ICOs

Standardization, legality and best practices for raising money through ICO’s has been a hot topic in recent months. Numerous options and models have been tested by bright entrepreneurs and developers seeking to find the optimal structure for a successful raise.

This conference explores various frameworks, models, legal considerations, and venture opportunities in a series of discussions with top industry leaders and regulators. In a unique single day event, this conference offers valuable insight, seen through the lens of the entrepreneur as well as the government official, into the future of token sales.

ICO Financing Conference is hosted by Blockchain at Berkeley

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What is an ICO?

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) is an unregulated means of crowdfunding via use of cryptocurrency. The term is often confused with ‘token sale’ or crowdsale, which refers to a method of selling participation in an economy, giving investors access to the features of a particular project starting at a later date. (Wikipedia)

Venue

We're hosting an amazing conference in Sibley Auditorium which is located inside the Bechtel Engineering Center on the north side of the UC Berkeley Campus, adjacent to Davis Hall and across from the Hearst Mining Building.

Directions: Follow the directions to Cory Hall. A public parking lot is located underneath the new Maxwell Family Field on Gayley Road. From the parking garage walk back on Gayley Road towards Hearst Ave. Enter the East Gate entrance to the campus, walk down the road to the Hearst Mining Circle. Turn right on the road between the Hearst Mining Circle and Evans Hall. The Bechtel Engineering Center building will be on your left after Evans. Follow the signs to Sibley Auditorium.

The following parking lots are all within 10 minutes walking distance from the Sibley Auditorium:

  • Lower Hearst Parking Structure (Hearst Ave. between Euclid Ave. and Scenic Ave.)
  • Streets around Soda Hall include both 1-2 hour metered parking
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Invited Speakers

Jonathan Allen

Jonathan Allen

Venture Partner, Dekrypt Capital

Jonathan has been an active crypto trader and portfolio manager since 2013. He is one of the founding members of Blockchain at Berkeley as well as Dekrypt Capital where he has actively worked to produce educational courses on crypto trading and worked with numerous startups as an ICO advisor.

Patrick Baron

Patrick Baron

CEO, Ambisafe Financials

Patrick is CEO of Ambisafe Financial, a full service ICO provider. Ambisafe Financial has helped more than a dozen companies successfully launch their ICO including Propy ($15M), Polybius ($32M), and TaaS.Fund ($7.9M).

Spencer Bogart

Spencer Bogart

Managing Director & Head of Research, Blockchain Capital

Spencer is a Managing Director and the Head of Research at Blockchain Capital. Prior to Blockchain Capital, Spencer was a Vice President at Needham & Company where he published Wall Street’s first industry report on blockchain technology and was the most active analyst on Wall Street covering Bitcoin.

Reuben Bramanathan

Reuben Bramanathan

Product Counsel, Coinbase

Reuben Bramanathan is Product Counsel at Coinbase. Reuben has been advising clients on the legal and regulatory aspects of blockchain technology since 2014.

Nadia Brannon

Nadia Brannon

Member at Distributed Ledger Technology Working Group, SEC

Nadia is an econometrician by training and is a certified fraud examiner. Prior to SEC, she was an executive director with Ernst & Young in San Francisco where she led forensic data analytics practice.

Matt Corva

Matt Corva

Legal Counsel Lead, ConsenSys

Possessing both a law and business background, Matt is responsible for overseeing legal while empowering ConsenSys to build and deliver more products to the ecosystem.

Zach Fallon

Zachary Fallon

Special Counsel in the Office of Small Business Policy, SEC

Zachary joined the SEC in 2009 as an Attorney-Advisor in the Office of the General Counsel, and most recently served as Senior Special Counsel to the Director of the Division of Corporation Finance.

Jeremy Gardner

Jeremy Gardner

Entrepreneur, Blockchain Capital

Jeremy Gardner is a founder and general partner of Ausum Ventures, a blockchain-focused venture fund. He is the founder and chairman of the Blockchain Education Network (BEN) and a founder of Augur, the decentralized prediction market platform.

Victor Hong

Victor Hong

Senior Counsel in the Division of Enforcement, SEC

Victor has extensive experience investigating and litigating potential securities law violations. Beforehand, he was in private practice with a large New York law firm and a law clerk on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ronen Kirsh

Ronen Kirsh

Co-Head of Consulting, Blockchain at Berkeley

Ronen is the Co-Founder and Co-Head of Consulting at Blockchain at Berkeley. He is advising Fortune 500 companies and start-ups with blockchain and crypto-economic implementations.

Joshua Klayman

Joshua Ashley Klayman

Chairwoman, Wall Street Blockchain Alliance’s Legal Working Group

Joshua chairs the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance’s Legal Working Group and co-founded and co-leads Morrison & Foerster LLP’s global Blockchain + Smart Contracts Group. Josh speaks and writes frequently about blockchain, smart contracts and cryptocurrencies.

