Talk Descriptions
2:30 - 2:40pm Setting the Stage: SoDA V2 and the Next Chapter in Digital Asset Reporting (10 mins)
Sam Leichman, Blockchain Practice Lead at Propeller Industries and SoDA Project Director, will open the conference with reflections on the evolution of SoDA and its role in shaping digital asset reporting. He will introduce the latest developments in SoDA V2, focusing on its expanded use cases and the new possibilities for fair value reporting of digital assets. Sam’s welcome remarks will frame the conference's discussions, highlighting how SoDA can lead the way in establishing best practices for the industry and setting the stage for the future of crypto accounting.
2:40 - 3:05 Creating Your Founder Led Operating Plan (25 mins)
Emily and Madan from a16z will be diving into two critical areas that every crypto startup needs to master: Financial & Operational Planning and Compensation Strategies / Token Compensation. Whether you’re looking to build an effective operating plan and budget or build competitive, token-based compensation packages, this session will provide actionable insights tailored to the unique needs of crypto startups. You can expect to hear about proven strategies for translating your vision into an operating plan; innovative token compensation models that attract top talent; and best practices for operational excellence to scale efficiently
3:05 - 3:30 Crypto Basis Tracking – TLDR on the Treasury Regulations (25 mins)
Rob Massey and Connor O’Brien, leaders of Deloitte's crypto tax practice, will deliver an insightful talk on the critical role of the Statement of Digital Assets (SoDA) in navigating the evolving landscape of crypto taxation. Their presentation will focus on how SoDA provides a robust framework for ensuring compliance with IRS Rev. Proc. 2024-08, particularly in assessing eligibility and accurately calculating gains or losses on digital asset transactions. Rob will highlight the strategic advantages of leveraging SoDA to streamline tax processes, reduce compliance risks, and align digital asset reporting with the latest IRS guidelines.
3:30 - 3:55 From Testnet to Audit: The Origin of SoDA with OP Labs (25 mins)
In this fireside chat, Sam Leichman, Blockchain Practice Lead, and Palash Agarwal, Finance Lead at OP Labs (OP), will delve into the journey and evolution of the Statement of Digital Assets (SoDA). They will share insights from OP’s early days in testnet through to their live service launch, highlighting how SoDA was developed and refined to meet the growing demands of digital asset reporting. The discussion will focus on SoDA’s pivotal role in OP’s key milestones, including their token launch, foundation spin-up, and dual audit processes. This session offers a unique perspective on how real-world application shaped SoDA into a best practice standard.
3:55 - 4:10 Break (15 mins)
4:10 - 4:35 Unlocking Audit Success: Tackling Crypto Audit Challenges (25 mins)
David Byrd, the Global & Americas Blockchain Assurance Leader at EY, will deliver a talk on the unique challenges of auditing in the crypto space and how the Statement of Digital Assets can play a pivotal role in helping companies organize their digital asset reporting. He will delve into how SoDA provides a framework to assist firms in becoming audit-ready and supports the accurate capturing and reporting of complex digital asset transactions. David will also discuss how all of this will lead to better internal controls and external reporting, which can be a tremendous differentiator in an industry that has seen many companies fall far short in these area in recent years.
4:35 - 4:55 Ready-to-Serve: Bitwave’s Canned SoDA Report (20 mins)
Pat White, CEO of Bitwave, will introduce a groundbreaking new feature within the Bitwave platform: the Ready-to-Serve Canned SoDA Report. This innovative tool will automatically generate a SoDA report, providing an essential and streamlined solution for digital asset reporting. Developed in close partnership with SoDA, this feature is designed to simplify compliance and enhance the efficiency of crypto accounting practices. Pat will demonstrate how this ready-to-serve report empowers businesses to effortlessly integrate SoDA’s best practices into their financial operations, ensuring accurate and reliable reporting with just a few clicks.
