At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top London based CEO’ operating in the Cryptocurrency space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Peter Smith
CEO and Co-Founder of Blockchain.com
Peter Smith is a Co-Founder and CEO at Blockchain. He is also the Director, Board Member at UK Finance.
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About Blockchain.com, Blockchain.com Ventures: Blockchain.com is a platform that offers ways to buy, hold, and use cryptocurrency.
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Kumar Gaurav
Founder and CEO of Cashaa
Kumar is the Founder & CEO of Cashaa, a UK based neo-bank providing businesses access to crucial banking infrastructure. Cashaa is a community of more than 250 crypto businesses including the industry leaders making it the biggest crypto-friendly banking platform. Kumar started his career as an engineer by building navigation systems for Ferrari before pivoting into the FinTech space in 2014 to begin working on blockchain-powered innovations. In recognition of his pioneering work on blockchain technology, he was awarded extraordinary (O-1) status by the United States government in 2017 and got listed among the Top 100 Most Influential People in Blockchain in 2016-2018 by Rise global. As a thought leader in the Fintech space, he has been invited to numerous global forums, including Money 2020, TechCrunch Disrupt, the European Parliament and Ivy League universities. In 2017, he was also nominated among the ‘World’s Top 50 Innovators from the industries of the future in the UK.
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About Cashaa: Next Generation Banking Platform
Mark Lamb
Co-Founder and CEO of CoinFLEX
Mark is CEO of CoinFLEX and a longtime advocate for physically delivered futures over cash settlement as a way to prevent manipulation. Mark’s vision for crypto derivatives is to grow the industry beyond speculation into real commercial use for lending, borrowing, hedging and payments. Mark Lamb has been in bitcoin since 2012 and previously co-founded Coinfloor, the UK’s first cryptocurrency exchange back in 2013.
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About CoinFLEX: CoinFLEX is the leading crypto derivatives exchange and yield platform.
Mark Hipperson
Founder and CEO of Ziglu
Mark has founded a UK retail bank and two financial technology businesses. He is a commentator and speaker on banking, FinTech, crypto, technology, PSD2 and open banking. Mark is the founder and CEO of Ziglu, the modern challenger. Previously, he founded Starling Bank where he was responsible for helping to secure the UK banking licence with regulators and obtaining the initial funding the Bank achieved in December 2015. He was also responsible for the design, build, implementation and support of the Bank’s IT platform, apps and infrastructure. He started his career at Barclays where he was Head of Technology.
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About Ziglu: Ziglu provides a digital platform that enables customers to exchange fiat currency for cryptocurrency.
Nejc Kodric
Co-Founder & CEO of Bitstamp
Nejc Kodric Since starting out in 2011 with little more than some basic computer equipment, €1,000 and a love of technology, Nejc has been instrumental in developing Bitstamp into one of the most trusted and highest volume bitcoin exchanges in the world. With offices in Luxembourg, London and New York, Bitstamp continues to grow from strength to strength, serving its customers’ bitcoin trading requirements. Among his many achievements as chief executive officer, Nejc spearheaded the approach to become the first fully licensed virtual currency exchange in EU, which was granted in 2016, setting the benchmark for the Bitcoin industry’s continued consolidation and strength. With a keen interest in promoting economic empowerment and technology, Nejc has spoken at several conferences including Techcrunch, Bitcoin Foundation, MoneyConf, Deloitte Conference: Future Challenges, ICT Spring Europe and FundForum International, and was awarded Best Virtual Currency Start-up at The Europas in June 2014. Nejc was born in Slovenia, where he studied Organization and Management of Information Systems and Economics, and currently splits his time between his home country and Luxembourg. Specialities: Bitcoin, blockchain, trading, virtual currencies, economic empowerment, education, science and technology
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About Bitstamp: Bitstamp allows companies and individuals from all around the world to buy and sell bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum, ripple, and bitcoin cash.