Joey Krug

Joey Krug

Co-Chief Investment Officer, Pantera Capital
Co-Founder, Augur

Currently co-managing the Pantera ICO and Digital Asset funds and decentralizing prediction markets via Augur to make the best possible forecasting + derivatives tool.

Vinny Lingham

Vinny Lingham

CEO and Co-founder, Civic

Vinny is a 4-time successful startup founder & CEO. His latest venture, Civic sold $33 million tokens during its ICO. He was previously the founder and CEO of Gyft & Yola, Inc. that sold to First Data Corporation in 2014. He has appeared as one of the investors (dragon and shark) on two South Africa’s reality TV series: Dragons’ Den and Shark Tank.

Matthew Liston

Matthew Liston

Crypto Native & CSO, Gnosis

Matt ran the Gnosis token sale, founded Augur, and advises several blockchain projects. He learned about Bitcoin in 2009 at a Caltech quantum cash talk and dove in headfirst in 2012 through smart contracts and autonomous agents.

Lee Schneider

Lee Schneider

Partner, Head of FinTech and Broker-dealer practices, McDermott Will & Emery

Lee is a financial services and technology lawyer based in NYC. He focuses on regulatory and transactional work for blockchain, FinTech and broker-dealer clients on a global basis, and co-hosts “Appetite for Disruption” a FinTech podcast available on iTunes and other services.

Laura Shin

Laura Shin

Senior Editor, Forbes

Laura is a Forbes senior editor managing our crypto and blockchain technology coverage (Bitcoin, Ethereum, ICOs, token sales, etc.), co-lead reporter of the Forbes Fintech 50 list, and host of the podcast "Unchained: Big Ideas From The Worlds Of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain".

Ameen Soleimani

Ameen Soleimani

Co-Founder & CEO, Spankchain

Ameen is the cofounder and CEO of SpankChain, an economic platform for the adult entertainment industry built on Ethereum. He is a software engineer and previously worked at ConsenSys on payment channels, energy markets and AdChain.

Jason Teutsch

Jason Teutsch

Founder, TrueBit

Jason Teutsch is the founder of TrueBit, an initiative bringing scalable computation to blockchains. His research focuses on distributed systems security, game theory, and algorithmic randomness. He has held multiple postdoctoral/research positions and Fulbright fellowships.

Karen Ubell

Karen Ubell

Associate, Cooley LLP

Karen previously served as Special Counsel at the SEC in the Division of Corporation Finance’s Office of Capital Markets Trends, where she played a significant role in the SEC’s conclusion that Bitcoin was not a security. Karen uses this experience to assist numerous entities with regulations in connection with ICOs. She is also a contributor to the SAFT whitepaper and the SAFT Project.

Scott Walker

Scott Walker

Attorney-Advisor in the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, and member of Distributed Ledger Technology Working Group, SEC

Scott's primary focus is on Investment Advisers and Investment Companies. Prior to his work as a regulator, Scott was a Corporate Counsel at Barclays and BlackRock.

Dovey Wan

Dovey Wan

Managing Director, DHVC (Danhua Capital)

Dovey has been a crypto enthusiast since 2013. Ever since she invested Dfinity, Symbiont, Brave, Kyber Network, Orchid Lab, Chia Network and DAGLab. DHVC manages over $500M committed capital with top-notch strategic LPs across the globe such as Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, Lenovo, Renaissance and First Manhattan.

Ryan Zurrer

Ryan Zurrer

Principal & Venture Partner, Polychain Capital

Ryan is at Polychain Capital leading private investments and helping projects structure their crypto-economic models. Ryan has been an active angel investor in the blockchain ecosystem since 2012, backing both start-ups and token-enabled networks.

Agenda

November 30th


Panel #1: ICO structure Panel



9:10AM - 09:55AM

  • Moderator: Jeremy Gardner
  • Patrick Baron
  • Vinny Lingham
  • Matthew Liston
  • Ameen Soleimani
  • Jason Teustch

Panel #2: Legal Panel



10:00AM - 10:45AM

  • Moderator: Laura Shin
  • Reuben Bramanathan
  • Matt Corva
  • Joshua Klayman
  • Lee Schneider
  • Karen Ubell

Panel #3: VCs and Hedge Funds: Trends, Due diligence, Advice to teams.


11:00AM - 11:45AM

  • Moderator: Ronen Kirsh
  • Jonathan Allen
  • Spencer Bogart
  • Joey Krug
  • Dovey Wan
  • Ryan Zurrer

Keynote Speakers: Securities and Exchange Commission



11:55AM - 12:45PM

  • Nadia Brannon
  • Zach Fallon
  • Victor Hong
  • Scott Walker
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