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VanEck Digital Assets Initiative

  • VanEck Digital Assets Initiative

    VanEck Digital Assets Initiative

    USC Marshall’s VanEck Digital Assets Initiative (VEDA) is the leading academic hub for digital assets and decentralized finance — connecting students, founders, researchers, and industry leaders to learn, build, and shape the future of digital asset markets.

    As the only major digital assets initiative anchored in a business school, VEDA offers a distinct vantage point — curriculum, research, mentorship, and community built to turn curiosity into expertise, and expertise into industry impact.

Vision Statement

VEDA advances research, education, and industry engagement to make USC Marshall the global center for the business of blockchain and
digital assets.

Three Core Pillars

  • A woman and a man walking in an office looking at an ipad

    1. Industry Practitioner

    Builders, founders & operators as teachers, mentors, and collaborators. Are practitioners shaping research priorities and engaging at the frontier of AI, regulation, and digital assets?

  • Woman wearing glasses working on her desktop computer

    2. Academic Research and Education

    Research and education at the frontier of digital assets — rigorous, practitioner-informed, and built for ecosystem impact.

  • Continents

    3. Global Outreach

    Project VEDA’s brand nationally, across Asia, and beyond — making USC the name dropped when anyone outside LA thinks “university + digital assets.”

Core Team

  • Lan Luo

    Lan Luo
    • Director, VanEck Digital Assets Initiative and Neely Chair in American Enterprise
    • Professor of Marketing

    Professor Lan Luo holds a Ph.D. degree in Business (Major: Marketing) from the University of Maryland. Her primary research interests are applications of artificial intelligence in digital platforms and new product design. Lan led the Amazon Studios Science team from 2021 to 2022, and currently serves as an Amazon Scholar to its Global Media Entertainment Business. Lan also holds various editorial/professional leadership roles in her field, including VP of Practice for INFORMS Marketing Science (ISMS) community, Associate Editor for Marketing Science and International Journal of Research in Marketing, and Senior Editor for Production and Operations Management

  • Anthony Borquez

    Anthony Borquez
    • Adjunct Professor of the Practice in Entrepreneurship

    Dr. Anthony Borquez is an expert at building and scaling creative tech businesses. He is the founder of Grab, a leader in augmented and virtual reality. He also founded Blue Label Games, an early leader in mobile game development, later acquired by Konami.

  • Alan Siero

    Alan Siero
    • Research Program Administrator, VanEck Digital Assets Initiative (VEDA)

    Alan Cruz Siero is Research Program Administrator for the VanEck Digital Assets Initiative (VEDA) at USC Marshall, where he supports program operations, research coordination, and major initiatives including the Southern California Blockchain Conference. His work focuses on advancing engagement in digital assets and emerging technologies through partnerships with faculty, industry, and student organizations.

"Blockchain is redefining how markets, organizations, and economies operate. The VanEck Digital Assets Initiative advances rigorous research, transformative education, and deep industry partnerships to make USC Marshall the global nexus for blockchain business and innovation."

— Dr. Lan Luo, Director, VanEck Digital Assets Initiative; Neely Chair in American Enterprise, USC Marshall School of Business

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  • Marshall Courses

    BUAD 112: AI for Business Freshman Academy

    BUAD 301: Technology Entrepreneurship

    BAEP 450: Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship

    BAEP 558: The Entrepreneurial Advisor: Problem Solving for Early-Stage Companies

    DSO 429: Digital Transformation of Business: AI and Smart Contracts

    DSO 431: Digital Innovation as Competitive Advantage

    DSO 464: Deep Learning for AI and Business Applications

    DSO 528: AI-Powered Modeling for Business Decision-Making

    DSO 551: Digital Transformation in the Global Enterprise

    DSO 569: Deep Learning for Business Applications

    DSO 587: New Trends in Supply Chain Network Design

    FBE 430: Introduction to Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

    FBE 523: Venture Capital and Private Equity

    FBE 527: Entrepreneurial Finance: Financial Management for Developing Firms

    FBE 530: Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

    GSBA 531: AI Foundations and the Future of Work

    MOR 452: Product Management I: Essentials and Frameworks

    MOR 472: Power, Politics and Influence

    Other USC Courses

    TAC 101: Business Tools and Digital Fluency

    ASCJ 200: Navigating Media and News in the Digital Age

    MINOR IN BLOCKCHAIN

NEWS + EVENTS

The initiative brings together academic experts and industry leaders to explore, analyze and begin to define the theory and practice of digital asset markets and technologies.

The VanEck Southern California Blockchain Conference

The VanEck Southern California Blockchain Conference (SCBC) is USC's premier annual conference exploring blockchain, digital assets, artificial intelligence, and the future of finance. SCBC brings together students, researchers, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and industry leaders for two days of keynote conversations, expert panels, networking, and hands-on learning.

