Istanbul Blockchain Week

Ziya Altunyaldiz
Member of the Republic of Turkey Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Industry, Trade, Energy, Natural Resources, Information and Technology Commission
Ziya Altunyaldiz is a Turkish politician who currently serves as the President of the Industry, Trade, Energy, Natural Resources, Information and Technology Commission in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He began his political career in 2002 when he was elected as a Member of Parliament from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Istanbul. He has since held various positions within the AKP, including serving as a member of the party’s Central Decision and Executive Board. Altunyaldiz is known for his work on issues related to economic development, energy policy, and technology regulation. He has been a strong advocate for increased cooperation between Turkey and the European Union, particularly in the areas of trade and energy.
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Osman Çalişkan
Vice President
Musiad
Osman Çalişkan is a Turkish businessman and the Vice President of MUSIAD, a leading business association in Turkey. He studied engineering and has founded his own company in the manufacturing industry. As Vice President of MUSIAD, he promotes the interests of Turkish businesses both domestically and internationally. He is also involved in charitable organizations supporting education, healthcare, and social welfare initiatives in Turkey.
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Sébastien Borget
Co-Founder & COO
The Sandbox
Sébastien Borget is the Co-founder and COO of The Sandbox decentralized Metaverse, a virtual world where players can create, play, own, govern and monetize their experiences using NFTs & SAND, the main utility token of the platform. Sebastien also became the President of the Blockchain Game Alliance in 2020, a non-profit organization of 300 key members of the industry. He was recently named #4 in the Top #100 2022 most influential people in crypto by CoinTelegraph. The Sandbox has also been featured in the Top 100 most influential companies of 2022 by Times magazine.
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David Chaum
CEO
Elixxir
The inventor of digital cash, Chaum is also known for innovations in cryptography, privacy, and voting. With a PhD in Computer Science from UC Berkeley, Chaum was the CEO of DigiCash and now heads up Elixxir.
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Gleb Kostarev
Regional Head of Asia
Binance
Gleb Kostarev, Regional Head of Asia, has extensive experience in marketing, operations and team managing and now leads the Asia market at Binance. He is a big advocate of innovations in the crypto industry, namely, NFTs. Prior to Binance, he was part of well-known cryptocurrency and financial companies, including the audit and consulting corporation EY and a blockchain platform.
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Efe Bulduk
Co-founder & CSO
First Batch
Efe Bulduk is an experienced finance professional and a tokenomics expert, providing consulting services to companies that are transitioning to Web 3. Prior to his focus on Web 3, Efe was the regional head of East Europe and Mediterranean for Rystad Energy. He holds MSC degree on Energy Finance from Sciences Po Paris as well as blockchain and finance certificates from MIT and Harvard Business School.
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Şant Manukyan
Manager
International Capital Markets
IS Investment
After completing his high school education at Robert College, Şant Manukyan received his undergraduate degree in Business Administration in English from Istanbul University and completed his MBA program at Cornell University. He started to work in IS Investment International Markets Department in 2002. As a Global Strategist, Şant Manukyan continues to serve as the International Markets Director as of June 2019. He is responsible for building foreign stock and commodity strategies by reflecting the global economic situation to the investors and developing investment recommendations for these strategies.
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Cem Arcan
Ecosystem Director
Circle
At Circle, Cem is working with a multidisciplinary team responsible for building awareness, affinity, and scale on the Circle platform, supporting existing and future developers and alliances, including exchanges and wallet partnerships, blockchain integrations, multi-chain programs, and fintech partnerships. Previously, Cem was the Ecosystem Lead at Stellar Development Foundation. At SDF, Cem was leading the relationships with key ecosystem stakeholders. He worked with entrepreneurs and enterprises of all sizes to support them to grow their business while increasing the network activity. Prior to SDF, Cem worked in strategy, operations, and compliance roles for companies like Coinsquare and HSBC, and also worked as consultant at PwC.
