Crypto and Education: What Is the Missing Link? | Boston Blockchain Week 2026

Final panel. All right. We joked while we were standing out there to maybe like all stand up, maybe like do some stretches. We can touch our toes. Thank you for who is left here.

Um So why are we here? Um this panel is for at the it's at the intersection of crypto and education. And it seems like a theme today that we're going through university curricula and different things of that sort. So really why are we here? Um there is something there are many things wrong in the education system.

And this isn't a new thing. Um Excuse me. Um the government owns the education system. We all know that. And they tell you to invest with them.

They have different ways of handcuffing your money until 59 and a half and hoping that you have enough money left over to retire with and not run out. Um And then you know, they steal more in different ways. So why I say that is because I think that there's different ways that we can teach our youth different ways. Um and it comes from teaching more relevant real-world subjects such as Bitcoin, personal finance, coding, fitness, uh meditation, which I think is a is a big one, AI, empathy. I mean even things like self-defense and communication, things like if if we had better communication, I believe that we can all get along better and we can solve more problems together.

So um in saying that I'll just do a little bit of my intro and then we'll go down the line is that I grew up with friends who were mining Bitcoin and Ethereum. I um I've had about a decade in this. And so I I think that digital asset education is in its infancy, obviously. And we need more tools to teach people from the ground up. And TCIG works to cut out misinformation and legitimize crypto as an asset class and the new operating system.

And so there's a lot of things that we have developed and we have produced content. If if you went through any of the content that TCIG has produced, we believe that we could turn any skeptic into an advocate. And so we're just helping people connect and educate each other. So go ahead. You you can take this one for now.

It's okay. You're the moderator. You get the mic. Hi everyone. I'm Tracy Leprulo, CEO of Untraceable.

I'm most well known for running Blockchain Futurist Conference. It's Canada's largest crypto and Web3 event around 10,000 people. It's part of Canada Crypto Week. But I started in the industry in 2013. I got really fortunate.

Ethereum started in Toronto, and so I worked with the founders of Ethereum to help Ethereum launch around the world. I've run events everywhere from Italy to Australia, Prague, you name it, Bahamas, Barbados. So lots of education, lots of sessions, and you can imagine over 13 years, lots of different types of education for different people. So I'm excited to to get talking about education.

Yes, hi. And I'm wearing also two hats. I'm a practicing attorney here in the US and in Europe. And I'm also teaching. I'm an adjunct professor at Boston University, but also at the European University Institute sponsored by the European Commission to talk about state-run education or government-sponsored education.

I know both. Boston University being independent and institution sponsored by the state, um, but, um, yeah, I do both, educate regulators, educate, um, young foreign lawyers, um, in the field of, um, yeah, in the widest sense, contract law, um, ADR, but also crypto assets and, uh, the related fields of law with it. And I'm glad to be here to talk about education and crypto.

Um, I'm Sarah. Um, I'm the chief underwriting and compliance officer for Terra Underwriters and, um, I'm not a an educator per se, but, uh, my position, um, is in insurance and my partners and I started, uh, a managing general agent, um, about 4 years ago now. And we were introduced to the world's, uh, to the world of Lloyd's of London, where our education has kind of taken place. We, uh, we have been designated as the subject matter experts in crypto and now AIHPC to the Lloyd's markets. And so, we have had to do quite a lot of education, lots of luncheon learns over in London, um, bringing all the insurance markets up to speed on basically how these industries function and how they're beneficial to, uh, society in the world going forward.

Um, and it's been very interesting. I will say that. So.

I'm Amy. I, um, run a company called Mindful Money, where we merge crypto education and yoga. And that has worked out really well to access people that otherwise wouldn't feel invited to the party. I think that when we talk about education of digital assets, it's not just the technical barrier, it's actually an identity layer, right? If someone self-selects out as I'm not a tech person or I'm not good with money, they're not even going to stay in the room.

Um, so it's been really rewarding to see people take their sovereignty back and feel empowered and, um, I'm really enjoying that.

Thank you all. Um one of our main initiatives is women empowerment advocacy, so it is a pleasure to have a panel of very incredible women up here. Um and so I will start with you, Tracy. So, tell us a a little bit more about building BFC from or Blockchain Futures Conference from the ground up. Um TCIG was there in July.

Um and you know, just just walk us through the the creation of it and then also the acq- the acquisition or being acquired. Yeah.

