For undergraduate finance and analytics students as well as graduate students in the MS in Financial Technology program, the April 25 conference at Cornell University’s Manhattan campus, Cornell Tech, brought the cryptocurrency field to life. The goal of the students—whose attendance was made possible by Fairfield Dolan alumna Kara Gustafson ’01 and her husband, Neil DeSilva—was to hear directly from experts about the future of digital assets. Students came away with a powerful understanding of how emerging technologies are actively reshaping the very industry they hope to join.
John Primavera, a master’s candidate in the FinTech program, attended a panel discussion featuring representatives from Visa and PayPal. In reflecting on the experience, Primavera said the conference, combined with his current coursework, helped him grasp the relevance of stablecoins—a type of cryptocurrency—and digital payments in shaping the future of finance.
“I think it's become clear that some of these new technologies will transform the industry in some way,” Primavera said. “It will just be interesting to see what balances evolve in traditional systems versus new advances, and longstanding institutions versus new players.”
Similar sentiments were echoed by Max Puzin, a master’s degree candidate in the MS in FinTech program and a registered investment advisor with several years of experience in blockchain and cryptocurrency fields. He noted how cryptocurrencies have provided him with a “fresh” perspective on the financial industry.
