Asian American And Pacific Islander Crypto Leaders To Watch

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Asian Amer­i­can, Native Hawai­ian, and Pacif­ic Islander lead­ers in cryp­to are blaz­ing new trails and are mak­ing their North Star a mea­sure of impact as they work toward build­ing a more open, inclu­sive finan­cial sys­tem to fuel the future of mon­ey and commerce.

While crypto’s capac­i­ty to fos­ter finan­cial inclu­sion is much debat­ed, the real need to increase access to finan­cial ser­vices for con­sumers, new retail investors, and entre­pre­neurs is not lost on these Web3 and DeFi exec­u­tives and experts.

“Asian, Black, and His­pan­ic adults are more like­ly than white adults to say they have ever invest­ed in, trad­ed or used a cryp­tocur­ren­cy,” accord­ing to a 2021 Pew Research Cen­ter sur­vey.

Edu­ca­tion and engage­ment are key com­po­nents of out­reach to this con­stituen­cy. On the advo­ca­cy front, Blockchain Asso­ci­a­tion in Wash­ing­ton, DC recent­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Asian Pacif­ic Amer­i­can Insti­tute for Con­gres­sion­al Stud­ies on their Fall Tech Sum­mit, con­tin­u­ing work over the past two years to con­nect with the AAPI com­mu­ni­ty. APAICS, a non­prof­it group ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing Asian Amer­i­can and Native Hawai­ian, Pacif­ic Islander par­tic­i­pa­tion, also col­lab­o­rates with mem­bers of the Con­gres­sion­al Asian Pacif­ic Amer­i­can Cau­cus on Capi­tol Hill. And AAPI cryp­to indus­try lead­ers are on their radar.

From pol­i­cy to mar­ket struc­ture, to entre­pre­neur­ship, there are inspir­ing AAPI lumi­nar­ies across the blockchain and cryp­tocur­ren­cy sec­tor. With­in these areas, dynam­ic cryp­to pio­neers epit­o­mize the true mean­ing behind Asian Amer­i­can, Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islander Her­itage Month.

AAPI Crypto Bosses To Watch In 2023

Lin­da Jeng, Head of Glob­al Web3 Strat­e­gy, Cryp­to Coun­cil for Inno­va­tion, Forbes Contributor

  • “I was one of the first reg­u­la­tors to make the tran­si­tion to the blockchain sec­tor. I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work direct­ly with soft­ware engi­neers to design and build a DeFi prod­uct that lever­aged my legal and reg­u­la­to­ry exper­tise and could be show­cased to regulators.”
  • “Sil­i­con Val­ley is emblem­at­ic of ‘bro­topia’ and often builds fin­tech prod­ucts that do not take oth­er per­spec­tives and needs into con­sid­er­a­tion. One of my goals is to empow­er the next gen­er­a­tion of AAPI and oth­er peo­ple of col­or in build­ing a dig­i­tal future that reflects a cross sec­tion of our val­ues and needs.”

Ruby G. Sekhon, Part­ner, Chief Legal Offi­cer, and Chief Com­pli­ance Offi­cer, Poly­chain Cap­i­tal LP 

  • “Over the past 5 years, I have led the legal, com­pli­ance, and pol­i­cy func­tions at Poly­chain Cap­i­tal, the first cryp­to SEC reg­is­tered invest­ment advis­er. In 2018, I became the first Chief Com­pli­ance Offi­cer in this space and have been at the fore­front of com­plex and nov­el legal issues emerg­ing as the indus­try evolves and matures. Addi­tion­al­ly, I was respon­si­ble for draft­ing the first stak­ing and cus­tody agree­ments in the cryp­to space, and have been instru­men­tal in shap­ing the reg­u­la­to­ry land­scape by edu­cat­ing reg­u­la­tors and advi­sors on apply­ing cur­rent rules and prin­ci­ples to this asset class.”
  • “For me, diver­si­ty is a core tenet of the cryp­to ecosys­tem. The com­mu­ni­ty is unique­ly built to sup­port dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed view­points to address tra­di­tion­al prob­lems. With­out those diverse per­spec­tives, the indus­try would not be where it is today. I’ve always felt that my voice has not only been heard, but also sup­port­ed through­out the indus­try. Embrac­ing inclu­sion is impor­tant to the advance­ment of our industry.”

Sulolit Raj Mukher­jee, Glob­al Head of Tax, ConsenSys 

  • “It has been an hon­or to lead the charge as a vet­er­an indus­try tax sub­ject mat­ter expert for crypto’s top com­pa­nies. Pre­vi­ous­ly, as chair of Blockchain Association’s Tax Work­ing Group, I advised and edu­cat­ed leg­is­la­tors in the U.S. and at the OECD on prag­mat­ic tax due dili­gence and report­ing rules that bal­ance the need for leg­is­la­tion with inno­va­tion in the dig­i­tal asset space.”
  • “AAPI con­tri­bu­tions and accom­plish­ments are impor­tant to the growth of any orga­ni­za­tion. This means putting togeth­er a frame­work in one’s sphere of influ­ence or work­place that cre­ates the right path­ways for recog­ni­tion and reward. With that aim, I start­ed the APAC employ­ee resource group dur­ing my time at Coin­base to fos­ter a safe space for glob­al and diverse Asian and Pacif­ic Islander employ­ees and allies, to cel­e­brate cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences and rev­el in similarities.”

