Arievia Foundation

Money is changing. Everyone should understand how.

Arievia Foundation is a New York nonprofit. We teach how stablecoins and tokenized assets work, and how to use them safely, in English and Chinese.

What we do Partner with us
The empty stage with two stools at Solana Skyline in Manhattan, just before Arievia's first public program
Our first public program, at Solana Skyline, the Solana Foundation's event space in Manhattan, February 2026.

Our mission

To prepare users, founders, and institutions to take part safely in the stablecoin and tokenized-asset economy, through public education.

Three goals, each built on the one before

  • 1Teach the public

    Help people use regulated stablecoins and tokenized assets safely and recognize scams. Senior centers, libraries, community banks, and other organizations can teach with our free materials.

  • 2Teach the builders

    Cohorts, mentorship, and hackathons for students, early-career professionals, and founders, teaching them to build fraud protection and compliance into their products.

  • 3Shape the guides others follow

    Turn what works in our programs into public best practices for fraud prevention, KYC/AML design, and responsible adoption, and bring them into the guidance, standards, and rules that others follow, through public comments and published evaluation results.

Why now

The United States has written rules for dollar stablecoins. Most people haven't learned them yet.

  1. The GENIUS Act becomes law, setting the first federal rules for payment stablecoins.

  2. The law takes effect. From then on, only approved issuers may issue payment stablecoins in the U.S.

  3. U.S. exchanges and apps generally may offer only stablecoins from approved issuers.

New rules protect the people who know them. In 2025, fraud complaints to the FBI involving cryptocurrency reported more than $11 billion in losses. Source: FBI, 2025 Internet Crime Report.

What we do

Four kinds of programs that share one set of free, bilingual materials.

  • Workshops, talks, and roundtables

    Free community workshops at libraries, senior centers, and campuses, and talks and roundtables in New York with practitioners from finance, technology, and policy. Plain language, from the basics up.

    First public program held in February 2026. First community workshop planned for early 2027.

  • Online learning

    Guides, recorded talks, webinars, and short explainers in English and Chinese, so people anywhere in the country can learn, and other organizations can teach with them.

    First guide planned for winter 2026–27.

  • Cohorts with mentors

    Two small-group tracks, each with mentors: one for students and early-career professionals, and one for founders. In the founder track, our Founder Lab, early-stage teams work through a plain-language checklist for building safer digital-finance products. No equity, no token launches.

    First Founder Lab planned for 2027.

  • Hackathons

    Hackathons with universities and technology partners, where teams build tools that protect users: scam warnings, safer wallet recovery, and payment checks. No token launches or token prizes.

    Planned for 2028–29.

Our team

Ryan Zhang

Ryan Zhang

Founder and President

Ryan has spent his career on payment and fraud-prevention systems. At Goldman Sachs he was a senior product manager working on fraud and risk systems in the consumer business, and before that, as a consultant with USAA's digital banking and payments teams, he added authentication and transaction controls to wire transfers and phone banking. At Arievia he leads the curriculum and guides, and he teaches in English and Mandarin. He holds a B.S. in Finance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an M.S. in Information Systems from Pace University.

Angie Liu

Angie Liu

Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer

Angie leads Arievia's outreach to partner organizations and participants, runs its English and Chinese channels, and oversees the design of its public materials. She has worked in go-to-market and product marketing at HYPR, an identity assurance company, and in digital experience and growth roles at PVH Corp./Calvin Klein. She holds an M.S. from Columbia University and a B.S. in Psychology and Industrial Relations from the University of Toronto.

  • The Arievia team and volunteers in front of the stage
  • A full room of attendees during the program
  • Two guests talking during the mingling hour
  • Attendees laughing together during the mingling hour
  • An attendee asking a question from the audience
  • Attendees talking after the program
  • A guest speaking with attendees after the program
  • Attendees gathering near the stage after the program
  • Students and young professionals in the audience
  • Attendees comparing notes on their phones
  • Attendees talking in small groups near the stage
  • Two attendees talking in the seating area
The Arievia team, volunteers, and the community at our first public program, February 2026.

Arievia has no paid staff. Everyone on our team volunteers their time.

Events

Where we started

Fall 2025, BreakLine Society

Before Arievia was incorporated, Ryan co-founded BreakLine Society, a volunteer community of founders, investors, and finance professionals in New York. Its events in fall 2025 built the network of founders, practitioners, and partners that Arievia's programs now draw on.

  • FinTech roundtable with early-stage founders and investors on stablecoin architecture and go-to-market strategy.
  • Real Estate Market Insights Forum, on how property and other real-world assets can be tokenized within a compliant framework.
  • Stablecoin & Web3 Founders Forum, on how U.S.-regulated stablecoins can streamline settlement and support audit-ready transparency.
  • Ryan Zhang with two guest speakers at the BreakLine Society Stablecoin and Web3 Founders Forum, October 2025
  • Ryan Zhang moderating the BreakLine Society fintech roundtable, September 2025
  • A speaker and Ryan Zhang in conversation at the BreakLine Society Stablecoin and Web3 Founders Forum, October 2025
BreakLine Society events in New York, fall 2025.

Judging student startups

November 22, 2025 · NYU China–U.S. Startup Competition

At the NYU China–U.S. Startup Competition, hosted by the NYU Chinese Students and Scholars Association (NYU CSSA), Arievia founder Ryan Zhang served as one of 15 judges, evaluating finalist teams, and spoke on the panel on startup operations and equity investment.

  • Ryan Zhang speaking during the panel on startup operations and equity investment
  • Finalist teams and judges on stage at the award ceremony
NYU China–U.S. Startup Competition, November 2025.

Our first public program · · Solana Skyline, Manhattan

Where Is the Money At? From Web2 to Web3

An introduction to digital finance for people with no prior experience, with a keynote and three conversations on stablecoins, tokenized assets, and telling real progress apart from hype. Students from Columbia and NYU were among the attendees.

Ryan Zhang and Angie Liu on stage at the February 13, 2026 program Ryan Zhang in conversation with a guest speaker at the February 13, 2026 program

Coming next

  • Winter 2026–27

    Stablecoins, Used Safely: our first free guide and workshop kit, in English and Chinese.

  • Early 2027

    Our first bilingual community workshop in New York.

  • 2027

    Campus workshops for students, and our first Founder Lab.