WHY SOFIA, BULGARIA?
SPEAKERS
Lyn Alden runs an investment research service at LynAlden.com, focusing on global macro investing. She is the author of the best-selling book Broken Money (2023), exploring the evolution of money. Lyn is a general partner at Ego Death Capital, a board director for Swan Bitcoin, and an advisor. Previously, she spent over a decade in aviation, advancing from electronics engineer to head engineer. She holds degrees in electronics engineering and engineering management. Visit her website for contact info.
Will Shannon has been contributing to the Lido DAO for two years, now as the Head of Strategic Initiatives in the Node Operator Mechanisms (NOM) workstream. His current focus is on coordinating the Simple DVT Module and integrating Distributed Validator Technology via testnets and mainnet onboarding.
Previously, he worked in Institutional TMT Equity Sales and studied Finance and Accounting.
WILL
SHANNON
Head of strategic initiatives
Lido
Andrei leads DeFi at LI.FI, an innovative transaction router API enabling seamless DeFi asset exchange across all chains. Proficient in DEX aggregation, bridges, and solvers, he drives sales efforts for enhanced swap functionalities and collaboration. Top wallets like MetaMask and Phantom trust LI.FI for multi-ecosystem asset bridging.
Michael, co-founder of Euler Labs, helped launch Euler in 2021, which became the third-largest lending protocol on Ethereum by 2023. Despite a major exploit in March 2023, Euler recovered all funds within three weeks, marking one of the largest DeFi recoveries in history. The protocol is set to launch its v2 in Summer 2024.
Michael holds a PhD from Oxford University and is an expert in Ethereum, lending systems, DeFi, and modularity.
JP has been helping build THORChain since 2018. JP is a staunch advocate of useful decentralised liquidity.
JP
THOR
Founder
THORChain
David Prinçay is currently serving as the CEO of Binance France and EU Marketing lead for Binance. With a robust background in finance and technology, Prinçay has been instrumental in navigating the regulatory landscape for cryptocurrency exchanges and increasing the adoption of cryptocurrency. Under his leadership, Binance France became the first major global crypto exchange to receive Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) registration from the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), signifying a milestone in compliance and regulatory adherence within Europe.
A ZK cryptography researcher at OpenZeppelin, performing ZK research and audits. Before OZ he was a cryptography engineer at two Web3 start-ups and a lecturer in security and privacy at the University of Edinburgh. Vesselin holds a PhD in cryptography and is a co-designer of the ZK-friendly hash function Anemoi.
Grayson is a leader in mobile development with a specialization in FinTech, Web3, Crypto, and AI applications. Passionate about the startup ecosystem, Grayson has led teams in multiple high-profile startups across Europe like Revolut and Blockchain.com before joining Zerion, driving innovative solutions to shape the future of mobile experience and digital finance to millions of users worldwide.
Zahary was a long-time contributor to the Nim programming language before becoming the first member of the Nimbus team in 2018. In 2024, he co-founded Blocksense to reimagine how the blockchains and the real world can interact through bi-directional communication.
amplice is head of telegram chats at Gearbox, a protocol that aims to become the leverage layer for all of DeFi. In his spare time he is a DeFi power user, mediocre coin punter and unprofitable angel investor. He is also known for making funny videos for projects he likes.
amplice
Head of Telegram chats
Gearbox Protocol
A DeFi connaisseur, following the space since its inception, active on a personal and community level with the organization of DeFi-focused meetups in France and his blog tokenbrice.xyz. He is currently leading DeFi Strategy at The DeFi Collective: a non-profit supporting true DeFi.
TOKENBRICE
Head of DeFi Strategy
Darren has been a blockchain entrepreneur since 2011 across exchanges, payments, protocol, and investment in Latin America, Asia, and Europe. He was formerly Sr. Advisor for the Cardano blockchain venture wing Emurgo, and led business development for one of the world's first multi-currency crypto exchanges TradeHill in 2011. He is also an active advisor and angel investor.
Before joining Liquity in 2020, Bojan was active in the startup space. He's passionate about personal freedom, financial literacy, and building consumer products that make a real difference. He spends a lot of time on Twitter.
BOJAN
Peček
Head of Operations
Liquity
Ethereum consensus core dev at Lighthouse Sigma Prime. Bridging the gap between research and implementation he is contributing on multiple exciting fronts of the Ethereum roadmap.
LION
DAPPLION
Core Developer
Sigma Prime
Pascal, a former Forex trader and DeFi power user since 2019, co-founded Jarvis Network (an on-chain Forex protocol) and 73 Capital (an investment fund focused on Euro stablecoins). He consults on stablecoins, payments, remittance, and on-chain yield for various companies and teaches at Alyra, a top blockchain school in France. Pascal also authored the first DeFi course to receive professional certification in the country.
Eleonor Genova is Nexo’s Head of Communications, leveraging over 15 years of experience in strategic communications. A blockchain enthusiast since 2016, Eleonor has spearheaded campaigns for top financial institutions and major consumer brands. Her background also includes managing large-scale music productions, highlighting her versatility and broad industry expertise.
