Aurélien Menant

Aurélien is Founder and CEO of Gatecoin, a bitcoin and ethereum token exchange based in Hong Kong.
He began his career as an investment banker, working on M&A and financial deals for major global CIBs in Europe and Hong Kong, including BNP Paribas, JP Morgan, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole.
Aurélien quit the banking world in 2013 to start Gatecoin, following his discovery and a new-found passion for bitcoin and blockchain technology.
He is a well-known member of the global blockchain community and is frequently invited to speak at industry events such as The Future of Finance Summit (Singapore), the Global Conference on Money Laundering and Digital Currencies (Qatar) and Euromoney’s Capital Markets Blockchain Conference (Hong Kong).
Aurélien is also a guest-lecturer on blockchain and cryptocurrency at universities in Hong Kong and provides regular commentary to financial media including the Bloomberg News, Reuters, and CNBC.
Aurélien is a founding member of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong, which works to raise awareness of blockchain applications among the local community.
Aurélien received a BSc. in Engineering from UPMC, Paris VI and an MSc. in Management from EM Lyon Business School. He is originally from Paris, France.

The emergence of cryptocurrencies and blockchain tokens as alternative investments

The mainstream media does a great job of sensationalizing the cryptocurrency and blockchain token phenomenon. This has led to widespread misconception about the nature of these technologies and the reasons behind their perceived value and increasing popularity as an alternative investment. This presentation sets to provide a more balanced perspective on these early-stage technologies and explain why their adoption is signaling the beginning of a financial revolution. The crypto-token market is now already worth more than USD 200 billion and can no longer be ignored by regulators and mainstream financial institutions, both of which are struggling to react accordingly. Aurélien Menant, founder and CEO of Gatecoin, will discuss how crypto-token technologies are not just challenging financial services but also set to disrupt a wide array of industries through disintermediation offered by so-called decentralized applications.