Despite dips in price and bankruptcies in the industry, more financial executives want to know about cryptocurrency than ever.
After a trial period and successful sessions, Fintech Nexus announced the launch of Crypto Nexus Workshop season one to meet this need for crypto education.
The series originated as a partnership with Bankless DAO, under co-creators Bo Brustkern and Manuel Maccou, to feature industry leaders as session hosts in a city near you.
Five workshops are slated for the second half of 2022 across New York City, London, San Francisco, and Miami.
Crypto Nexus brings knowledge, tools, and resources
The goal is to provide knowledge, tools, and resources to move fintech and traditional finance professionals from crypto-curious to crypto-capable, safely and confidently.
An educational and consultation service for financial institutions interested in implementing Web3 and crypto tech, products, and organizational structures.
Maccou said Crypto Nexus has an imminent opportunity to impact the financial industry.
“While some may feel threatened, the truth is that blockchain technology, crypto, and Web3 principles create significant opportunities that shouldn’t be ignored,” he said. “This is a difficult environment to navigate, so I’m excited to create an opportunity for financial leaders to get the resources and education they need to make the best decisions for their business and customers.”
Attendees can expect a comprehensive one-day workshop featuring hands-on education about the tech that will impact the financial industry. The first two sessions of Crypto Nexus went off without a hitch, and feedback came with resounding approval from financial industry experts. Many asked for more.
Within a handful of hours, even crypto newcomers will learn to possess, transact, and build using cryptocurrencies on the most popular platforms and learn of the opportunities to enable crypto tech within their organization.
Each session and season acts as an incubator community; every attendee will become a member of the Crypto Nexus Discord. It’s a professional networking and collaborative community by design.
In partnership with Bankless DAO
According to the founders, advances in blockchain technologies have created new opportunities, challenges, and threats to traditional organizations. It is critical for executives of all industries to understand the power of the blockchain, how to use crypto tools, and how to navigate the Web3 landscape to build a better future.
The partnership between Bankless DAO and Fintech Nexus embodies the bridge between the old and new. Bankless is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) run without hierarchy by its contributing members. The members assemble online and through discord and project guilds and vote with membership authority based on bank tokens gained through work.
The organization was founded about a year ago in May as a relative of the Bankless LLC media brand. The founding premise was to reach a billion people through a decentralized internet scale, not a single organization’s hierarchy, to drive adoption and awareness of “bankless money systems.”
Maccou and Brustkern are longtime contributors and members of the DAO, which has created dozens of media, consulting, and educational projects, like the Bankless newsletter. Maccou said the two organizations, one from the worlds of Web2 and another bottom-up decentralized Web3: “together, we are the bridge.”
“Two powerhouses in their respective industries, BanklessDAO and Fintech Nexus, have together to build something important,” Maccou said. “BanklessDAO is a well-respected organization that produces amazing educational content through its podcasts and newsletters. We are literally at the nexus of the two industries by working together.”
The bridge between worlds
Together, Crypto Nexus serves as the bridge between worlds, for the curious and experts to meet and create the new Brustkern said.
While music, art, and games may be the most immediately impacted, the financial services industry is about to experience an enormous change. According to Brustkern, Web3 may evolve in two very different ways: to become a separate, parallel, and better transaction system; or an integrated feature-rich layer within our current banking infrastructure.
Crypto Nexus aims to help financial experts toward the second path.
After the first test cohort, which met just before the Fintech Nexus USA conference in NYC, attendees said the experience was tremendous and shockingly informative. Wade Peery, CIO at FirstBank, said it was a great litmus test for Web3 knowledge.
“The Crypto Nexus workshop provides a well-rounded view of the DeFi ecosystem and includes hands-on real-time learning activities that bring the experience to life,” Wade Peery, Chief Innovations Officer, FirstBank, said. “A great way to expand or test one’s knowledge of decentralized finance.”
“Anyone interested in innovation in financial services must have a working knowledge of crypto and Web3 to make any sense of what’s coming,” Brustkern said. “It’s our job to teach our community this crucial understanding so they can work confidently in this fast-changing world.”
What will you learn at Crypto Nexus?
- Blockchain basics: Explaining layer 1 and layer 2
- Essential Web3 concepts
- How to transact on the blockchain: an introduction to wallets
- Why ether is known as programmable money
- Network security: Keeping you and your money safe
- Leading DeFi protocols and what problems they solve
- Blockchain superpowers: the magic of NFTs
- How to manage reporting and taxes
- The future of work: Intro to governance, coordination, and DAOs
After a full day of crypto schooling, the curriculum will break down into a happy hour with cocktails and open networking to close.
“This course went far above my expectations. This course’s interactive nature and just the right amount of lecturing were perfect,” Patrick Kim, MD at Finance of America, said after the first cohort. “I got a tremendous amount of value out of this course. The hands-on nature of the workshop gave me an incredible sense of engagement that I know others shared.”
Maccou fostered the partnership with BanklessDAO, submitted as an approved proposal within the organization viewable here.
Coming to a city near you
Tour dates for the workshop across the UK and the U.S. are stacked around Crypto and Fintech Nexus events, where industry and experts will already be in town. Dates and locations for season one are listed below, and each workshop will have two days to choose from:
- Sept. 20, Edinburgh, Scotland
- Oct. 19, London, after the Fintech Nexus Merge conference
- Oct. 28, NYC, days before the Web3 Summit
- Nov. 8, San Francisco, a couple of days after ETH San Francisco
- Dec. 12, Miami, during Fintech Nexus Latin American
Efri Argaman, Founder of OwnEZ said he was honored to be a part of the first Crypto Nexus event and thanked Fintech Nexus for putting it all together.
“I was looking for a workshop to enhance my general knowledge about crypto, DAOs, and blockchains,” he said. “I ended up being blown away, having my expectations exceeded. It was a full day of hands-on activities, guided by extremely knowledgeable instructors that covered all bases.”
“I recommend this workshop to any decision makers that have a gap in leaping into the Web3 world.”