4:55 - 5:15 Beyond the Balance Sheet: Token Rollforward Reporting with SoDA (20 mins)
Mackenzie Patel, Principal at Hash Basis, will deliver the closing talk of the conference, focusing on the future direction of SoDA and its expanding role in digital asset reporting. Building on the foundation that SoDA has established as a vital tool for balance sheet transparency, Mackenzie will introduce the concept of token rollforward reporting. She will explore how focusing on token quantities, tracked through SoDA’s wallet/asset pair framework, can enhance the accuracy and depth of digital asset reporting. Mackenzie’s insights will set the stage for SoDA’s next evolution, offering a glimpse into the future of best practices that will drive greater transparency and strategic decision-making in the industry.
5:15 - 5:25 Closing Remarks (10 mins)
5:25 - 6:30 Conversations and Cocktails
Sponsored by Sausalito Liquor Co.
Speaker Bios
Palash Agarwal, CPA -Financial Controller, OP Labs
Palash Agarwal is a CPA and the Corporate Controller for OP Labs, the primary contributor to the Optimism Collective. He started his journey into digital assets auditing clients in the industry before joining OP Labs. He is responsible for oversight and management of OP token, grants, and creating GAAP Financials. Palash worked with Propeller to develop the Statement of Digital Assets (SoDA) to help consolidate and understand the digital asset positions of the company in a concise statement. Palash currently lives in San Francisco.
David Byrd, CPA - Partner & Blockchain Strategy Leader, EY
David Byrd is the Global and Americas Blockchain Assurance Leader at EY and a partner in the Financial Services Office Audit practice. He began serving clients in the digital asset space eight years ago, focusing on audit and compliance procedures for participants across the blockchain ecosystem, including exchanges, custodians, miners, validators, issuers, and others. David leads EY’s Digital Asset Research Center, supporting Assurance, Tax, and Consulting engagements. His expertise spans audit readiness, financial statement audits, SOC reporting, and forensic services, all within the context of digital assets and distributed ledger technologies. He regularly collaborates with global regulators and industry groups to develop best practices in accounting, auditing strategies, and asset valuation for the digital asset space.
Sam Leichman, Blockchain Practice Lead, Propeller Industries
Sam Leichman leads the Blockchain Practice Area at Propeller Industries. Propeller provides ‘full stack’ CFO and accounting outsourced services to VC backed startups and is currently working with over 50 clients in its Crypto/Web3 vertical including Optimism, cLabs, Figment, POAP, and VeeFriends. Sam and his team focus on translating on-chain activity to actionable GAAP financials and providing clients with a full liquidity picture via crypto treasury analysis. Sam also leads the Statement of Digital Assets (SoDA) public benefit collaboration. Sam and his wife Christina live in Sausalito.
Rob Massey, Global Tax Leader - Blockchain and Cryptocurrency, Deloitte
Rob Massey, Tax Partner, Deloitte Tax, LLP. Rob began serving clients in 2012 in the blockchain and digital asset space, founding Deloitte’s practice in this area. He is the Global Tax Leader for Blockchain and Digital Assets serving companies throughout the ecosystem inclusive of investors, miners, staking providers, payment processing, wallet hosting, exchanges, banks, Web3, investment funds, DAOs, corporates engaging with digital assets, tokenization, and protocol development. Rob’s blockchain expertise spans the comprehensive tax considerations of blockchain enabled transactions and the analysis of the tax impacts of tokenization and digital asset transactions across various business models and industries.
Mackenzie Patel, CPA - Founding Partner, Hash Basis
Mackenzie Patel is a CPA and the CEO and founder of Hash Basis, a crypto native accounting firm. She started Hash Basis to share her crypto accounting & tax expertise with the blockchain industry. She's helped 50+ companies wrangle their crypto books and is also an instructor for the Crypto Accounting Academy. Mackenzie is based in San Francisco and in her spare time loves hiking around Angel Island and cooking.
Madan Nagaldinne, Partner - People Practices, a16z
Madan Nagaldinne serves as a Partner on the People Practices team, where he supports all a16z crypto portfolio companies. Prior to joining a16z crypto, Madan held the position of Chief People Officer at Paxos. With over two decades of experience, he has spearheaded HR and People teams at notable companies including Compass, Amazon, Meta, and KLA Tencor. His extensive international experience has helped companies scale people and culture across continents including Asia, Europe, and the US. Madan transitioned from engineering to human resources, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Human Resources from the London School of Economics. An enthusiastic yoga practitioner, Madan is based in New York.