Shailee Adi­nolfi, Head of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment and Part­ner­ships, XMTP.org

  • “I devel­oped the gov­er­nance frame­work for the Unit­ed Nations World Food Program’s blockchain plat­form, called Build­ing Blocks, which is one of the largest blockchain-based cash dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tems that lever­age blockchain to coor­di­nate with oth­er human­i­tar­i­an agen­cies and trans­fer cash assis­tance to refugees secure­ly and effi­cient­ly. Today, they serve 4 mil­lion peo­ple month­ly, have issued $325 mil­lion in human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance in 3 coun­tries, have processed $15 mil­lion in trans­ac­tions, and has saved $3 mil­lion in bank fees.”
  • “Minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties are feel­ing a lot of pres­sure. The data is unde­ni­able. Use of a decen­tral­ized com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­col, like XMTP, via appli­ca­tions like Con­verse Mes­sen­ger, can sup­port end-to-end encrypt­ed mes­sages, and allow an indi­vid­ual to own their com­mu­ni­ca­tions and take them across appli­ca­tions enabled by XMTP. In addi­tion, indi­vid­u­als will soon be able to send remit­tances in sta­ble­coins, like USDC
    USDC
    , across those same mes­sag­ing channels.”

Jae Gnaz­zo, Pol­i­cy Lead, OpenSea 

  • “Dur­ing my time as an under­grad­u­ate at Prince­ton, I was award­ed a grant to pur­sue my the­sis research on the poten­tial path­ways for reuni­fi­ca­tion of the Kore­an penin­su­la. With that grant, I not only had the priv­i­lege to inter­view and speak with some of the most knowl­edge­able and well-respect­ed Kore­an pol­i­cy­mak­ers, but I was also able to trav­el to South Korea for the first time since my adoption.”
  • “Part of the rea­son that I entered the blockchain space and why I am excit­ed about its future devel­op­ment is because of the incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties pre­sent­ed by decen­tral­iza­tion and what it can mean for com­mu­ni­ty build­ing and engage­ment. With mem­bers of the AAPI com­mu­ni­ty spread across the U.S., decen­tral­ized autonomous orga­ni­za­tions pro­vide an avenue for mem­bers of the AAPI com­mu­ni­ty to orga­nize and engage with­out bor­ders. The con­tin­ued growth of these decen­tral­ized com­mu­ni­ties allows for a lev­el of empow­er­ment and sup­port that is rarely repli­cat­ed with phys­i­cal entities.”

Karen Hsu, SVP Mobile DevOps and Secu­ri­ty Solu­tions at App­dome, Co-founder Blockchain by Women 

  • “Com­mit­ment to build­ing and sup­port­ing diverse com­mu­ni­ties is the pri­ma­ry goal of the orga­ni­za­tion that I co-found­ed 27 years ago at Stan­ford. BASES pro­motes entre­pre­neur­ship among stu­dents and con­tin­ues to evolve in its com­mu­ni­ty out­reach activ­i­ties. Addi­tion­al­ly, the orga­ni­za­tion I co-found­ed 4 years ago, Blockchain by Women, pro­vides a plat­form for diverse indus­try lead­ers to speak on blockchain inno­va­tion and explore mit­i­gat­ing risk factors.”
  • “About 10 per­cent of busi­ness­es in the U.S. are AAPI-owned, but less than 0.001 per­cent of fed­er­al dol­lars award­ed to small busi­ness­es dur­ing the pan­dem­ic were award­ed to AAPI owned- busi­ness­es. As we near the debt ceil­ing and AAPI com­mu­ni­ties strug­gle with access to cap­i­tal, it’s even more impor­tant for them to have prod­ucts that show their busi­ness cred­it, pro­tect their pri­va­cy, and mit­i­gate risk with cryp­to sources of cap­i­tal, in addi­tion to tra­di­tion­al sources.”

Keiko Yoshi­no, Co-Founder and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Puer­to Rico Blockchain Trade Association 

  • “I recent­ly worked with the Puer­to Rican gov­ern­ment to issue guid­ance on stak­ing-as-a-ser­vice, clar­i­fy­ing its eli­gi­bil­i­ty for a 4% tax treat­ment. Puer­to Rico has over 73 tax incen­tives and my team at the Puer­to Rico Blockchain Trade Asso­ci­a­tion hosts work­shops to explain how locals can take advan­tage of them.”
  • “My work lead­ing PRBTA is focused on cre­at­ing a tal­ent pipeline, so that Puer­to Rico’s work­force acquires the rel­e­vant skillset, knowl­edge and infra­struc­ture to com­pete for the jobs of the future. Work­ing with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico Mayagüez, PRBTA will teach two class­es for course cred­it in Fall 2023. This will be the first time Web3 cours­es are offered for col­lege cred­it in Puer­to Rico.”

There’s no short­age of inspir­ing, diverse lead­er­ship in Web3 and DeFi. And, togeth­er, they are work­ing toward the goal of mak­ing the entire fin­tech indus­try more inclu­sive and accessible.

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