Laura Kornelija Inamedinova
Founder and CEO of LKI Consulting
Laura K. Inamedinova is communications and branding expert that has her own PR agency. Laura helps companies understand what are their marketing goals and what kind of communication they seek and later on, if needed, implement it. Her primary focus is technology, fin tech and IT industries. Among her client list there are million dollar valuation companies. Miss Inamedinova also shares her expertise about startups in her columns at Forbes and Huffington Post. Besides that, she frequently appears in local and international conferences where she touches important issues like, advocating for bigger women involvement in the technology sector. She has been quoted in various publications, such as Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, Venture Beat, etc. Laura has also been actively involved in various NGOs – she is a member of World Economic Forum Global Shapers Vilnius hub and Lithuanian Marketing Association. Laura holds a Bachelor of Physics from Vilnius University. During her time in the university she was a member of Physics faculty student association.
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About LKI Consulting: International marketing, PR and communications agency focusing on fintech, crypto and ICOs.
Hossein Kakavand
Founder and CEO of Luther Systems
Hossein is an entrepreneur with a diverse background in the enterprise technology industry. He did his Ph.D at Stanford in Information Systems and Statistics, and subsequently Stanford Business School. He was a fund manager at Soliton Capital, a quantitative hedge fund. He was at Funding Circle (LON: FCH), a leading Fintech platform focused on Peer to Peer (P2P) financing. He has also advised startups, with highly successful exits including, a distributed computation platform for automation of portfolio risk modelling, a specialized platform for large scale statistical computation, and a big data analytics recommendation engine.
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About Luther Systems: Luther Systems streamlines enterprise processes leveraging blockchain technology.
Marcus Swanepoel
Co-founder & CEO of Luno
Marcus previously worked for Standard Chartered in Singapore and before that 3i and Morgan Stanley in London.He holds an MBA from INSEAD, is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a CFA charterholder. He is a South African citizen and a Singapore Permanent Resident.
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About Luno: Luno is a global cryptocurrency company.
Sanja Kon
CEO of Utrust
Sanja is a senior digital executive with more than 10 years’ experience in developing and executing global digital strategy, delivering sustainable revenue growth in multinationals within the E-Commerce, Fintech and Telecommunication industries. As the VP of Global Partnerships UTRUST, Sanja’s main focus is to partner with key international players to improve the accessibility of digital assets and increase cryptocurrency merchant adoption. As a creative strategist, always focused on innovation, Sanja has guided cross- functional teams to develop and execute the Marketplaces proposition at PayPal, with the aim of providing the best in class online payment experience to e-commerce platforms. Sanja headed the European Partnerships strategy at eBay, forming key global relationships to enhance the selling experience for eBay professional merchants. As Head of the Italian Consumer Strategy team at eBay, Sanja redesigned the omni-channel customer experience for eBay’s core vertical experiences, including the re-launch of the Fashion buying and selling hubs. A multi lingual communicator, fluent in English, Italian, Croatian, Serbian and Slovene, Sanja is an excellent influencer with a proven track of building and leading international teams in challenging commercial environments. Fascinated by how technological innovation impacts on our life, constantly investigating new start-ups that will shape our future. Sanja is a speaker at international conferences, sharing her vision and knowledge on how the digital landscape impacts consumer’s behaviours.
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About Utrust: Web3 payments technology. The radically better way to pay and get paid globally
Itamar Lesuisse
Co-founder & CEO of Argent
Itamar is the co-founder and CEO of Argent. Prior to Argent, Itamar founded and led Peak, the top ranked mobile cognitive training service with over 50,000,000 users and 500,000 subscribers. Itamar led Peak to a profitable 8 digit per year business. He successfully sold it to Lagardere SCA in 2016. Before Peak, Itamar worked at Boston Consulting Group, Amazon and VISA. He holds a Masters in Computer Science and Electronics Engineering.
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About Argent, Imperial College London: Argent is the most simple and secure smart wallet for crypto.
