Building Payments Businesses at the Intersection of Fiat and Crypto

Cryptocurrency & Payments Infrastructure

James Davies has held C-suite positions across three cryptocurrency and payments businesses, building treasury operations, regulatory frameworks, and trading infrastructure from scratch.

Crypterium | CFO | 2018

James joined Crypterium immediately following the conclusion of its token raise — $52 -$83 million (depending on valuation date) from 73,000 individual participants, making it the largest ICO by participation at the time, a record that may still stand.

The mandate was to build the operational infrastructure for a crypto payments platform competing directly with what became Crypto.com.

The core product concept: consumers hold cryptocurrency in a wallet, spend in real-time via cards, with the platform debiting crypto in the background and hedging exposure automatically.

James built the treasury function from scratch and recruited Marc O'Brien, former CEO of Visa Europe, as CEO. He co-architected a novel regulatory and banking structure utilising Icelandic institutions with PSD2 access, combined with a distinct regulatory regime that enabled card issuance while market makers provided hedging and off-boarding liquidity.

During this period, James personally authored two e-money licence applications — both still active — writing substantial portions of the regulatory submissions himself.

James and the entire London staff departed following a fundamental disagreement with the owners over compliant governance and balance sheet control.

Luxon Payments / Coin Rivet | CEO | 2018–2020

Coin Rivet was the cryptocurrency subsidiary of Luxon Payments, a business serving major gambling operators with Party Poker as the anchor client.

James served as CEO, simultaneously acting as CTO to build a fully functional cryptocurrency payments wallet with appropriate regulatory authorisation. The platform enabled seamless cash on-boarding for household-name gambling entities.

Luxon was subsequently taken over by its sponsoring parent, Dusk Till Dawn. The Coin Rivet operation continues today as a specialist broker serving high-net-worth poker players.

BVNK (formerly Coindirect) | Managing Director | 2021

James was hired as employee eleven and appointed Managing Director to transform Coindirect into a scalable payments infrastructure business.

Over nine months, he grew the team from 14 to 83 staff while maintaining profitability — a rare combination in crypto growth-stage businesses.

He submitted two regulatory applications, built significant gambling sector revenues, and implemented OKRs as the management framework across the organisation.

James departed following a disagreement with the ownership over treasury management philosophy. He advocated against allocating corporate reserves to third-party yield products where the underlying risk management was opaque. Subsequent events in that sector validated this caution, and he stayed as a Non-exec until conflicts arose.