Each year, SCBC Day 1 welcomes influential voices from across the digital asset ecosystem. Previous conferences have featured keynote conversations and panel discussions with leaders including Jan van Eck (VanEck), Faryar Shirzad (Coinbase), Sreeram Kannan (EigenLayer), Clare Hove (Figure), Arjun Sethi (Kraken), Chris Dixon (a16z Crypto), Anatoly Yakovenko (Solana), David Pakman (CoinFund), John Nahas (Ava Labs), Frank Mong (Helium), and Ariel Seidman (Hivemapper), alongside experts from Circle, Blockchain Association, Solana Mobile, Backpack, and other organizations driving innovation across blockchain, AI, decentralized finance, and digital assets.

Alongside expo sessions, SCBC Day 2 also hosts a blockchain hackathon with student teams from across the country competed for more than $25,000 in prizes, building next-generation blockchain and AI applications while connecting directly with founders, investors, mentors, and recruiters from leading organizations.

Interested in speaking, sponsoring, exhibiting, or partnering with SCBC 2027? Contact veda@marshall.usc.edu to learn more about opportunities to get involved.

Partners and Sponsors


VanEck | Ava Labs | CoinFund | Circle | Solana

Interested in sponsoring or partnering with VEDA? Email veda@marshall.usc.edu

ALL VEDA NEWS + EVENTS

USC Builders Grant

The USC Builders Grant — announced at the VanEck Southern California Blockchain Conference on April 22, 2026 — provides funding for student-led ventures at the frontier of digital assets and decentralized finance.

Open to undergraduate and graduate students across USC, the Builders Grant supports ventures, protocols, tools, and research platforms in Web3, DeFi, and digital asset infrastructure — with the backing of VEDA’s practitioner network, faculty mentorship, and the industry ecosystem built through the annual conference.

Grant recipients receive:

• Funding to develop and launch their venture or project

• Mentorship from VEDA’s Advisory Council and practitioner network

• Access to the VEDA ecosystem — including conference partners, industry fellows, and alumni

Business of Blockchain Seminar Series

Co-sponsored by the VanEck Digital Assets Initiatives, this blockchain series invites impressive faculty from various institutions to present the latest research and insights to the USC community.

  • Alberto Rossi

    Alberto Rossi
    (Georgetown University)

    Friday, September 11, 2026
    3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
    Location TBD


    Hachigian Family Professor of Finance, McDonough School of Business. Research spans FinTech, household finance, machine learning, and asset pricing, including work on robo-advisors and machine-learning-based return prediction.

    LINK TO WORKS: https://msb.georgetown.edu/profiles/alberto-rossi

  • Vineet Kumar

    Vineet Kumar
    (Purdue University)

    Friday, November 6, 2026
    3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
    Location TBD


    Professor of Marketing (“Dream Hire” Program), Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue University — joined 2026, previously Associate Professor of Marketing at Yale School of Management (2020–2026). Expert in digital technologies and AI — machine learning and large-scale data analytics, digital products and platforms, and how AI creates value for firms, customers, and policymakers.

    LINK TO WORKS: https://vineetkumars.github.io

Past Speakers

  • Headshot of Professor Manela

    Asaf Manela

    (Washington University in St. Louis)

    Chronologically Consistent Large Language Models

    Research examines how chronologically consistent large language models can reduce lookahead bias in finance and social science, introducing ChronoBERT and ChronoGPT to improve the credibility of AI-driven prediction and backtesting systems.

    LINK TO PAPER: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.21206

  • Headshot of Professor Ola

    Ola Henfridsson

    (University of Miami)

    Algorithmic Enforcement of Reciprocal Exchange with Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts

    Research explores how blockchain-based smart contracts enhance cooperation through programmed reciprocity and algorithmic enforcement, with a focus on digital innovation, decentralized platforms, and trustless governance mechanisms.

    LINK TO PAPER: Cooperation among Strangers: Algorithmic Enforcement of Reciprocal Exchange with Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts | Academy of Management Review

  • Headshot of Hanna Halaburda

    Hanna Halaburda 

    (NYU Stern)

    Research spans digital platform competition, cryptocurrency adoption, and blockchain technologies, including co-authorship of Beyond Bitcoin: The Economics of Digital Currencies and Blockchain Technologies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).

    LINK TO WORKS: Hanna Halaburda — NYU Stern Faculty Profile

INSIGHT + ANALYSIS

ALL INSIGHT + ANALYSIS

Student Innovation & Community

  • Four students posing for a picture in college hall

    Blockchain@USC

    Established in 2018, Blockchain@USC is a student-run organization promoting blockchain related education through workshops, speakers series, conferences, events, research, and industry networking. Currently, Blockchain@USC has a growing community of more than 800 members from a wide range of experiences and interests in blockchain.

    MORE Blockchain@USC

Get Involved

To learn more about the VEDA Initiative, courses, and upcoming events, EMAIL us today.

LinkedIn | X / Twitter | YouTube


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