Eleonor
GENOVA
Head of Communications
Nexo
Dimi Stalimirov is the Director of Brand Marketing at Nexo, a wealth-building platform for digital assets. With over 15 years of experience in marketing and advertising, he specialises in brand strategy, creative direction, and digital marketing. At Nexo, he leverages his expertise to elevate the company's global brand identity, increase visibility, and drive customer engagement.
TN Lee is the CEO co-founder of Pendle - a DeFi platform that enables users to tokenize and trade future yield on Ethereum assets. Prior to founding Pendle, TN served as the Head of Business at Kyber.
TN
Lee
CEO
Pendle
Alumni of the Warsaw University of Technology, Pawel has over twenty years of experience as a software engineer and has been developing Oracles for MakerDAO & Chronicle since 2020. Pawel is a core proponent of the global Ethereum community, the Co-Founder of ETH Warsaw, a regular speaker at Web3 events, and a three-times prize winner of the ETH Global Hackathon.
Pawel
Zaremba
Lead Engineer
Chronicle Labs
Elena Tzvetinova is the COO of Eunice, a London-based tech company revolutionizing crypto risk management. Elena has over two decades of experience in financial services and regulation, spanning banking, markets and fintech. Prior to joining Eunice, she worked at one of the world’s largest financial institutions for over a decade and led some of their most significant innovation and regulatory change initiatives.
Ivan is helping DAOs leverage their assets for resilience and growth through karpatkey. For the past three years, he led ecosystem growth at Aragon and before that, he led OTC lending & prop trading at Nexo. Ivan is always up to talk about incentive alignment, governance and value capture/accrual models in crypto.
IVAN
FARTUNOV
DeFi
Karpatkey
Senior software developer and ex-CTO at Santiment.net. Turned full-time farmer in mid 2020. Performs security audits for yield-chasing hedge funds and regularly helps projects with code reviews.
VALENTIN
MIHOV
Angel Investor and Yield Farmer
Daedalus Angels
Ingo is founder of KILT Protocol, an identity protocol that provides secure and practical infrastructure for enterprise, government and consumers. Previously he served as CTO of Hubert Burda Media and IT Project Director at Axel Springer. Ingo is also a member of INATBA and the DIF.
Luki Song is a core contributor at Chainbase, leading protocol ecosystem and network strategy. Luki is passionate about growing and nurturing developer communities and building a sustainable network holistically and globally.
LUKI
SONG
Head of Ecosystem and Strategy Chainbase
Alex manages ecosystem growth and development at SSV Labs, a core contributor to SSV Network. He works closely with various stakeholders in the Ethereum re/staking ecosystem to support the adoption of ETH staking technologies. Previously, Alex led sales and business development efforts at ConsenSys, focusing on products like Infura, MetaMask Institutional, and the Codefi suite. Before entering the crypto space, Alex spent four years working in traditional finance, primarily in Asian capital markets, while based in Hong Kong.
Blagovest Belev is one of the founders of Tavex in Bulgaria and co-founder of the Bulgarian Bitcoin Association. He has been actively involved in cryptocurrencies since 2013. In 2014, he organized the region's first crypto conference, CoinWisdom. His professional interests include the history and philosophy of money, Austrian economics, and various investment strategies. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics and business administration from the American University in Bulgaria.
Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov is a Bulgarian economist specializing in defense and security economics. He has been the rector of the University of National and World Economy since December 2019 and was re-elected in 2023. His research interests include defense economics, critical infrastructure protection, and nuclear security, with over 100 publications. He leads projects for modernizing higher education and co-founded the global master's program in Nuclear Security.
Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov
Rector
University of National and World Economy
Miroslav Zaporozhanov is a former international markets broker at Karoll with 15 years of experience. He has worked at Romania’s largest brokerage, Tradeville, and co-founded a forex broker. He specializes in derivatives for speculation and risk management, consulting companies like OMV and E.ON. Active in the crypto market since 2014, he holds a certificate from the Real World Risk Institute and co-founded InvestPRO.
Svetlin has an M.A. in Law and is a Certified AML Specialist. He specializes in cryptocurrency law, focusing on company formation and payment rails. He has also worked on an investigative team combating financial fraud and scams.
Previously, he led the onboarding and compliance team at a major payment service provider and headed the legal division of a fintech company. He is currently a legal counsel and regulatory expert for Llama Risk.
Martin has been involved in the Web3 ecosystem for over 5 years, contributing to projects such as TalentLayer Protocol and FiftyWei. Now a DevRel at iExec, his mission is to simplify, educate, and onboard builders into the fascinating world of DeCC (decentralized confidential computing).
Marco currently contributes to zkVerify, a modular zero-knowledge proof verification chain aimed at democratizing the adoption of ZK proofs. zkVerify supports a wide range of proof schemes and reduces verification costs by more than 90% compared to native EVM verification. Marco's technical background and multi-year experience in the space enable him to drive the adoption and understanding of ZK tech and its broader implications on privacy, scalability, and beyond.
