J.D. Salbego Hosting Crypto Finance Conference VIP Investor Dinner San Francisco 2018

Hosting Crypto Finance Conference’s VIP Investor Dinner

Crypto Finance Conference, California, September 5-7, 2018

Crypto Finance Conference’s VIP Speaker/Investor Dinner at the prestigious Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay

Investors are an integral part of our Blockchain and Cryptocurrency world. If not for them, innovations would lay stillborn, limp and utterly unable to thrive. That said, I believe in the role of well-formed investor networks in supporting the development of crypto economies around the world, especially in Asia.

With this realization, I hosted the CFC at the prestigious Ritz-Carlton Hotel, in Half Moon Bay, CA. At the time of the event, I invested a majority of my time in assisting the booming crypto economies of Asia, including Japan, and Korea, among others. This event was a significant milestone in my Asian journey.

Among the 50+ global Crypto & Blockchain leaders, as well as, the VCs for my client firms, that attended the dinner, there were Bobby Lee (CEO of Ballet), David Namdar (Co-founder of Galaxy Digital), Maria Jones and Catherine Ross of Cointelegraph, Michael Bucella (Partner at BlockTower Capital), Tim Draper, Tim Enneking (MD at Digital Capital Management), Jed McCaleb (Co-founder of Stellar), Andy Bromberg (Co-founder of CoinList), Bill Tai (Chairman & CEO of ACTAI Global), Rumi Morales (Partner at Outlier Ventures), and Jalak Jobanputra (Partner at Future/Perfect Ventures).

Towards a Mature Crypto Investment Ecosystem

In meetings, my primary objective was to further strengthen the US-EUR-Asia bridge, in sync with my then ongoing endeavor to build a sustained investment network for the Asian markets. This, I was and am convinced, was a necessary step to mitigate the structural hindrances to innovative projects in the Asia of those days.

And, to be honest, I was fortunate to have these people alongside, most of whom made significant and transformative contributions to the Asian crypto market. More so, because it was happening at a time when Blockchain investments in Asia had been up by 280%, of which 79% were investors from the West.

A month before this event, Pantera Capital had already raised $100 million out of its targeted $175 million, for its third and largest fund. Galaxy Digital, on the other hand, had deployed an aggregate of $133 million that year. Needless to say, a large portion of these funds were funneled into developments in the Asian markets.

Our joint and prolonged endeavors to build networks in Asia indeed played a major role in the Crypto boom. And, this event was just another attempt to consolidate what we had worked to achieve.

J.D. Salbego