Richard Ells
CEO of Electroneum
Richard Ells is a founder of Electroneum; the world’s fastest growing cryptocurrency. Owner of two other successful digital businesses; SiteWizard (digital agency) and Retortal (social media scheduler).
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About Electroneum: Electroneum is a digital payments ecosystem that allows anyone to store, send and receive digital funds via their smartphone.
Dean Fankhauser
CEO, Co-Founder of Bitcompare
Dean Fankhauser is the CEO and Founder of Bitcompare.
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About Bitcompare, Nuji: Your crypto comparison site
Vytautas Karalevicius
CEO & Co-Founder of SpectroCoin
Serial fintech enterpreneur, founder of SpectroCoin (all in one solution for cryptocurrency) and Bankera (banking for the blockchain era) companies.
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About Bankera, SpectroCoin, UAB Pervesk: All in one solution for cryptocurrencies
Gael Itier
CIO, CEO and Co-Founder of Automata
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About Automata: Automata provides trading strategies for cryptocurrencies with a focus on risk management and capital protection.
Chris Trew
CEO – Founder of Stratis
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About Stratis: Stratis is a powerful and flexible block chain development platform designed for the needs of real world financial services and businesses.
Hammad Kayani
CEO, Founder of BitFutr
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About BitFutr: BitFutr is the home of your Crypto. The BitFutr app helps you spend your crypto, get up to 8% in saving and invest your crypto 24/7.
Charles Hayter
CEO and Co-Founder of CryptoCompare.com
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About CryptoCompare.com: We bring you all the data in the world of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Blockchain in an easily digestible value added format.
Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie
Co-Founder & CEO of BCB Group
Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie has led a highly technical career in finance technology, forming a robust platform for solutions architecture and fintech innovation. He has helped Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Barclays Investment Bank (2004-15) and Lloyds Commercial Bank bring a number of strategic and tactical projects to fruition as a hands-on SME in derivative instruments, regulations and technology. After nearly 20 years in investment banking Oliver founded BCB Group where his mission is to accelerate global adoption of digital assets as money, as ownership and as a commodity of value.
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About BCB Group, BitcoinBro: Europe’s leading provider of business accounts and trading services for the digital asset economy
Dmitry Gunyashov
Co-Founder & CEO of Cryptopay
Dmitry is a long-term bitcoin supporter and has been involved with the bitcoin community for more than 3 years. Moreover, he has an extensive experience in e-commerce and payment systems.
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About Cryptopay, LTC.Miner: Cryptopay is a digital currency firms, offering crypto-wallets, debit cards, B2B payments, & investments.
David S. Wong
Chairman & CEO, Director of Midpoint
David is a London-based entrepreneur and investor in disruptive technologies and previously Managing Director of Expadis Capital. Prior to becoming an investor, he co-founded a publicly traded technology and media company. David has extensive experience in building, advising technology companies and helping businesses scale internationally. David started out as a client of Midpoint. He subsequently invested in the Company and joined the Board of Directors. David holds a BSc (Hons) in Engineering from the University of Liverpool and MA (Distinction) in Management from the University of Brighton.
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About Midpoint: Midpoint is a true peer-to-peer international payments platform for any businesses or individual wanting access to fair and transparent FX.
Obi Nwosu
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Coinfloor
Obi leads commercial strategy and our team of finance and cryptocurrency experts. Since 2014, Coinfloor’s market share has grown over 5 times and now handles the majority of GBP exchange volume. Previously, Obi was Founder and CEO of Supalocal and held senior roles at ebookers.com and WeeWorld, overseeing the development of a virtual currency, used by 30 million users.
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About Coinfloor: Coinfloor is an established group of cryptocurrency exchanges for institutional or sophisticated investors and traders.
Simone Mazzuca
CEO and Founder of Wallex Bank & Statutory Trust
Simone Mazzuca is the CEO and Founder of Wallex Bank.
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About Wallex Bank & Statutory Trust: Assets and Digital Assets financial service provider.