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Emre Ölçer
Head of Digital Banking
Işbank
Emre Ölçer is graduated from Hacettepe University, Department of Business Administration. He started his career as an Assistant Auditor at İşbank in 2002 and continued as the manager of the largest retail customer segment of İşbank in the Retail Banking Marketing Department between 2011 and 2018. In June 2018, he took part in the establishment of the Entrepreneurship Unit within the Digital Banking Department in charge of startup interaction and business development. In September 2021, he became the Head of Digital Banking and responsible for determining the digital strategy of the Bank, managing digital channels, improving customer and user experience, innovation strategy and activities, open banking and service banking studies and entrepreneurship activities within the scope of his current duty.
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Yoshihisa Hashimoto
Co-Founder of Lv.99
Ex CTO for Square Enix
Yoshihisa is a co-founder of Lv.99, a new web3 game studio comprised of highly skilled game developers from big studios around the world. Lv.99 not only produces original tiles, but also provides advisory/funding to web3 projects beyond GameFi category that require gamification in their dApps. He focuses on development of AI, Metaverse, blockchain and other cutting edge technologies. Yoshihisa is an ex-CTO at Square Enix, one of the biggest gaming companies in the world, publishing iconic titles such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest series etc. He also served as a technical director for Final Fantasy 14 which became the most played MMORPG in the world with 40 million players. Prior to Square Enix, he served as a game director and technical director for Sonic Unleashed at SEGA, contributing to game design and new technology deployments.Besides game production, he spearheaded multiple game engine developments for Square Enix and SEGA which were utilized for AAA title game development. After Square Enix, he joined Life is Tech and produced a learn to code service which became No.1 by market share in Japan. Later, he produced another learn to code service called Codeillusion in collaboration with Disney.
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Wes Levitt
Head of Strategy
Theta Labs
Wes Levitt is Head of Strategy for Theta Labs, where he works on corporate strategy, marketing, press relations, and analytics. He’s been a speaker on blockchain topics at conferences like the New York Media Festival, Blockchain Connect, and NAB Streaming Summit among others. Prior to joining Theta Labs, Wes spent 8 years in real estate private equity and securitized debt. He holds an MBA from UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business.
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Erhan Korhaliller
Founder of Istanbul Blockchain Week & EAK Digital / General Partner – MatterBlock
Erhan Korhaliller is the Founder of BlockDown Festival, EAK Digital, Istanbul Blockchain Week, a specialist blockchain PR agency. Prior to launching EAK Digital, Erhan previously managed large scale project teams for blue-chip brands such as Nike, Rolls Royce, and Vodafone, successfully guiding his teams to multiple advertising awards, including a platinum award from Campaign Magazine. Erhan continues to lead from the front, giving PR a voice in the blockchain industry as a speaker at global events.
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Zoe Wei
BNB Chain Senior Business Director
Zoe Wei is now the BNB Chain Senior Business Director and drive the ecosystem growth in Europe. BNB Chain is the leading public blockchain that has the most active users in the world. She has worked in several critical roles at Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, for the past 4 years. She managed the Binance Fan Token business and realized 3X growth on fan token market cap. She built the fiat business and Binance Connect from scratch and grew it to be a billion-dollar business in less than 2 years. Now Binance is the largest fiat-crypto gateway in the world in terms of user number and transaction volume. In the interim, she built the Binance NFT operation and led crucial deals in Binance Labs. When working at Binance Charity, she piloted the Binance Lunch for Children project, and designed the Pink Care Token which sponsored feminine hygiene products for 1 million young women in Africa. She holds a Master of Public Administration from New York University with concentration in social innovation and impact investing.
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Brandon Potts
Investor
Framework Ventures
Brandon Potts is a Venture Investor at Framework Ventures, one of the earliest and largest VC firms in crypto, with over $1B AUM. Brandon has been an active researcher and investor in the crypto ecosystem ever since discovering Ethereum in 2015. With a background in structural engineering, Brandon was Head of Business Development at AnChain.ai, a blockchain intelligence platform for security, risk and compliance, and then Chief of Staff at Startup Sandbox, a bioscience incubator. Since joining Framework in 2021, Brandon has led over $35M in core investments across DeFi, MEV, staking infrastructure and gaming sectors. Much of his forward-looking focus is in leading the firm’s coverage over the security space and emerging markets. Follow Brandon on Twitter.
