Reflecting on an incredible 4 days in Jackson Hole at the inaugural Wyoming Blockchain Summit, hosted by SALT. This curated event brought together 250 founders and investors against a stunning backdrop 🏔️🦬
Highlights included Bill Tai’s discussion with Ted Breyer of Breyer Capital, Rob Hadick of Dragonfly, P. Bart Stephens of Blockchain Capital and Vanessa Grellet of Arche Capital on the importance of team, values, and culture, drawing on lessons from his mentor, Don Valentine, founder of Sequoia Capital. The conversation delved into whether founders are mission-driven or mercenaries—success hinges on focusing on a few things that truly matter.
The summit also featured insights from Ordinals protocol creator Casey Rodarmor along with Stacks founder Muneeb Ali, Castle Island Ventures founder Nic Carter, Bitcoin core dev Jeff Garzik, Lightspark VP Product Nicolas Cabrera, & SALT Talks Co-Host Rachel Pether, CFA who spoke on the Bitcoin Renaissance and how L2s, Ordinals, and Runes are reigniting innovation within Bitcoin as a programmable asset.
Wonderful to meet Senator Cynthia Lummis and hear her proposal for the US Treasury to buy 1 million Bitcoin as a strategic reserve. David Ripley, Kraken Digital Asset Exchange CEO, summarized the sentiment as “Our industry is about freedom, innovation, and financial inclusion—noble end goals that crypto will inevitably achieve.”
Bermuda Premier David Burt MP made a compelling case for Bermuda as a hub for well-regulated digital asset companies—a model the US could learn from. I also gained valuable insights from Raj Gokal, Solana Foundation co-founder and COO, on Solana’s decentralization and scalability, which are crucial for building a resilient, future-proof network.
I spent quality time with Ahmed Rashad, Arthur Ding & Sofia Vaschetto from Kiva AI which is distilling human expertise into formats AI can effectively process to learn more about their unique approach for data labelling.
Excited to apply these learnings and connections to building at Metagood and investing at ACTAI Ventures! Huge thanks to Anthony Scaramucci and John Darsie for the invitation and enriching experience!