Rena Shah
President & Chief Operating Officer, Stacks Endowment
Rena Shah has argued that Bitcoin's route to wider use runs through Bitcoin DeFi on layer 2 networks, where holders borrow and earn yield against BTC they keep, rather than through everyday payments.
Why the room needs them.
Rena Shah is President and COO of the Stacks Endowment, the Stacks ecosystem's treasury, and was previously COO of Trust Machines. She spoke at Proof of Talk Paris 2026 on a panel about rebuilding Bitcoin's financial stack.
The full account.
Rena Shah is President and Chief Operating Officer of the Stacks Endowment, a Cayman Islands foundation company that stewards and deploys treasury funds for the Stacks ecosystem. The Endowment was introduced in August 2025 as a product of SIP-031, the Stacks community's "growth SIP", and its budgets are approved by the Stacks Treasury Committee. Community recaps on the Stacks Forum list Shah as the Endowment's COO when hosting its public office hours in February and March 2026, where she answered builders' questions on grant tranches, eligibility and application windows. In September 2026 she shared notes on the forum from a community session held ahead of the Treasury Committee's next meeting.
Shah joined Trust Machines, a Bitcoin product studio, in April 2022 as Head of Strategy and Operations, and was later its Chief Operating Officer. By her own account she contributed there to Granite, a Bitcoin lending protocol, and Leather, a Bitcoin wallet. Before Trust Machines she was Head of Exchange at Binance.US. The company's April 2022 announcement of her hire credited her with helping the exchange exceed $3 billion in daily trading volume, helping to evaluate more than 50 new asset listings, launching its liquidity management features and playing a key role in building its virtual headquarters in Decentraland. Earlier roles listed in that announcement include director of business development at Apifiny, where she authored the whitepaper for the USD Digital stablecoin, and head of operations at Ember Fund. Her CoinDesk contributor biography says she began her career as a drilling engineer working offshore.
Between 2023 and 2025 Shah wrote opinion columns for CoinDesk on Bitcoin layer 2s, mining after the halving and Bitcoin's place in finance. In an April 2025 column she rejected the view that payments are Bitcoin's route to adoption, arguing instead for Bitcoin DeFi, in which holders borrow, lend and earn yield against BTC they keep as collateral.
Shah spoke at Proof of Talk Paris 2026 as President and Chief Operating Officer of the Stacks Endowment, on the Taostats Stage on 2 June 2026, in a panel titled "Rebuilding Bitcoin's Financial Stack: From Payment Rails to Programmable Value". The session, moderated by Pete Rizzo, also featured Ben Milne and Chad Master.
What Rena believes about the next ten years.
Years of shipping.
Lines that keep proving correct.
“I fundamentally disagree with the idea that payments are the path forward for actual Bitcoin adoption.”
“Bitcoin DeFi unlocks BTC as the most pristine form of collateral.”
“Bitcoin has evolved beyond "digital gold." Today, it's a foundational piece of global financial infrastructure.”
What they have built, written, and backed.
Built
- GraniteA Bitcoin lending protocol to which Shah contributed while at Trust Machines, according to her own biography and her CoinDesk contributor profile.
- LeatherA Bitcoin wallet to which Shah contributed at Trust Machines; in July 2024 the company posted a video of her, as COO, setting out its builder-first approach to prioritising new Leather features.
- USD Digital stablecoin whitepaperAuthored while she was director of business development at Apifiny, before she joined Binance.US.
- Binance.US virtual headquarters in DecentralandTrust Machines' 2022 announcement credited her with a key role in building the exchange's metaverse headquarters while she was Head of Exchange.
The next Proof of Talk is in Abu Dhabi.
Louvre Abu Dhabi, 3–4 December 2026. Admission is by application, and the room is capped at 2,000.
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