Conor O’Brien, Senior Manager - Blockchain and Digital Assets, Deloitte
Conor O’Brien is a Senior Manager in Deloitte’s Washington National Tax Office focusing on U.S. tax implications of Blockchain and Digital Assets. He has played an integral role in analyzing unique digital asset transactions and concepts to gain a greater understanding of their factual underpinnings. Conor has participated in structuring and launching projects for decentralized protocols, token issuers, NFT issuers, DAOs, exchanges, custodians, and staking as a service provider. Additionally, he has performed in-depth tax analysis of various proof of stake blockchains, as well as various DeFi platforms including decentralized exchanges and decentralized lending platforms.
Emily Westerhold, Financial Operations Partner, a16z Crypto
Emily Westerhold is a partner on the a16z crypto team, focused on finance and operations advisory. She has held several roles at Andreessen Horowitz, but before joining she was most recently the CFO of VSCO, where she spent 7 years helping to build and scale the company and still serves on the board. Prior to VSCO, she worked in various finance and accounting roles and began her career at PwC. Emily holds a BS in accountancy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is a certified public accountant. She grew up in the Chicago suburbs, loves to ski, and lives in San Francisco with her husband, three kids, and their bernedoodle.
Pat White, CEO, Bitwave
Pat White is the Co-Founder and CEO of Bitwave, a leading digital asset finance platform for enterprises. Pat is a recognized software engineering leader with over ten years of experience building enterprise software at Intuit, Microsoft, Five9, and Fortify Software (now HP Security). Pat launched an enterprise software consulting firm (Ally Software) in 2009, which he ran for three years before creating Synata, an enterprise search engine that Cisco acquired in 2016.Pat has contributed to Bitcoin and Ethereum codes and is deeply involved in several leading on-chain projects. He is a co-host of The DeFi Daily podcast and a University of Southern California graduate.
Agenda
SoDA Symposium
San Francisco, CA
September 25, 2024
Time | Topic | Speaker | Duration (min) |
|---|---|---|---|
2:00 PM | –––– Registration –––– | ––––––––– | 30 |
2:30 PM | Setting the Stage: SoDA V2 and the Next Chapter in Digital Asset Reporting | Sam Leichman, Blockchain Practice Lead, Propeller Industries | 10 |
2:40 PM | Creating Your Founder Led Operating Plan | Emily Westerhold, Financial Operations Partner, a16z Crypto | Madan Nagaldinne, Partner - People Practices, a16z | 25 |
3:05 PM | Crypto Basis Tracking – TLDR on the Treasury Regulations | Rob Massey, Global Tax Leader, Blockchain and Cryptocurrency, Deloitte | Conor O’Brien, Senior Manager - Blockchain and Digital Assets, Deloitte | 25 |
3:30 PM | From Testnet to Audit: The Origin of SoDA with OP Labs | Sam Leichman, Blockchain Practice Lead, Propeller Industries | Palash Agarwal, CPA -Financial Controller, OP Labs | 25 |
3:55 PM | –––– Break –––– | ––––––––– | 15 |
4:10 PM | Unlocking Audit Success: Tackling Crypto Audit Challenges | David Byrd, CPA – Partner & Blockchain Strategy Leader, EY | 25 |
4:35 PM | Ready-to-Serve – Bitwave’s Canned SoDA Report | Pat White, CEO, Bitwave | 20 |
4:55 PM | Beyond the Balance Sheet – Token Rollforward Reporting with SoDA | Mackenzie Patel, CPA and Founding Partner, Hash Basis | 20 |
5:15 PM | Closing Remarks | Sam Leichman, Blockchain Practice Lead, Propeller Industries | 10 |
Conversations and Cocktails Afterwards
Sponsored by Sausalito Liquor Co.