Keynote Speaker
Crypto Journalist; Host of "Unchained" Podcast; Author
A no-hype resource for all things crypto from former Forbes senior editor, Laura Shin, the first mainstream media reporter to cover crypto full-time.
Laura Shin'S SPEAKING FEE Under $25,000
Laura Shin is a crypto journalist, host of the “Unchained” podcast, and author of The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze (PublicAffairs, 2022). During the course of writing her book, she and her sources uncovered who they believe was behind the biggest whodunnit in crypto — the 2016 DAO attack on Ethereum.
Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time, and her podcasts and videos have had 25 million downloads and views. Shin has spoken about cryptocurrency at places such as TEDx San Francisco, the International Monetary Fund, Singularity University, and the Oslo Freedom Forum.
She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Stanford University and has a master of arts from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. She lives in New York City.
Why are people so excited about NFTs? Why is everyone talking about “the Metaverse”? In this talk, Shin describes the new trends with NFTs and ownership online, why they’re unlocking a new type of ownership in the digital age, and how that will enable new business models. She explains why they’re important, what problems they solve, how they’re even having a life-changing impact on traditionally underserved populations, and how they’ll make online worlds more similar to the real world.
Investing in and using crypto requires a whole new paradigm around handling digital money. This talk will explain why users need an education in using crypto safely, how it differs from other forms of money we use online, and why scams, phishing and other types of attacks have proliferated. Plus, Shin will describe why crypto is not just about passive investing, how crypto assets differ from stocks, currencies, and other investments, and how people should think about security and custody for crypto assets based on usage, risk and, size of the portfolio.
After the financial crisis in which everyday Americans felt like Main Street paid for the excesses of Wall Street, and after Occupy Wall Street gave voice to the rage of the 99%, crypto promises to potentially resolve some of the problems highlighted in those years. In this talk, Shin explains how crypto can empower individuals more and make them less beholden to banks and may help address issues of inequality, could enable large groups of people to organize in a way that enables them to take on big banks or big tech, and in general make it easier for more people to earn independently without needing the permission of gatekeepers.
This talk will explain why decentralization is such revolutionary concept, how it has led to novel business models, and how crypto enables that through incentives. It goes into so-called cryptoeconomics or tokenomics, what historical drivers have prompted many, especially developers, to find this new way of organizing desirable, and how this will revolutionize the way we earn and the way business products and services are offered online.
Decentralized finance is an extremely different world from traditional finance. Not only does it intend to do away with traditional financial intermediaries, but also, with truly decentralized crypto, there’s no “undo” button. In this brave new world, the risks are shifted from, or at least expanded from, counterparty risk to code risk. Shin explains why “not your keys, not your coins” has become a mantra in the crypto community, what financial services look like when they’re decentralized, and what can happen when the code doesn’t match the advertised intention.
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