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David Palmer
Vodafone
Blockchain Lead
David Palmer is a digital visionary and global platform innovator. He is the Vodafone Business lead for Blockchain technology, and he has been key to exploring the application of blockchain to telecoms and wider business. David is an expert on the convergence of digital technologies and new business models, and he is currently exploring the opportunities associated with IoT, Blockchain, DeFi and Metaverse.
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Charles d’Haussy
CEO
dYdX Foundation
Charles is CEO at the dYdX Foundation, an independent not-for-profit foundation created to participate in propelling dYdX, the most powerful decentralized cryptocurrency exchange protocol. Prior joining dYdX Foundation, Charles was Global Head of Business Development at ConsenSys, a leading blockchain engineering company. Charles has experience as an entrepreneur, a Fintech startup executive, and the Head of Fintech with the Hong Kong government, where he served 450 international FinTech companies and steered the growth of the HK FinTech Week, reaching over 10,000 global attendees. In 2018, Charles was elected as a Top-50 fintech influencer in Asia. In 2021 he published Block Kong, a book about Blockchain leaders shaping the Hong Kong blockchain ecosystem. He studied in France at Rennes International Business School and in Guangzhou, China at Sun Yat Sen University. He is a certified Bitcoin professional and studied blockchain business strategy at Be9 London.
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Onur Güven
General Manager, Turkey
Crypto.com
Onur, has extensive experience in building and growing innovative fintech businesses and now leading Turkey operations at Crypto.com (http://crypto.com/). Prior to his current role, Onur was the co-founder & CEO of leading fintech Paycell that operates in Turkey, Ukraine and Germany. And he is also among founding directors of the Association of EMI Institutions of Turkey. He has been an innovator and an advocate of the crypto ecosystem ever since being bit by the crypto bug in 2013.
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Enes Yedikardeş
CEO
Founder
Avionex
Enes Yedikardeş founded and managed Avionex by combining his long years of family knowledge and experience in the Aviation sector operating in Europe, Africa, and Asia with Blockchain. It has investments and initiatives mainly in aviation, blockchain, and cyber security.
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Elif Hilal Umucu
CM Europe/Turkey
Chainlink Labs
Elif Hilal Umucu developed her own alphabet at the age of 10 and started to write her writings in cipher. She learned that this alphabet is cryptography in high school and decided to develop herself in the field of Blockchain with encryption methods when she was 17! She established a global organization to gather people who think like her and want to specialize in the same subjects under the same roof, and while she was still a university student, she worked on blockchain at the Turkish Presidency Digital Transformation Office. Elif Hilal, who makes blockchain technology a lifestyle, community and research at Chainlink, is drawing a career on smart contracts, digital identities and innovations that blockchain technology will bring.
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Selim Yüksel
VP of Innovation
Akbank LAB
Selim has more than 10 years experience in product management, strategy and business development areas in telco and finance sectors for system integration, digital transformation and advanced industry applications. He actively supports tech and web3 startups both in domestic and foreign acceleration and investment programs.
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Matt Sypien
Co-Founder
Hape
Digimental (Matt Sypien) is Director of Digimental Studio and co-founder of Hape. Hailing from Krakow, Poland, and now London-based, Digi evolved his passion for all things creative from a hobby into a career. His creativity spans across a variety of media and techniques such as digital imaging, print and packaging, film and television production. His diverse client list includes Chelsea FC, Nike, Christies, Four Seasons, Google, Audi, Skrillex, The Economist, among many others. Digi’s distinctive artworks have earned him numerous industry awards and global recognition. As the first Digimental Studio NFT collection, Hape launched in January 2022 to tremendous success, crashing OpenSea twice due to high demand, and continues to lead innovation in the Web3 space, operating at the intersection of fashion, lifestyle and culture.
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Selim Kender
Head of Turkish Business Development
Ava Labs
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Dr. Alireza Dorfard
Head of Market Data + Services,
Deutsche Börse
Alireza Dorfard is Head of Market Data + Services and part of the Deutsche Börse Trading & Clearing Management Team. Market Data + Services encompasses Deutsche Börse Group’s data dissemination business and focuses on continuous development and enhancement of the group’s data products. Before Alireza Dorfard joined Deutsche Börse Group, he was responsible for Mastercard’s Data & Services business as part of the management team in Germany and Switzerland. He started his career at the Boston Consulting Group, consulting clients in the financial services and capital markets industry. Alireza Dorfard studied mathematics at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and received his PhD in economics from the University of Trier
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Baran Yıldırım
Country Director
Mamoru
Baran Yıldırım is a believer of disruptive technologies and has been a supporter of innovative ideas for the last 20 years of experience in financial markets, the tech industry and the crypto space. He is also a crypto enthusiast where DeFi, Web 3.0 and Metaverse falls into his particular areas of interest.
