Who is speaking at Consensus 2026 in Miami Beach, May 5 to 7: twelve speakers to plan around, with roles and published session days, times and stages.
Miami Beach — Consensus 2026 opens on Tuesday, May 5 at the Miami Beach Convention Center and runs through Thursday, May 7, with CoinDesk promoting more than 500 speakers across six stages. That is too many to plan around, so this guide picks twelve whose sessions show where policy, institutional money, payments and AI agents are heading. Roles, times and stages come from CoinDesk's published agenda and can still move.
At a glance
- Dates: May 5 to 7, 2026
- Venue: Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami Beach, Florida
- Organizer: CoinDesk
- Expected scale (organizer-reported): 20,000+ attendees; 500+ speakers, with 301 named in the online directory on April 20
- Format: six stages and three summits
- Official site: Consensus 2026
- Full list: Consensus 2026 speakers page
All times below are Eastern Time. Background on dates, passes and the program is in our Consensus 2026 preview and on the Consensus Miami 2026 conference page.
Regulators among the Consensus 2026 speakers
Michael Selig, Chairman, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Selig leads the federal agency that oversees U.S. derivatives markets. The agenda lists "Fireside: Chairman Selig" on Tuesday, May 5, from 4:10 to 4:30 p.m. on the Anchorage Digital Mainstage, moderated by Jesse Hamilton, CoinDesk's deputy managing editor for global policy and regulation. Exchanges and trading firms should hold that slot.
Patrick Witt, Executive Director, President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, The White House
Witt is listed in CoinDesk's speaker directory under that title. We could not confirm a day or stage for his appearance in the agenda pages available by April 30, so check the official agenda before planning around it. The Policy and Regulation Summit is the track to watch for related sessions.
Institutions and market structure
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO, Ripple
Garlinghouse runs Ripple, the payments and blockchain company. "Fireside: Ripple" is scheduled for Tuesday, May 5, from 11:05 to 11:25 a.m. on the Anchorage Digital Mainstage. It is an early chance to hear how a large crypto company describes its dealings with banks and payment firms.
Tom Farley, CEO, Bullish
Farley leads Bullish, the listed exchange group that owns CoinDesk, and he is the moderator of the Ripple fireside on Tuesday morning. An exchange chief interviewing a payments chief is an unusual pairing, and it suits anyone following how trading venues and payment networks court the same institutional clients.
Amy Oldenburg, Head of Digital Asset Strategy, Morgan Stanley
Oldenburg speaks for one of the largest wealth managers in the United States. "Fireside: Morgan Stanley" runs on Tuesday, May 5, from 1:45 to 2:00 p.m. on the Anchorage Digital Mainstage, moderated by Dave LaValle, president of CoinDesk Indices and Data. She is also listed in the CoinDesk Live Studio on Thursday at 10:45 a.m. Advisors attending Wealth Management Day on May 6 should catch it.
Payments and stablecoins
May Zabaneh, VP and GM of Crypto, PayPal
Zabaneh runs crypto at PayPal. She appears on Thursday, May 7, from 1:15 to 1:40 p.m. on the Anchorage Digital Mainstage in "Scaling Agentic Commerce through Crypto-Rails and Open Protocols," alongside Richard Widmann, global head of Web3 strategy at Google Cloud. It ties together two of the week's themes: stablecoin payments and software agents that spend.
Bo Hines, CEO, Tether USA
Hines leads the U.S. business of Tether. He joins "The Stablecoin Era: The World's Primary Financial Rail" on Thursday, May 7, from 2:00 to 2:30 p.m. on the Anchorage Digital Mainstage, with Paxos CEO and co-founder Charles Cascarilla and Lindsey Einhaus of Bridge. It is the stablecoin session to attend.
Bitcoin at Consensus Miami 2026
Michael Saylor, Founder and Executive Chairman, Strategy
Saylor built the corporate bitcoin treasury model that other listed companies have since copied. CoinDesk's directory lists him as a speaker, but we could not confirm his slot in the agenda pages available by April 30. Treasury teams should watch the agenda for his session.
Adam Back, Co-Founder and CEO, Blockstream
Back, the cryptographer behind Hashcash, runs Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream. He presents "Bitcoin Beyond the Base Layer" on Wednesday, May 6, from 11:00 to 11:20 a.m. on the Frontier Stage as part of the Global Bitcoin Summit. The session suits builders and investors weighing Bitcoin layers and sidechains.
Builders and agentic commerce
Anatoly Yakovenko, Co-Founder of Solana and CEO, Solana Labs
Yakovenko's "Fireside: Solana" is set for Tuesday, May 5, from 12:40 to 1:00 p.m. on the Anchorage Digital Mainstage, moderated by Ali Yahya, general partner at a16z crypto. Solana Accelerate USA takes place the same day, so Tuesday is the day for anyone building or investing in that ecosystem.
Stephanie Cohen, Chief Strategy Officer, Cloudflare
Cohen comes from internet infrastructure, not crypto. "Fireside: Cloudflare" runs on Tuesday, May 5, from 12:00 to 12:20 p.m. on the Anchorage Digital Mainstage, moderated by CoinDesk president Jay Yarow, and she returns to the CoinDesk Live Studio at 3:30 p.m. Her presence shows that large web companies now take agent payments seriously.
Erik Reppel, Founder of x402 and Head of Engineering, Coinbase Developer Platform
Reppel created x402, a protocol for payments made by software agents. He joins a Tuesday panel on agentic payments at 9:45 a.m. on the Convergence Stage, then gives "Keynote: x402" on Wednesday, May 6, from 11:20 to 11:40 a.m. on the Anchorage Digital Mainstage. Developers and payments teams should start here.
More names on the published agenda
The mainstage schedule also lists Base founder Jesse Pollak on Tuesday at 2:30 p.m., Greylock partner Reid Hoffman on Wednesday at 11:40 a.m. and a keynote from Fundstrat's Tom Lee on Thursday at 11:20 a.m. Evening plans are covered in our guide to Consensus Miami 2026 side events.
Frequently asked questions
Who is speaking at Consensus 2026?
Confirmed sessions include CFTC chairman Michael Selig, Ripple's Brad Garlinghouse, Morgan Stanley's Amy Oldenburg, Solana's Anatoly Yakovenko, Cloudflare's Stephanie Cohen, PayPal's May Zabaneh, Tether USA's Bo Hines and Blockstream's Adam Back. CoinDesk's directory also lists Michael Saylor and Patrick Witt.
How many speakers are at Consensus 2026?
CoinDesk's press page promotes more than 500 speakers. Its online speaker directory named 301 on April 20, 2026, and the organizer adds names up to the event. Treat both as organizer-reported figures.
When is Consensus 2026?
Consensus 2026 runs May 5 to 7, 2026, at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Florida. Sessions start each morning, and the show floor opens at 9 a.m.
Planning for Consensus 2027?
Powerclub Global is a Miami-based conference roadshow and media company that helps companies plan speaking slots, sponsorships, side events and the follow-up after them. Consensus returns to Miami on May 4 to 6, 2027: see the Consensus Miami 2027 page, read about roadshow management, or schedule a call.