Dimitar has a background in investment banking, venture capital, and exchange operations both spot and derivatives in Europe and Asia. He was formerly a VC with JRR Crypto, a Shanghai based VC firm, exchange lead on two derivatives exchanges both acquired, operations at BTC, and formerly investment banking portfolio manager. He also advises on multiple DeFi projects.
Stilyan Mitrev began his career in corporate environments while exploring Web3 as a hobby. In 2021, he transitioned into the space professionally by joining a metaverse-focused DAO. Today, he serves as a Product Manager for VillageDAO at Consensys, leveraging his expertise to drive innovation in decentralized communities.
Vanina is a marketing director at Serotonin - a breakthrough marketing firm and product studio for transformative technologies. She has been working in marketing longer than she cares to admit, and for the 8+ years she’s been helping various crypto/blockchain/web3 projects ranging from crypto wallets, adtech dapps, infrastructure companies, DePIN and much more.
Christoph spent nearly 30 years at Erste Group. He headed the Alternative Investment Division with USD 2bn under management, focusing on Emerging Markets. After a short stint in helping the CRO to sell off a portfolio of non-performing loans, he headed the Private Wealth Management department. Christoph became Scytale’s CEO in the summer of 2021.
Michele Lotta is a crypto enthusiast with a strong marketing background, active in the Italian and global crypto scene. After years in the Swiss web3 space, Michele joined Bybit in 2023 as a Global Business Developer. Bybit is a leading exchange with over 46 million users and top-notch liquidity.
After a career in TradFi, in 2015 Laurence moved full time to blockchain work. He is currently the CEO of Extropy, a blockchain / cryptography consultancy based in Oxford, and the Co-Founder of the Oxford Blockchain Society. He teaches bootcamps about ZKPs, zkML, Advanced Solidity and Solana, and runs meetups for Ethereum and Mina.
Vyara is a web3 & human rights lawyer based in Sofia, Bulgaria. She is a Senior Policy Expert with the European Crypto Initiative (EUCI) - a Brussels-based non-profit that aims to shape EU regulation to favour open, permissionless, decentralised applications leveraging blockchain technology and a PhD candidate focusing on legal automation through the use of smart contracts.
An ex-regulator at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and ex-advisor to UK Parliament, Diana built global compliance programs at top-tier crypto exchanges Crypto.com and Bitget. Diana is now Head of Compliance at NexeraID. She has PhD in Economics and have authored many policy papers and research articles.
Martin is a software performance and metaprogramming enthusiast. He took part in the development of DendrETH, a trustless oracle for liquid staking protocols. His interest in cryptography brought him into the web3 world where he explored its applications in building decentralized protocols. He has been in the blockchain industry only for a year and in that short time gained experience in developing trustless oracles, leveraging highly scalable recursive succinct proofs.
martin
ivanov
Software Engineer
Blocksense
Associate Professor Svetla Boneva holds a PhD in Economics and is the Dean of the Faculty of International Economics and Politics at UNWE. She teaches courses on Global Economy, European Economy, and Project Management. Her research interests focus on European economy and international business. She has participated in various research projects and has practical experience in audit and control of international projects. CGAP auditor (#4567), internal auditor in the public sector (#2345), and former member of the National Innovation Fund’s control unit.
Dr. Svetla Boneva
Assoc. Prof.
University of National and World Economy
A seasoned software engineer with extensive experience in blockchain and Web3. Rosen has worked on all aspects of blockchain development, from core engineering to smart contracts, Web3 apps, and backend integrations. As blockchain division lead and co-owner at Encorp.io, a blockchain and fintech-specialized agency, he plays a key role in both the technical and business aspects.
Petrix Barbosa, CEO of Matchain, is a champion athlete with 22 years of experience, now fintech leader. Founder of a VC firm, he’s invested in over 200 web3 startups. In crypto since 2016, Petrix is now focused on revolutionizing web3 with Matchain, bridging traditional finance with decentralized tech for a groundbreaking future.
Jay Welsh is a passionate Web3 developer specializing in Ethereum, distributed file systems, and privacy technologies. At Propy Inc., Jay focuses on Solidity and Typescript development, onchain optimization, and implementing Web3-oriented standards. With a keen interest in censorship resistance and zero-knowledge proof technologies, Jay contributes to innovative blockchain solutions that enhance security and decentralization.
An accomplished marketing professional with rich experience in finance, Web3, and IT, Lejla is currently the Strategic Events & Partnerships Director of the media outlet BeInCrypto. Her expertise lies in driving transformational growth by establishing and maintaining high-impact events and partnerships.
Conference MC
Stella Friaisse is the BD Director at INPUT Communications, a Web3-focused agency. As Coinbase scholar, she holds an MSc in Blockchain & Digital Currencies from the University of Nicosia. Stella has led events across Europe, MENA, Africa, and hosted Web3 podcasts, interviewing figures from the UN and the European Commission.
Hackathon MC
Gold Sponsors
Hackathon Platform
Why Sofia?
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