Startups

Announcing the agenda for TechCrunch Sessions: Crypto 2022

Comment

The crypto industry seemed to age several decades over the past bull run, maturing in some places while barreling ahead in ambitious new pursuits, including DeFi, NFTs and web3. And while scams continued to proliferate and hacker heists became a weekly occurrence, the space onboarded an onslaught of retail investors and fostered feverish excitement among young technologists eager to bet their careers on the blockchain.

We’re thrilled to tap into this controversy and excitement once again as we announce the star-studded agenda for TechCrunch Sessions: Crypto 2022.

The event — taking place November 17 in Miami — will offer an opportunity for founders and investors to hear war stories from some of the crypto world’s most powerful decision-makers, while also picking up learnings from industry veterans who have weathered a crypto winter or two. Take advantage of our special launch pricing — save $250 on General Admission passes while supplies last. Buy your pass today, and then join the web3, DeFi and NFT communities to keep up with the ever-evolving and always exciting cryptoverse.

We’re so excited to hold this event in the city of Miami, which has encapsulated so much of the recent excitement surrounding emerging tech development and investment in the crypto sector. Our guests at this event have some of the brightest minds in the business and have intimately shaped crypto as an asset class and cultural touchstone.

We have lots more news and speakers to share in the coming weeks, but here is a first peek!


November 17

Live onstage: TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction

Join us for a live podcast recording of Chain Reaction as TechCrunch’s crypto team dives into lively discussions on the latest blockchain news, drama, and trends.

Keeping the Web3 Dream Funded

with Michelle Bailhe (Sequoia), Tom Schmidt (Dragonfly)

Billions in capital were raised by crypto native funds and web3 VCs during an unprecedented bull run, but as the crypto markets turn bearish, how will investors keep their web3 dream alive? We talk to some of the most influential investors in the crypto space about which potential bets are too early, too late and right on time.

Bringing Crypto to the Crowds

with Amy Wu (FTX)

Former Lightspeed partner Amy Wu made waves this year when she left the VC firm to lead startup investments out of a new $2 billion fund at Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto powerhouse FTX. Since then, the Coinbase challenger has become a critical presence in the crypto M&A world as it has sought to offer a lifeline to blockchain finance businesses wrecked by the sudden downturn all while backing young, ambitious efforts in the consumer web3 space as well. Hear from Wu on how her firm is helping guide the crypto industry through uncertainty while betting on its next class of winners.

Building for Normies

with Alex Adelman (Lolli), Devin Lewtan (Mad Realities), and Brandon Millman (Phantom)

The most-hyped decentralized apps have typically been built for crypto speculators or decentralized finance acolytes, but a new breed of products are being crafted with the common internet user in mind. Join us as we chat with the founders of some of web3’s most exciting consumer apps, and pick their brains on mainstream audience opportunities and the challenges of building consumer crypto businesses in a bear market.

Building a Blockchain Behemoth

with Changpeng Zhao (Binance)

Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world, and its founder and CEO, Chinese Canadian billionaire Changpeng Zhao, is so well-known that he’s often referred to by his initials alone — “CZ.” Binance’s scale has attracted scrutiny from regulators across the globe, yet the exchange has managed to maintain a cult-like popularity among its customers. Zhao will give us a rare peek behind the curtain at Binance, sharing his insights on what it takes to run the company in a choppy market and his biggest hopes, fears and predictions about its future.

TechCrunch Crypto Pitch-Off

The industry’s brightest entrepreneurs will take the stage in front of a live audience and a panel of industry experts, pitching revolutionary technologies.

Is Crypto Regulation Ready?

with Katherine Dowling (Bitwise Asset Management), more speakers to be announced

As crypto markets continue to gain mainstream adoption, regulators globally are watching the young industry with laser focus. But which crypto companies, protocols and projects will be compliant within the current regulatory framework? And how will the crypto industry respond when government agencies start providing new guidelines? We talk to some of the brightest people in the space, who will dig into what regulation means for the industry in 2022.

A Non-Fungible Empire

with Devin Finzer (OpenSea)

Few in the crypto space saw the explosive adoption of NFTs happening this quickly this soon, but NFT marketplace startup OpenSea, which was founded back in 2017, was waiting in the wings. Fast forward to present day, and there have been tens of billions of dollars in NFT transaction volume with OpenSea handling the lion’s share of those sales. CEO Devin Finzer has so far fended off marketplace competitors from well-funded public behemoths and upstart threats, but can the $13.3 billion startup hold its lead through a bear market?

Fundraising in a Crypto Winter

with Flori Marquez (BlockFi), Nikil Viswanathan (Alchemy), and John Wu (Ava Labs)

The days of flashy deal terms for pre-product crypto startups may be a thing of the past as the industry stares down an uncertain next few years. We talk with a number of veteran crypto founders on how young founders can keep a steady source of funding during the bear market and what their investors might like to see.

Apeing into the Metaverse

with Nicole Muniz (Yuga Labs)

There’s never been anything quite like the rise of Bored Ape Yacht Club. The pricey monkey JPEGs have inspired endless incredulity among crypto outsiders while owners of the NFT collection have showcased a devotion uncommon outside of religious groups. Yuga, the startup behind the collection, is eager to turn this cultural anomaly into an empire. After raising a seed round this year at a mind-boggling $4 billion valuation, Yuga CEO Nicole Muniz has been focusing her efforts on building Otherside, an NFT-centric metaverse aiming to challenge the efforts of Meta, Roblox and others.

Don’t miss your chance to catch all of this amazing content and mine for prime networking opportunities at TC Sessions: Crypto on November 17 in MiamiBuy your pass now and save — before the special launch pricing disappears. We’ll see you in November!

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Crypto? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

More TechCrunch

“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine.”