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Can Azizoğlu
CEO
Founder
Coinoxs
Can Azizoğlu is an entrepreneur, businessman, and industrial engineer. Founder and CEO of Voyant Smart Software (2016); Founder, CEO of Voyant Games (2019); He is the founder and CEO of Coinoxs (2019).
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Thang Phan
Web3 Esports Marketing Strategist at EAK Digital
Ex Faze Clan
Thang Phan is an ex professional gamer with 6 years of experience in Esports. He has played on some the of the biggest organizations in the world. He played professional Fortnite for FaZe Clan and was a content creator for the Sentinels. Thang has participated in multi million dollar tournaments and has experience on and the off stage. He is passionate about connecting web3 with gaming and wants to help shape the future of the space.
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Deniz Ozgur
Co-Founder
Space Runner NFT
7 years in Blockchain growth; Ex-CEO of a metaverse startup (sports gaming metaverse). BSc Business and Economics from Bosphorus University.
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David Chapman (KBL)
Founder of Kusama Kingdom
NFT Silvermine Capital
David is a Principal at Silvermine, where he works across all of investment activities and leads our NFT initiatives at Lucky Friday. He is also the creator of one of the highest grossing NFT projects on Kusama – the Kusama Kings and Queens. Developing ground-breaking community-driven investing utilities for holders, which creates durable value for the collection long after mint and simultaneously providing unique access for potential Silvermine investments.
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Eray Dengiz
CEO at Kriptomeda and
Cointelegraph Turkey
Eray Dengiz is the CEO of Kriptomeda, Turkey’s leading cryptocurrency media company based in Istanbul which has the most valuable publishing online media sites such as Coinkolik.com, BTCHaber.com, and CoinBilgi.net. Also, he is the CEO of Cointelegraph Turkey, the most known media company in the world. Eray previously worked for own agency, Badbaz Digital Communication since 9 years and also best communication and media agencies such as MediaCom, Grey Group, and Leo Burnett. Eray continues to develop successful business for the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry on the media side.
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Jessica Walker
Chief Marketing Officer
Fluid Finance
Jessica Walker previously worked for CoinMarketCap and Bitpanda Exchange in their marketing departments. She has been featured in Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance and TRT World, on cryptocurrency and NFT-related topics. She is the Chief Marketing Officer for Fluid Finance.
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Dr. Cuneyt Devrim
CEO
Havas Istanbul
Founded the leading digital advertising agency Project House İstanbul in 1999 with his partners. Throughout the years agency became the fastest growing agency in the EMEA region, won many global and local awards and lead the digital advertising revolution in its region. Partnered his agency with Havas group in 2011 and sold it in 2018. After joining the group in 2011 and 2012 selected as the agency of the year in Europe. Currently he is leading Havas Istanbul to become one of the most awarded agencies in Turkey and in its region. In 2020 & 21, his agency’s work awarded at NY Festival, Clio Awards, London International Awards, Golden Drum, Eurobest and at Cannes Lions. During his career he co-founded Direct Marketing Association of Turkey and IAB Turkey and currently Vice President of IAB TR. He’s also one of the board members of Advertising Association of Turkey. He held many jury posts in the local and international advertising awards like Golden Drum, MIXX Awards, Felis, Crystal Apple. He has been working heavily on Web 3.0, Blockchain and Metaverse areas since 2020. He opened the first course on Web 3.0 at İstanbul Bilgi University. He is an active author at Coindesk Turkey writing on the transformation effects of Web 3.0 and Metaverse on brands/advertising. He also giving speeches on these subjects on different universities and custom trainings for corporations. After completing his PhD on communication, he’s currently teaching at Communication Faculty Bilgi University of Istanbul.
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Manfred Touron
VP of Engineering
Gno.land