Ingemar Svensson
Founder & CEO of iXledger
Ingemar Svensson is the Co-Foundr and CTO at Payrue and Founder of Xledger. Ingemar was the CTO of Risk and Valuation at SunGard Asset Management. His experience ranges from managing large organisations to hands-on software development.
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About iXledger, PayRue: iXledger is a groundbreaking platform for insurance utilising blockchain technology.
Sean Kiernan
CEO of Greengage
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About Greengage:
Greengage aspires to be a digital merchant bank that provides a platform of relationship-based banking services to digital companies, SMEs, and HNWIs to the highest ethical, secure and compliance standards.
Bridging traditional financial services and digital innovations in cryptoassets and blockchain, we provide access to the benefits of digitisation in finance. Our tailored services are delivered by people, empowered by technology.
We offer:
- E-money solutions to facilitate £, € and imminently $ payments and cards (coming soon)
- Wholesale crypto into fiat loans
- Bespoke Salesforce-based solutions for financial services firms
- Access to other third-party services and providers
As part of its mission to be the best in class, Greengage aims to obtain a full banking licence and add crypto-native solutions and additional technological solutions.
*E-money solutions are provided as an agent of Modulr FS Limited, Greengage is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) do not apply to the cryptoasset activities carried on by Greengage.
Shivam Tandon
Founder & CEO of TeraBlock
Shivam is a passionate serial entrepreneur with over 11 years of experience in building sustainable technology businesses with successful exits. He has been working with start-ups and scale-ups for the past decade in fields of industrial design, 3d-Printing, fintech, Machine Learning, IOT, and more. Shivam is currently heading TorqueLabs – Machine Learning based automated fund management platform. With more than $45M traded since its conception in 2017, it’s one of the most advanced Machine Learning driven trading tool in the market. His diverse background makes in a unique creative resource for any team. He is a creative leader and innovative when it comes to challenging situations always finding a way to win. He is a strong people developer and focuses on the critical few to drive for success.
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About TeraBlock: TeraBlock is the simplest solution to buy and easily manage crypto assets with the help of Machine Learning based trade automation.
Gabriele Muse
Co-founder & CEO of Coinrule
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About Coinrule: Coinrule Catches the Next Market Opportunity on Your Behalf by Automating Your Investments
Alex Batlin
Founder and CEO of Trustology
Alex Batlin, Trustology’s Founder and CEO, is an entrepreneur with extensive banking and blockchain experience. Previously, at BNY Mellon, Alex was Blockchain Lead and founding head of Emerging Business & Technology team. At UBS, Alex was founding head of a blockchain-focused FinTech Innovation Lab in UK’s Level 39 accelerator. Alex co-founded Utility Settlement Coin, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and Trusted IoT consortias, and was featured in the 2015 FinTech Finance 35 and 2016 FinTech 40 lists.
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About Trustology: Trustology is building a custody platform to safeguard your crypto assets.
Didier Metelo
Founder – CEO of Kauris Ltd
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About Kauris Ltd: Kauris Ltd. develops LAMOOVA promoting clubbing trough App, Animation Film and Series, Comics and Website, AR / VR.
Dean Nolan
CEO of BetKing
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About BetKing: BetKing is the popular online cryptocurrency casino.
Jeff Hancock
Chief Executive Officer of coinpass.com
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About coinpass.com: UK Based Cryptocurrency Trading & Investment Platform
Amit Joshi
CEO of HashPrix
An alumni of SDA Bocconi, University of Michigan, Amit is an MBA & B. Tech graduate with 10 years of work experience in business strategy and product management. He has been in the blockchain space for 4+ years and has worked upon implementation of blockchain in healthcare, payments, logistics, aerospace, crypto exchanges/funds, asset tokenization, etc. Currently working on healthcare, DeFi and asset tokenization projects. Feel free to connect to explore synergies in blockchain, crypto, asset tokenization and investment management
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About BlueOrion, HashPrix: Hashprix provides implementation of crypto and blockchain in healthcare, asset tokenization, supply chain, DeFi, and sustainability.
