James Wester

Director, Cryptocurrency / 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, 2025
Javelin Report
Decentralized Infrastructure and Computation: How Does It Compare?

The infrastructure to meet the needs of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, digital assets, and blockchain will be extensive and expensive. Decentralized physical i...

April, 2025
Impact Note
What FIS’s Latest Deal Says About Finding Synergies Across the Payments Value Chain

A move by FIS to unload Worldpay—which it acquired to much hoopla in 2019, a year that also saw a huge deal between Global Payments and TSYS—illustrates the difficulty of finding s...

March, 2025
Javelin Report
New Administration Brings a New Day for Crypto

The U.S. cryptocurrency industry, once facing a hostile regulatory environment, is experiencing a reset under the new Trump administration. Key moves from the White House in the fi...

Events

September 11, 2023 | 08:00 AM to 05:35 PM (EST)
See 70+ cutting-edge technologies from startups to established firms. The most live fintech demos yo...
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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