Yeah, so yeah, like I said mentioned we run Blockchain Futures Conference. We actually were recently acquired uh by Emerald Expositions, the largest B2B event producer in America. And um so it's been definitely a journey. When we design these events, it's so hard cuz everyone's coming at a different education level. Everybody has a different means of what they want to learn.

Um and throughout the years we've had to design different tracks and different mostly different rooms and spaces. One of the things that we do that I think's incredibly important for any conference to do is we always have a boot camp area to just get the general basics of what it is, general basics of security and understanding. But one of the things we do is an ask an expert booth. And that's if you have general questions, you go there and you can ask an expert. So, what we did this year is we actually had a fake FTX Canada booth.

It was kind of like a wow factor. So, people what is this? And to let people know, hey, you need to be able to ask the right questions. You have to make sure you know, is this a real company? Um because there's just so much fraud and scam and there is a responsibility and education to be educating people properly cuz we're inviting you people to the space.

We want to make sure that they know what cold storage is and and and their keys and things like that. So, uh we try and design a place and different what we way we do is different rooms. So, it's about 10,000 people. Uh and you know, we have the the suits. They're all in our VIP area.

We have our boot camp, which is more more the junior. Uh we have our ETHWomen, that's upstairs. And so, we design different spaces depending on what you want to learn from the conference.

Great. Thank you. So Anya, we'll go to you.

Yeah, so for me um education has something to do with empowerment as well. And like personally, I uh during COVID kind of or like earlier even actually 2008, it was a personal interest in um yeah, finance and crypto and it resonated with me what you said that, you know, I'm not a tech person. Uh I kind of try to get out of that um identity and uh took um online courses on crypto. Um I don't dare to say this, but it's was the money and blockchain by Gary Gensler. So actually I was all in when he um uh became chair of the SEC because I really liked his course, but then yeah, well, we know the end of the story.

Um but uh yeah, empowerment but also trust. Uh so what you just said, I think um if we really want people to engage with crypto also like as retail users, not just institutionally, um we deal with trust. And uh I think education, empowerment, really understanding what's going on um actually does um yeah, a tremendous uh has a tremendous effect on trust. And and I think this is why I'm all in uh with education um in a formal sense like I educate young um lawyers, as I said, but also participate in in workshops and discussions. Um so one last thing um for example, the presence here of these uh blockchain clubs of universities of curious young students who hang out here and really want to get um into a discussion with you um in terms of talent recruitment, but also experience.

It's it's a wonderful experience. And I went to a hackathon at Boston University last year and was great to see the students just experiment and um yeah. Thank you.

We'll talk about students and experimenting um we had talked a little bit about it's you know, on the schools and universities to provide these classes and things to open up um different subject matters along blockchain and cryptocurrency, but you had mentioned that it is kind of on the students, too, to create some kind of environment for um clubs and and things of that sort.

I would probably not only talk about educating or I educate you, but I really like the word to or like the phrase community of learning the the concept behind it that for example, when I went to uh to the hackathon, it was the first time I actually saw the coding happening, the solidify or whatever it what it was. And I knew, you know, what uh last will was and a little bit about estate planning, but it was great to see the students actually doing it and so we kind of I told them a little bit about uh the law and I actually could see how they were coding. That was like this kind of community of learning, which I really enjoy. Yeah.

We need more of that. We'll come back. Um Sarah, we'll go to you. So, tell us a little bit about your origination with crypto mining into AI and HPC and how that led to um you know, what you do now as an underwriter and how you can evaluate that risk now.

Yeah, uh when we first uh came onto the scene, the insurance scene back in a 2021 with our our product was built to um insure crypto mining risks. And the audience that we were trying to reach were obviously um the insurers and and Lloyd's of London. They've lived and breathed insurance their entire careers, mostly through university as well. Because insurance in in London and in the UK is something that you can be educated in um while at university. So, uh we came onto the scene and we were trying to to discuss with them what exactly crypto mining was and it was met with a lot of fear because from what from when what they thought crypto mining was was you just took an ASIC and you stuck it in your garage and you operated it and that that came with a lot of risk, right?

Um so, what we determined really quickly was in order for us to be able to better educate these insurers and these markets because we saw this industry in back in 2020 earlier than that, frankly, but back in 2021 for the insurance space, we saw this industry really taking off and really having a future um in the insurance insurance industry specifically. So, what we realized we had to do was we kind of had to curb that fear. And so, we decided just to take them to sites all around the country and some in Europe to show them what exactly it is. To show them it's not scary. To show them it's actually a um a very uh well-run, you know, technological type of of operation.

