Steven Venino is a Partner at Strobe, an early-stage, crypto-native venture firm focused on backing founders building long-term, sustainable businesses on blockchain rails. Formerly BlockTower Venture Capital, Strobe was spun out by Steven and his partners in 2024, bringing with it the same fund, portfolio, and investor base — and a renewed focus on disciplined venture investing in digital assets.

Steven began his career in traditional finance, with experience across hedge funds and public markets, before moving into crypto during its early institutionalization. At BlockTower, he helped build and deploy a multi-year venture strategy spanning DeFi, real-world assets, consumer crypto, and on-chain financial infrastructure, with an emphasis on ownership, thoughtful token design, and long-term value creation.

At Strobe, Steven focuses on leading and co-leading seed investments in companies that often look more like Web2 startups on the surface, but use blockchain infrastructure to unlock new capabilities under the hood. His work centers on applying proven venture frameworks — from portfolio construction to founder support — to a market that has historically been driven by short time horizons and speculative incentives.

Operating at the intersection of traditional venture discipline and crypto-native innovation, Steven brings a pragmatic, long-term perspective on token design, capital formation, and what it will take for crypto businesses to mature beyond hype into enduring companies.

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Nick Cherney is Head of Innovation at Janus Henderson Investors, a global asset manager overseeing more than $400 billion in assets. With over two decades of experience in ETFs and investment product development, Nick has been deeply involved in some of the most important structural shifts in modern asset management.

Nick began his career in the early days of ETFs at iShares, where he helped build the category inside what would later become BlackRock. He later founded VelocityShares in 2010, developing specialized exchange-traded products for institutional traders and hedge funds across volatility, commodities, and structured strategies.

Today at Janus Henderson, Nick focuses on how blockchain and tokenization intersect with traditional asset management. His work centers on practical adoption — identifying where on-chain infrastructure can deliver real, incremental value, both through tokenized funds serving DeFi-native demand and blockchain-based efficiencies embedded within traditional investment products.

Operating at the intersection of ETFs, institutional finance, and on-chain markets, Nick brings a pragmatic perspective on how tokenization can scale — and what it will take for on-chain finance to move beyond experimentation into meaningful adoption.

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Niklas Kunkel is the Founder and CEO of Chronicle Labs, a leading oracle infrastructure provider securing both decentralized finance and the rapidly growing market for tokenized real-world assets. Formerly a core contributor at MakerDAO, Niklas helped architect the original DAI stablecoin system — designing the first generation of Ethereum oracles and building foundational infrastructure long before DeFi existed as an industry.

Today at Chronicle, Niklas focuses on the critical problem of connecting off-chain financial data to on-chain markets with the reliability, security, and transparency required by institutions. His team provides oracle infrastructure for tokenized money market funds, private credit, stablecoins, and next-generation financial products issued by firms like BlackRock, Apollo, Janus Henderson, and Superstate.

Operating at the intersection of blockchain, data security, and institutional asset management, Niklas brings a rare perspective across both crypto-native and traditional financial systems. His work is helping define how tokenized assets are priced, monitored, and integrated into automated on-chain markets — and why robust oracle infrastructure is becoming core to the future of tokenized finance.

Please enjoy the following insights from Niklas Kunkel of Chronicle Labs.