

Emily From Mantle x Blockchain at Berkeley Meet up
Mantle x Blockchain at Berkeley Meet up
What does it look like to build from CeFi to DeFi to RWA and come out the other side with real infrastructure?
Join us for an evening with Emily Bao, Spot Executive of Bybit, Key Advisor to Mantle, a distribution layer for RWA, and Founder of Byreal, as she shares the unfiltered story behind her journey across three of Web3's biggest shifts.
Food will be provided, and a $1,000 research bounty for students and the SF community will be announced at the event.
The evening runs:
Keynote by Emily on Mantle's CeDeFi thesis and 2026 roadmap
AI x Crypto: Fireside chat with Mantle & Surf.ai
Join live conversation with Ryan, Founder of Surf.ai and Emily
Open Q&A + networking
Exclusive Merch for Attendees!
We'll also cover the Mantle AI Hackathon Phase 2, currently live, offering virtual workshops, mentor clinics, and a Demo Day. If you're a builder at Berkeley, this is the entry point.
Mantle is a top-3 L2 by TVL. $240M in tokenized funds. 80M users from Bybit behind its distribution layer. The infrastructure exists. The products on top mostly do not yet.
Come hear from someone building them.
Emily Bao
Emily Bao is Spot Executive of Bybit, Key Advisor to Mantle, a distribution layer for RWA, and Founder of Byreal. She operates at the intersection of centralized and decentralized finance, connecting exchange-native liquidity infrastructure to onchain markets.
At Mantle, Emily advises on market structure strategy, real-world asset adoption, and CeDeFi product development. She plays a central role in shaping how institutional-grade liquidity and tokenized assets flow through Mantle's ecosystem.
Emily oversees Bybit Spot at one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, serving over 80 million users globally. She is responsible for market structure, liquidity depth, and trading product development across Bybit’s spot markets.
Emily is also the Founder of Byreal, a DeFi protocol on Solana built around institutional-grade liquidity and fair launch mechanics.
About Mantle
Mantle positions itself as the premier distribution layer and gateway for institutions and TradFi to connect with on-chain liquidity and access real-world assets, powering how real-world finance flows. With over $4B+ in community-owned assets, Mantle combines credibility, liquidity and scalability with institutional-grade infrastructure to support large-scale adoption. The ecosystem is anchored by $MNT within Bybit, and built out through core ecosystem projects like mETH, fBTC, MI4 and more.
Follow Emily on X: https://x.com/emilyRioFreeman
Mantle Official X: https://x.com/Mantle_Official