David Nunn
Founder & CEO of Rvvup
David Nunn is the founder and CEO of Rvvup.
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About Rvvup: Bridging the 3 Generations of Payments
Marsel Adawi
CEO of OptionRoom
Experienced Data Management Consultant with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education industry. Skilled in PHP, Linux System Administration, jQuery, Public Speaking, and Management. Strong information technology professional with a Bachelor’s Degree focused in Computer Science from Birzeit University.
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About CYKEEP Ltd., OptionRoom: OptionRoom is a polkadot-based user-controlled oracle and forecasting protocol.
Michael Messele
CEO of Pillar Project
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About Pillar Project, Pillar Project: Platform to contextually manage your identity and transact with the services of the emerging web3 digital economy.
Priyanka Lilaramani
CEO of HOLD
Priyanka is a pioneer in digital finance having worked internationally, across the US, Asia, and UK. In 2017, she made the UK Innovate Finance’s FinTech Powerlist. With 10+ years with Goldman Sachs as an Executive Director and several years immersed in the FinTech ecosystem, she is an expert at growing businesses at the intersection of finance, technology, and international regulatory frameworks.
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About HOLD: HOLD is a revolutionary card that provides instant cash against cryptocurrency collateral.
Nic Niedermowwe
Co-founder & CEO of Prime Factor Capital
Nic Niedermowwe is the co-founder and CEO of Prime Factor Capital.
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About Prime Factor Capital: Prime Factor Capital is a crypto asset manager.
Dario Scarcella
CEO & Co-Founder of Capexmove
Extensive knowledge in Debt Capital Markets and Fixed-Income Securities. Leads the company’s business strategy.
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About Capexmove: Capexmove is a platform to draft and digitise debt financing documents.
Liliana Reasor
CEO, Founder of SupraFin
Liliana is the founder & CEO of SupraFin. SupraFin provides an intelligent app with institutional-like investment algorithms that assess the relative value of hundreds of cryptocurrencies and recommend the most appropriate as part of a diversified portfolio based on the client’s risk profile preferences.
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About SupraFin:
The SupraFin app offers many benefits:
- Simplicity: create a diversified portfolio of cryptocurrencies at the click of a button.
- Smart: create and manage a diversified portfolio of cryptocurrencies by leveraging risk models in the background.
- Safe: store your cryptocurrencies securely.
- Exclusive cryptocurrency reports: access exclusive crypto investment reports on each cryptocurrency on your portfolio.
Areseny Zarechnev
Co-Founder & CEO of Mothership
Arseny Zarechnev Prior to founding Mothership, Arseny co-founded Sabaka, a DevOps, mobile and web consultancy. He is a full stack developer, entrepreneur and solution architect and has worked at leading technology companies including Atlassian, Enki, and Ostrovok. He is a digital nomad, Estonian e-Resident and remote advocate. Arseny studied Business Administration at the Russian University of Economics.
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About Mothership: Mothership A state-of-the-art digital asset exchange, EU token marketplace and wallet with powerful security features.
Oliver Mitchell
Founder & CEO of Ripula
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About Ripula: GBP-denominated Ripple gateway and developing payment platform.
Mantas Malukas
Founder & CEO of Dapp Life
Mantas Malukas is an entrepreneur, journalist & blogger. As an entrepreneur his main focus is in the development of high level concepts mainly in the editorial news projects and journalism.
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About Dapp Life: Dapp Life is an online platform that features cryptocurrency news, crypto app reviews and incisive commentary on blockchain and dApps.
Edouard Lavidalle
Co-founder & CEO of Stakin
Edouard Lavidalle is assionate about blockchain and Fintech. He believes in Proof-of-Stake as the most efficient public blockchain consensus mechanism. Edouard has been building blockchain projects for the past 4 years, co-founded Trakx, a Consensys backed startup, and operates PoS nodes since 2018.
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About Stakin: Stakin is an infrastructure operator for Proof-of-Stake (PoS) public blockchains networks.
