uniswap protocol, a leading decentralized protocol on which participants can trade and lend crypto assets. In her role at Uniswap Labs, Maude advocates for policy positions on behalf of the decentralized finance and crypto ecosystems. Prior to joining Uniswap, Maude worked in the Alternatives to Incarceration Unit at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and as a summer associate at both Davis Polk and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, SDNY. Maude earned her JD from Harvard Law School, where she studied DAOs, NFTs, and other blockchain issues, and planned the inaugural Harvard Blockchain Conference.
Stephen Xi is a graduate of Harvard College as well as Harvard Business School. Stephen has been extremely active in the HBS blockchain ecosystem, serving as Co-President of the HBS Blockchain Club and Co-Chair of the Harvard Blockchain Conference. He also spent 7 months at Polygon, a leading Ethereum scaling solution, as a Director of Product Strategy. Prior to business school, Stephen worked in early stage tech investing, first at Volition Capital and later at Norwest Venture Partners. Stephen will soon start working at MPCH, a cryptographic infrastructure company focused on MPC (multi-party computation) that will initially serve the institutional crypto custody market.