And once they were kind of able to see what it looked like and touch it and feel it and talk to some site operators and see what it took to run these sites and run these operations, they started to realize that it isn't actually very scary. And another thing that we determined as well, this is just a little bit of history into the insurance markets, but there's what is called a property market and what is called a specie market. And what we have determined for crypto mining ASICs as well as um GPUs in the AI HPC space is that those machines are better equipped in the specie market than they are in the property market. And this is because the specie market is one of the oldest uh syndicates at Lloyd's of London. And those are built to capture printing print presses and you know, money printers and and things of that nature.

And so, they wanted to push it over to the property market, but we were just like, "No, this at the gist of it prints money in the long run." And so, when they could kind of wrap their arms around that and better understand what exactly crypto mining was and what an ASIC was and what it the greater thing that it did. Um that really helped us kind of pave the way um to where a lot of the crypto mining companies that I've been working with with in the past are now turning the page and getting into AI and HPC. And they already have the infrastructure and they already have the land and the power availability. So, now the the ability to scale their operations has just skyrocketed.

And so, now we're kind of walking on in lockstep with with that development.

Do you think we'll see a continuation of the scaling going from crypto mining to each AI and HPC?

I do. Um we're either seeing a complete turn the page and pivot from crypto mining straight into AI HPC just because they have the infrastructure and the power accessibility and the dollars on their balance sheet to be able to do that and basically pivot their operations into AI HPC. But we do we do see some crypto miners that are still operating continue up to operate in the crypto mining space and don't necessarily have a plan to do that. I think it just depends on the company and their goals and what they see for their future. And you know, their availability to power as well.

Okay. I think we're going to stay right here if you don't mind. I have one more question um before we move on to Amy. It was uh there's immense pushback for data centers obviously um and maybe you could go into a couple of things you see on your side of what that comes from, but what do you think about um the scaling of data centers? And could you talk on is it a positive or a negative?

Because a lot of people think it's a negative for scaling data centers.

A lot of people think it's a negative because there's many ways to run your data center. And these new AI HPC data centers are significantly much larger than the data centers that we were seeing running crypto mining machines. It just That's just the way it is. And the development of the AI HPC infrastructure requires a lot more space, um, requires a lot more power, and coming from crypto mining, you know there are many ways to power your site. And a lot of these A lot of these sites are moving into hydro power, so using water resources in the area.

And that's where a lot of the pushback comes from is a lot of the community is worried that using this water source will somehow recirculate that used water back into the water source that then goes back to the community that uses the water. Um, in my experience and the clients that I deal with, they have ways to, uh, prevent that. And they utilize, you know, cold water systems, direct-to-chip cooling. The water is basically just recycled over and over and over again at the data center. It is never put back into the resource that the community will then use to drink their water or use whatever they need that for.

So, it it very much depends on how the data center is structured and how it's operated.

So, like most media, it could be disinformation, just like

There's Yeah, there's definitely a healthy, um, a healthy amount of disinformation out there. Um, but again, not everybody's perfect, and there have been instances where data centers weren't run properly, and they have hurt the communities. There has also been the other side of the coin where data centers have bettered their communities. Um, such as they add jobs to the community. Um, they've been profitable enough to give back to the community.

Um, you know, there's I've heard of small towns that allow these data centers to come in and the data centers are so profitable they give back to the community and the community doesn't have to pay property taxes for 10 years. So, it just depends on, you know, what type of contract that they have with the area government they're operating in, their power source, are they on the grid? Do they work together? Uh, you know, if they're down in Texas, do they work together with ERCOT? And ERCOT down in Texas is well known to have, uh, contracts in place with the crypto miners down there that, you know, if they're experiencing, um, you know, instability in the grid, then the crypto miners will shut down their operations so they can put power back to the grid so the community doesn't have to suffer.

And the same mindset follows through to AIHPC as well.

Very interesting. It's good to hear that. So, Amy, um, tell us about your financial literacy practice and, um, how that combines with yoga and meditation. Um, and we see an increase in these activities, so, you know, go into that a little bit more.

Yeah, I think that it's no surprise in this culture that money is very taboo. We often don't talk about it. Um, and so, being able to, again, present a different pathway where also we're looking at there was things that Anya and Sarah said that I really resonated with and that I see in my work as well. And that's that community of learning, so you have a social reinforcement where it's actually positive and you're being supported in your learning with money and you don't feel so isolated. And then you're combating the fear as well.

