James Wester

James Wester

Director, Cryptocurrency and Co-Head of Payments

James helps financial services clients understand the evolving crypto and digital currency space. Drawing on his more than two decades of experience in research, marketing and communications in payments, technology and financial services, James provides the insights and information financial institutions and their technology providers need to build successful products and services around digital assets, cryptocurrencies, and tokens.

Most recently, James managed strategic communications for PayPal supporting the company’s blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies business unit. Prior to PayPal, he served as research director of IDC Financial Insights’ worldwide blockchain and payment strategies practices.

James has been widely quoted in the media including The New York Times, Marketplace (NPR), The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and Good Morning America. He has a master’s degree in management information technology from the University of Virginia and a bachelor’s degree in English and communications from Drury University.

Javelin’s cryptocurrency practice offers data and practical guidance to technology vendors and financial services providers on cryptocurrencies, digital currencies, tokens, and the technology behind them. The practice helps clients understand how to navigate the market as digital currencies, stablecoins, and digital assets become a more important part of the larger financial services world.

Latest Insights

April, 2023
Impact Note
What the Fall of Crypto-Friendly Banks Means for the Market

The collapses of three cryptocurrency-friendly financial institutions demonstrate the issues that face crypto companies and their providers of financial services. Crypto-focused an...

December, 2022
Impact Note
Next Steps for Crypto: Weathering the FTX Fallout

The collapse of FTX and Alameda Research has given cryptocurrency another black eye and provided fodder for skeptics about the industry and digital assets. But the situation, as ug...

November, 2022
Impact Note
Datonomy Partnership: Toward a New, Unified Taxonomy for Digital Assets

With financial institutions entering the digital asset and crypto space, a real need has grown for a standard taxonomy that banks, asset managers, financial advisors, and others ca...

Events

August, 2022
Join experts from CryptoFi, Finastra, Chainalysis, Javelin Strategy & Research, and Strategic Resour...
November, 2022
The payments ecosystem is evolving. The Javelin and Mercator analysts joined forces to bring their c...

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