2023-01-12 –, Main Hall
Bitcoin mining went mainstream and there are now more than 10 publicly traded miners operating in the US and abroad. Still there remain arguments that the best place to build these businesses are in the private markets where more creative energy relationships and lower cost reporting burdens help to keep the businesses nimble. This panel will discuss the benefits and challenges of building mining businesses in both venues.
Drew Armstrong is the President and COO of Cathedra Bitcoin, a company that believes sound money and abundant energy are the keys to human flourishing. Prior to joining Cathedra, he was a founding member of Galaxy Digital’s bitcoin mining team and helped build out Galaxy's mining equipment finance product. Drew also worked in the firm's investment banking and principal investments divisions. Prior to joining Galaxy, Drew began his career at Barclays' investment bank, where he focused on the origination of esoteric securitized products, such as data center securitizations and collateralized fund obligations. Drew holds BAs in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Chicago.
Colin Harper is the Head of Research and Content at Luxor Technologies, a Bitcoin mining software and services company, and a senior contributor to Forbes. Before that, he was a journalist at CoinDesk and Bitcoin Magazine.
Trey Kelly is the Founder and CEO of GRIID Infrastructure, a vertically-integrated, US-based Bitcoin mining company. He has spent his career in building and scaling technology businesses. Trey began his career as an entrepreneur — in 2010 he founded Stampt, a mobile loyalty application, and saw it through to an acquisition by Mobivity in 2013.
Prior to GRIID, Trey worked in cybersecurity — most recently as an executive at Ziften. Trey joined as an early employee at OpenDNS and saw the business through its acquisition by Cisco Systems. He holds bachelor’s degrees in Systems Analysis as well as Mathematics and Statistics from Miami University.
Robert is an entrepreneur with deep expertise in building teams, product, finding market, and strategizing around growth. Currently he works to help grow Upstream Data on the Sales and Marketing side of the company, and also contributes as a founding partner of distributed hash, a research oriented hosting company.