Um, the fear of making the wrong decision, the fear of not being enough. There's so much shame when when you really get a small group of people together and people are honest with each other and not just, you know, on social media with all the trolls. But when we have those spaces for in-person connection, um for us to see each other as human and realize like, "Okay, your life situation was different, but I felt that as well." That begins to set the foundation to actually learn the information. And to learn the information from a respected source, to your point about the disinformation.

Because there's so much information out there about any kind of financial topic, let alone crypto. That it's really overwhelming for people. So, being able to set that foundation where people are not in fight or flight, we do that through yoga, through meditation, having that awareness, having the social supports, um it really allows us to be more empowered and to also take action. Because a lot of um online courses or financial coaching types of things are wonderful, but they're not sustainable often. Um so, we actually like I sit with people and we literally go through how to use a Coinbase account or whichever, Kraken or Schwab or Fidelity.

Um not a financial advisor, but but that there that way they empower themselves to use the platforms that we have. And then, okay, we're we've got that baby step, right? Now, let's talk about why self-custody could be important to have a portion in something like a cold wallet and a Trezor or a Ledger or whatever.

I think that's a good point you bring up is I believe that, you know, there's there's ways to custody your crypto and we should all think of different ways. Like, I think everyone should have multiple ways of custody. I think uh you know, TCIG is mainly focused on self-custody and you brought that up. Um I think everyone, no matter how big or small their portfolio is, they should think about self-custody um for many different ways for many different reasons, I mean. So, tell us about AWSC and what you're you're building in Boston.

Yeah, so I'm heading up the Boston chapter of Association for Women in Cryptocurrency. And uh it's been wonderful again to create platform for women and allies to get together in person and just see each other as people. Like we've got a yoga event coming up. Surprise, cuz I'm a yoga teacher and a financial therapist. It's fine.

Um, you know, not what my parents thought I was going to be, but it's it's fine. I actually got to go to med school and decided I'm not going to go, but okay, moving forward. Moving forward. And now I'm in crypto. They're proud.

Um, but yeah, I think that that's that's important to go both to get with people that get it, you know, cuz like I'm joking about that, but I have tried to explain it to someone in the face to one of my parents who still thinks Bitcoin is a scam, right? Because that's the information that's sticky for people. And they think it's a Ponzi scheme and all the things and it doesn't matter, you know, how I try to explain it. So, having that support um has been wonderful.

Yeah, I agree. So, we're going to go back to Anya and Tracy. Um, I think you two have something in common that you do a lot of work in Europe and you obviously are out of Canada, so both of you, please tell us what you see as the differences or similarities in adoption or, you know, where we can improve um from country to country.

Well, um I think um in yeah, and like I talked about trust and um the word innovation usually comes up and uh then the first thing you associate is not necessarily education because it's kind of translated as disruption and so kind of disrupting everything what you know and something new. Um, but I think that is sometimes not so helpful because as you said, you know, there are practices in place. There people have done things before and sometimes perhaps um especially in Europe where innovation is not necessarily like a positive uh doesn't necessarily have a positive connotation to really um kind of yeah, educate and and try to kind of um talk more about an evolution. Um uh and also with students um I think um they're more fearful um than um curious often and um so again, the community of learning that uh you kind of um yeah, kind of pick them up where they are and what they're interested in and then do a lot of translation work first before you can actually start to um teach um and yeah.

process.

It's a long process, yes. And and here sometimes um let's say um you have to remind people that um you're not reinventing the wheel, right? Uh I mean um uh I was at a Stanford uh blockchain club conference and great ideas, but um I mean, elections have been run for a while and uh democracy has been in place for a while and there's some governance experience existing since a while and um to kind of um engage with concepts that are already out there sometimes is also enlightening. So, I keep it on a on a very abstract level, but usually like um uh it's education is meaning making, so kind of not assume that there is a certain connotation or meaning attached to innovation, like kind of find out what people really think about it and then address also the emotions with it, like for example, fear or like let's say curiosity and then work from there, yeah.

Yeah, I think uh you know, around the world everything is a little bit different. In Canada, Ethereum started in Canada, CZ was Canadian, NFTs in a lot of ways started in Canada. Uh yeah, Vitalik was from Toronto and um um first Bitcoin ATMs were in Canada, tons of stuff in Canada. Um, but as our regulation has changed, Canada's changed. We did launch our event in Florida last year and just saw incredible amount of success with it.

Um, a lot of politicians, a lot of celebrities came out to it and it was our first year. So, I would definitely think in a lot of ways America for sure uh is a lot quicker to pick everything up, but you know, now with AI, everything's very global. Everything it's a very leveled-up playing field. Um, the best way I can always put it is uh you know, you could read about how to play the guitar. You can ask ChatGPT how do you play the guitar.