Scarlett Johansson says that OpenAI approached her to use her voice

A new self-driving truck — manufactured by Volvo and loaded with autonomous vehicle tech developed by Aurora Innovation — could be on public highways as early as this summer.  The…

Aurora and Volvo unveil self-driving truck designed for a driverless future

The European venture capital firm raised its fourth fund as fund as climate tech “comes of age.”

ETF Partners raises €284M for climate startups that will be effective quickly — not 20 years down the road

Copilot, Microsoft’s brand of generative AI, will soon be far more deeply integrated into the Windows 11 experience.

Microsoft wants to make Windows an AI operating system, launches Copilot+ PCs

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. For those who haven’t heard, the first crewed launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule has been pushed back yet again to no earlier than…

TechCrunch Space: Star(side)liner

When I attended Automate in Chicago a few weeks back, multiple people thanked me for TechCrunch’s semi-regular robotics job report. It’s always edifying to get that feedback in person. While…

These 81 robotics companies are hiring

The top vehicle safety regulator in the U.S. has launched a formal probe into an April crash involving the all-electric VinFast VF8 SUV that claimed the lives of a family…

VinFast crash that killed family of four now under federal investigation

When putting a video portal in a public park in the middle of New York City, some inappropriate behavior will likely occur. The Portal, the vision of Lithuanian artist and…

NYC-Dublin real-time video portal reopens with some fixes to prevent inappropriate behavior

Longtime New York-based seed investor, Contour Venture Partners, is making progress on its latest flagship fund after lowering its target. The firm closed on $42 million, raised from 64 backers,…

Contour Venture Partners, an early investor in Datadog and Movable Ink, lowers the target for its fifth fund

Meta’s Oversight Board has now extended its scope to include the company’s newest platform, Instagram Threads, and has begun hearing cases from Threads.

Meta’s Oversight Board takes its first Threads case

The company says it’s refocusing and prioritizing fewer initiatives that will have the biggest impact on customers and add value to the business.

SeekOut, a recruiting startup last valued at $1.2 billion, lays off 30% of its workforce

The U.K.’s self-proclaimed “world-leading” regulations for self-driving cars are now official, after the Automated Vehicles (AV) Act received royal assent — the final rubber stamp any legislation must go through…

UK’s autonomous vehicle legislation becomes law, paving the way for first driverless cars by 2026

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved…

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

SoLo Funds CEO Travis Holoway: “Regulators seem driven by press releases when they should be motivated by true consumer protection and empowering equitable solutions.”

Fintech lender SoLo Funds is being sued again by the government over its lending practices

Hard tech startups generate a lot of buzz, but there’s a growing cohort of companies building digital tools squarely focused on making hard tech development faster, more efficient and —…

Rollup wants to be the hardware engineer’s workhorse

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 is not just about groundbreaking innovations, insightful panels, and visionary speakers — it’s also about listening to YOU, the audience, and what you feel is top of…

Disrupt Audience Choice vote closes Friday

Google says the new SDK would help Google expand on its core mission of connecting the right audience to the right content at the right time.

Google is launching a new Android feature to drive users back into their installed apps

Jolla has taken the official wraps off the first version of its personal server-based AI assistant in the making. The reborn startup is building a privacy-focused AI device — aka…

Jolla debuts privacy-focused AI hardware

The ChatGPT mobile app’s net revenue first jumped 22% on the day of the GPT-4o launch and continued to grow in the following days.

ChatGPT’s mobile app revenue saw its biggest spike yet following GPT-4o launch

Dating app maker Bumble has acquired Geneva, an online platform built around forming real-world groups and clubs. The company said that the deal is designed to help it expand its…

Bumble buys community building app Geneva to expand further into friendships

CyberArk — one of the army of larger security companies founded out of Israel — is acquiring Venafi, a specialist in machine identity, for $1.54 billion. 

CyberArk snaps up Venafi for $1.54B to ramp up in machine-to-machine security

Founder-market fit is one of the most crucial factors in a startup’s success, and operators (someone involved in the day-to-day operations of a startup) turned founders have an almost unfair advantage…

OpenseedVC, which backs operators in Africa and Europe starting their companies, reaches first close of $10M fund

A Singapore High Court has effectively approved Pine Labs’ request to shift its operations to India.

Pine Labs gets Singapore court approval to shift base to India

The AI Safety Institute, a U.K. body that aims to assess and address risks in AI platforms, has said it will open a second location in San Francisco. 

UK opens office in San Francisco to tackle AI risk

Companies are always looking for an edge, and searching for ways to encourage their employees to innovate. One way to do that is by running an internal hackathon around a…

Why companies are turning to internal hackathons

Featured Article

I’m rooting for Melinda French Gates to fix tech’s broken ‘brilliant jerk’ culture

Women in tech still face a shocking level of mistreatment at work. Melinda French Gates is one of the few working to change that.

1 day ago
I’m rooting for Melinda French Gates to fix tech’s  broken ‘brilliant jerk’ culture

Blue Origin has successfully completed its NS-25 mission, resuming crewed flights for the first time in nearly two years. The mission brought six tourist crew members to the edge of…

Blue Origin successfully launches its first crewed mission since 2022

Creative Artists Agency (CAA), one of the top entertainment and sports talent agencies, is hoping to be at the forefront of AI protection services for celebrities in Hollywood. With many…

Hollywood agency CAA aims to help stars manage their own AI likenesses

Expedia says Rathi Murthy and Sreenivas Rachamadugu, respectively its CTO and senior vice president of core services product & engineering, are no longer employed at the travel booking company. In…

Expedia says two execs dismissed after ‘violation of company policy’

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review. This week had two major events from OpenAI and Google. OpenAI’s spring update event saw the reveal of its new model, GPT-4o, which…

OpenAI and Google lay out their competing AI visions