Staking Crypto 101: What is It? and Why Should You Care?

Lorien Gabel

CEO & Co-Founder

Figment

Lorien is a wannabe polymath who was born in Malaysia while his dad was curing tropical diseases with the Peace Corps. Off to a cool start, he spent the next few years of his life in Hawaii, San Diego, India…before settling into the much more exciting, colorful and exceedingly polite land of Canada. In 1994, at the age of 24, when Lorien’s younger brother Matt asked him to run his bourgeoning internet company, Lorien did what any self-respecting lawyer of 6 months would do--he quit. He moved the company from their parent’s basement and over the next four years managed the growth of Interlog, one of Canada’s first commercial ISP’s, to over 150 employees, 65,000 customers and profitability. The company was then acquired by a large multinational telecommunications provider. Determined not to be one hit wonders. Lorien and Matt teamed up again and co-founded Bird on a Wire Networks - a managed web hosting and data-center provider which was one of the first of its kind in Canada. Within two years, the company was acquired by AT&T Canada. Their third start-up, pingg.com, based in New York City, was recently acquired by 1800-Flowers. Lorien has also been known to run divisions of Fortune 500 companies (Micron), spearhead the exponential U.S. growth of a UK based tech company (MessageLabs) as Global VP Business Development, serve on the advisory board of a number of start-ups and whip up a mean breakfast of Spanish eggs. Lorien has a LLB from Toronto’s Osgoode Hall Law School and is a member in good standing with the Ontario Bar. He splits time between NYC where he can be seen running along the west side highway listening to the latest DJ mix and Jackson Hole WY, where he owns a sporting good store and chases powder, obviously....

Michael Briody

FX & Crypto Market Specialist

Bloomberg

For over 10 years Michael has been a Foreign Exchange Market Specialist working with international investment banks and multinational corporations, assisting clients to understand FX market trends. Recently Michael has taken on a specialty in cryptocurrencies to help clients navigate this new frontier. Prior to joining Bloomberg, Michael worked as a Senior Foreign Exchange Dealer with 20 years of FX trading experience in New York at U.S and International investment banks, including Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and BNP Paribas. Michael holds a BBA in Finance from Hofstra University and currently resides in Lattingtown, N.Y.

Brian Gimlett

Crypto and Equity Workflow Specialist

Bloomberg L.P.

For over 20 years, Brian Gimlett has been involved in the public equity markets. Prior to his current role managing a team of equity and quantitative focused specialists at Bloomberg LP, he spent 15+ year across the sellside and buyside, first as an equity trader at Goldman Sachs, and later as a trader and analyst at multiple hedgefunds, including Healthcor and FNY Capital Management. He is a CFA charterholder and graduate of the University of Notre Dame.