Bitcoin Dad is a bitcoiner from the class of 2017 that loves computers, self hosting, thinking about economic and political structures, and the subversive qualities of bitcoin. He's lived around the world and observed how political structures are based on social control, a large part of which is exerted through the financial system. This year, he started a podcast because he felt like the existing voices in the bitcoin space began to feel stale. His goal is to foster debate and nuanced thought about a path for bitcoin that preserves its decentralization and political properties while simultaneously being a technology that works for people. Another goal is to build up his credibility in the community and then, if a contentious soft fork emerges, throw his name behind what looks like the best technical/long term path.

Samson Mow is the CEO of JAN3, a Bitcoin technology company focused on accelerating hyperbitcoinization. Samson is best known for his work with El Salvador’s Bitcoin initiatives, and his efforts in nation-state Bitcoin adoption around the world. As of the top executives in the Bitcoin ecosystem, his expertise spans from running one of the largest exchanges and mining pools when he was the COO of BTCC, to guiding the development and deployment of Bitcoin infrastructure as the CSO of Blockstream. Samson is also the CEO of Pixelmatic, a game development studio working on the Infinite Fleet MMO (massively multiplayer online) game.

Greg has been active as a credit risk trader for 35 years and is currently an executive at Validus Power with focus on Bitcoin Strategy.

Max Keiser is one of the earliest Bitcoin advocates. He has been preaching about Satoshi's peer to peer electronic cash system to his audiences since 2010. He has supporters all over the world and especially in LATAM where his show was broadcasted in Spanish language. Max is also the main driver of Bitcoin Derangement Syndrome - a psychological disorder found among Bitcoin deniers who cannot overcome the pain of not having listened to Max. Together with his partner Stacy Herbert, Max is hosting the "Max and Stacy Report", broadcast from El Salvador, which he has chosen as his new home.

Paolo Ardoino serves as the Chief Technology Officer of Bitfinex. Paolo seemed destined to fill this role from his earliest interaction with computers, quickly becoming obsessed with hardware, networks, and cryptography. After his graduation from Genoa’s Computer Science University in 2008, Paolo started working as a researcher for a military project focused on high availability, self-recovering networks, cryptography. Throughout this role, Paolo refined his knowledge of distributed systems and experimented extensively with cryptography. Interested in finance, Paolo began developing financial related applications in 2010 and founded his first startup as CTO in late 2013. Backed by two financing investment rounds, his company developed a comprehensive, cloud-based financial application for advisors, fund managers & institutions, and served numerous small and medium sized companies throughout London, Milan and Lugano. Paolo eventually joined Bitfinex as Senior Software Developer in 2014, tasked with trading engine development, platform scalability and high-availability. Later in 2016, Paolo transitioned to the role of CTO during which time he further refined his genuine passion for distributed systems, high-performance computing, and extreme-resilient platforms. As CTO of Bitfinex, Paolo’s role is to manage the development team, evaluate new technologies, design and develop the Bitfinex backend platform. In addition to this, Paolo also serves as Lead Backend Developer and Lead Matching Engine Developer at Bitfinex.