You can watch videos on how to play guitar. You can follow KOL how to play guitar, but unless you pick up that guitar, you're never going to learn how to play guitar. And I think like that's the best way to think about anything in Web3. If you're like, I don't get it, try and like engulf yourself in doing whatever you're trying to learn. So, real world assets might seem like a hard concept right now, but you know, join a meetup, join a volunteer group.

I don't know, like go to a spaces, listen to it, talk about a spaces until you like try it out like you're playing that guitar, you're really never going to understand it and I think that's the hardest part is to just take the first step to do it. I always think, you know, now we're uh 15 years into Web3, but everyone's still very new to it. Um, and so even the experts are in new. So, just get out there, you know, try it out. It's a very welcoming community and that's the best way to learn anything in this industry is just go and try and do it.

So, what's the next step for Tracy and Untraceable because you're stepping out of the role for hosting Blockchain Future's conference?

Yeah, we got uh yeah, successful acquisition. Uh, if anyone wants to talk about how to get acquired, I definitely think if you're doing a company right now, think about the exit strategy. I don't think people think about that long enough. Uh, now through going through a successful acquisition, I'm definitely going to start my next business reverse engineering it cuz even if you love your business now, I promise in 10 years you're not. You're going to want to get out of it.

So, if you think about it now, be like, who's going to buy this or who's going to do it? And that's where AI comes in. Um AI helped me AI was actually how I learned about how to get acquired. I I was the first thing asked The first thing I asked ChatGPT was, who's Trace Lu Rullo? I wanted to know if he knew me.

It didn't. Second thing I asked ChatGPT was, who buys events? I was like, 3:00 in the morning. I was exhausted. I was like, who buys events?

Uh and it gave me this long list and it actually came up Emerald came up and I just went through this huge rabbit hole. So, whatever company you're working on now, I recommend uh try and reverse engineer it. See who might acquire you one day or how to build your business around it, how to do financial accounting properly, how to get your books in order, all that kind of stuff um because it takes quite some time and I don't know what's next for me, but I'm sure it's around education.

I bet it'll be great.

Yeah, thank you.

So, couple minutes left. We'll just end it with a lightning round like we always do. So, um let's do one thing that you would tell a skeptic to help them become an advocate. Schroder, you want to start, Tracy? Or

Tell a skeptic who wants to become an advocate?

help them come be you know, go from the being a skeptic to an advocate of crypto.

I'm just going to be obvious one. Go to an event, you know, you'll be around people who are alike, you'll hear different opinions and just congratulations to the the organizing committee here. You guys crushed it. It takes a lot of work and I really appreciate being here.

Yeah, um what you said before, play the guitar, do it. Uh and uh I really like what you said and um yeah, listen to the other, right? It It doesn't hurt.

Um I would say cuz I've dealt with a lot of skeptics over the past 4 to 5 years. Um I would say uh be patient. Hear what they have to say and uh come to them with a very general understanding. I understand what you're saying. May I try and show you what this looks like or may I try and talk to you or just have, you know, cordial conversation.

I feel like today everything is always about debate, debate, and we're always so focused on who's right more so than actually helping people understand where their misunderstandings lie. And so, I think just being uh patient and and kind, too, and just saying I'm willing to show you this if you're willing to to walk with me.

I think you have to be a bridge of why it's relevant to them. Why does it matter? And I think that's one of the strongest ways to turn a skeptic to an advocate.

Well, thank you. As we end here, I'll just give a little piece of um things that I've been reading about um on the university level and school level. Um I am uh I live at a an independent boarding high school. So, I am right in the thick of the thick of things. And so, on the university level, per se, um Emory Emory University was the first university to hold Bitcoin, if you didn't know.

And then Harvard has the most uh they're holding the most Bitcoin out of any university in the world, I believe, over $100 million. Um and then in the US collectively uh universities hold over $800 billion of assets. So, you know, if you know someone who works there, any students you have, any any family, you know, just sparking a conversation can help someone, and that sparks a conversation that, you know, would make someone think, "Oh, well, maybe we should allocate some to that." So, um I'll close it out with two more things. What's the problem by Joe Bryan, if you guys haven't seen it, it's a great thing to to watch about the big red button.

And then the AI doc. We all talk about AI, and it's it brings in a lot of the AI CEOs and where the future can go. It could be very extreme one way or the other. So just just a little bit of tidbits to to end this. So I appreciate you all.

Thank you so much for being here and thank you.