Rooms I've
run

10 September 2026 · StableCon USA 2026

Stablecoin crisis simulation

A live, role-played stablecoin crisis. Every seat of the system was represented behind its own placard — and each had to answer to the others in real time as the scenario unfolded.

We invented a stablecoin, USDQ, and put it through the worst day of its life. The scenario opened with a cross-chain bridge exploit modeled on the KelpDAO attack. Reserves came up short, and USDQ depegged under the weight of its own undercollateralization.

From there the panelists had to solve it in real time, while we fed them updates from regulators around the world — each reacting to the depeg, the shortfall, and the contagion spreading to everything that had accepted USDQ as collateral. No prepared remarks, no agreed sequence of events, and no way to defer a decision to a working group.

The format does what a panel can't: it forces the participants to stop describing their positions and start negotiating them. The interesting question was never whether stablecoins belong in the financial system — it was who answers for it when something breaks, and how fast.

A panel tells you what each side believes. A simulation shows you what each side does when the clock is running.

15 May 2026 · Conwell Hall, New York

TEDxWaterStreet 2026 — Fluidity: An Exploration of Change, Identity, and Society

A meditation on the nature of change and the identification of opportunity. Rigid structures and ideas are resistant to change, not immune — persistent flow can force mountains into canyons.

In the intro I traced the tectonic forces that raised the Rocky Mountains about 50 million years ago, and the Colorado River that cut the Grand Canyon 5 million years ago. With enough time, patience, and flow, the most rigid structures change.

Part of the magic of a TEDx event is the multidisciplinary lineup — documentary filmmakers to agentic AI founders, each sharing a perspective on change.

With enough time, patience, and flow, the most rigid structures will change.

Filmed by Matchbox Media. Volume II follows in December 2026 — tedxwaterstreet2026.com.

22 October 2025 · Edge & Node House of Web3, San Francisco

Licensing the future: California's regulatory horizon

A fireside chat on the rollout of California's Digital Financial Asset Law with Brynly Llyr, Deputy Commissioner for DFAL at the California DFPI — who built the state's first crypto licensing program — alongside Michael Hollerich of BRG and Joseph Ciccolo of BitAML and the California Blockchain Advocacy Coalition. The agenda: the DFAL license launch, lessons from New York's BitLicense process, and what California expects of VASPs serving its customers safely and soundly.

In the months before it, Michael Hollerich and I had supported the DFPI in developing the license evaluation criteria for California's crypto companies. With hindsight from the early frameworks and today's regtech — blockchain analytics above all — California built a regulatory approach aligned to the industry's actual risk profile, not to 2015's.

Audience questions kept pulling toward Washington. Worth remembering that DFS's stablecoin guidance from June 2022 largely mirrored what the GENIUS Act codified in 2025 — and my prediction for the CLARITY Act is that it will be inspired by the state frameworks that worked.

The states wrote the rulebook first. Federal law keeps arriving at conclusions New York and California reached years earlier.

Co-hosted by BRG and the California Blockchain Advocacy Coalition, with thanks to Noëlle Becker Moreno at the House of Web3. Announcement · Recap