Ground
Where I am useful
I build consumer financial products where regulatory constraint is part of the design problem, not just part of the environment. It is a narrow ground: it means holding a compliance requirement and a usability requirement together, without sacrificing either.
The kind of problem
04Building infrastructure, not tuning it
At Vancelian, 2022 to 2026: a banking core on Modulr (IBAN, SEPA, Visa issuing) and a crypto infrastructure on Fireblocks (MPC vaults, staking, SCRYPT broker), built from scratch, contracts and service quality included.
Scaling under constraint
From zero to more than 100,000 users in 24 months, without compliance becoming the product bottleneck.
Treating compliance as design material
KYC journeys, AML flows (Chainalysis, ComplyAdvantage, Passfort) and a document-analysis AI that pre-decides whether a document is valid before it reaches the provider.
Arbitrating continuously
Holding a planned roadmap against direct founder requests, and deciding on data rather than instinct whenever the data exists.
What makes me useful
03- Access to the trade-offs. On Vancelian's executive committee, in direct contact with the founders: that is where product, compliance and time are weighed against each other.
- A team to structure. Three squads, 25 people, 8+ reporting directly, and an organisation to evolve as needs change.
- A regulatory frame whose boundary matters. A tokenised security is not a crypto-asset: it falls under MiFID II, CSDR and the DLT Pilot Regime, not MiCA. Knowing where that line runs decides which file you prepare, which regulator you address, and on what timeline. Statuses verified on 16 July 2026.
A counter-example, a disagreement with any of these lines?