Jan-Oliver Sell
Jan-Oliver Sell is a financial and digital-asset executive with a background spanning investment management, fund operations, fintech, and blockchain businesses. He is currently CEO of Qivalis and has previously held senior roles at Coinbase, Binance, and several financial and digital-asset companies. [1]
Education
Sell graduated from Earlham College with a BA in Economics and French in 1998. [2]
Career
Sell began his career as a Research Associate at Capital IQ from May 2000 to April 2001, working on the company's proprietary database of venture capital and private equity transactions in German-speaking and Central Europe. He then joined Morgan Stanley as a Sales Assistant in Private Wealth Management from April 2001 to April 2003, assisting investment advisors with private client assets. From April 2003 to April 2008, he was a Partner at Meteora Partners, where he helped establish hedge fund managers and set up fund structures, operations, accounting, and compliance functions across the UK, Cayman Islands, and British Virgin Islands. He later co-founded Kineta Trading LLP, serving as COO from May 2008 to October 2009, and managed operations for the foreign-exchange trading business through the 2008 financial crisis. From February 2010 to January 2018, he was Head of Operations, Legal, and Due Diligence at MSS Capital, where he oversaw operations, legal matters, due diligence, and the structuring of long-dated real-asset funds.
Sell was Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Harbourne Partners from May 2012 to May 2017, followed by a series of roles in financial and digital-asset businesses. He served as COO of Cubits from January to June 2018 and as COO of iFunded and iEstate from August 2018 to April 2020, working on cryptocurrency payments and digital real estate investment products, including real estate tokenization. He also served as Director for the German market at Binance from May to October 2020 and held positions at Baltasaar, first as Head of Capital Structuring and Advisory, and later as an Advisory Board Member. At Coinbase, he became Head of Operations, Germany, in November 2020 and subsequently Managing Director of Coinbase Germany from November 2022 to December 2024, working on the establishment and regulatory development of the company's German operations.
In 2025, Sell served as COO of Universal Everything GmbH from April to December and became a Venture Partner at Angel Invest in April, focusing on early-stage technology investments, particularly in blockchain and Web3. Since October 2025, he has been CEO of Qivalis, where he leads the company's development of a regulated euro stablecoin and oversees its operations, regulatory work, technology, compliance, and relationships with its European banking shareholders. [3]
Interviews
Financial Future
In an April 2026 fireside chat at Paris Blockchain Week with Daniela Barbosa of Linux Foundation, Sell discussed Europe's development of stablecoins and the transition from blockchain experimentation to production use. He explained how a consortium of European banks had formed around the need for greater efficiency, liquidity, and infrastructure for euro-backed stablecoins, with ING among the institutions involved. Sell argued that the euro's relatively limited on-chain presence compared with the US dollar created both a challenge and an opportunity for Europe to strengthen its digital financial infrastructure and reduce reliance on dollar-based systems. The conversation also covered cross-border payments, tokenized assets, settlement, liquidity management, interoperability, and the need for common standards and appropriate blockchain infrastructure. Sell said the project was targeting a launch following regulatory approval and encouraged institutions to prepare for the increasing use of euros and financial operations on-chain. [4]
Dollar Dominance
In an April 2026 interview with Range, Sell discussed Qivalis and its plans to develop a regulated euro stablecoin with a consortium of European banks. He explained that the initiative grew out of several years of work by banks including ING on digital assets and blockchain, with the consortium viewing shared infrastructure as a way to improve efficiency, settlement, and liquidity while reducing the risk of further euro dollarization on-chain. Sell described Qivalis's approach as building an ecosystem around the euro on-chain, supporting use cases such as cross-border payments, settlement, lending, and other on-chain financial activities across multiple blockchains, with Ethereum as a primary network. He also discussed the company's licensing and product-development process, emphasizing practical use cases, scalability, and user experience as important to adoption among participating banks. Looking ahead, Sell described euro stablecoins becoming integrated across European on-chain financial services and infrastructure, while complementing rather than competing with retail digital euro or wholesale CBDC initiatives. [5]
Euro Stablecoins
In a March 2026 interview with Christer Holloman of Forbes, Sell discussed the growing role of blockchain infrastructure in traditional finance and Qivalis’s approach to on-chain settlement. He explained that Qivalis was developing regulated infrastructure backed by cash and liquid assets to connect blockchain-based financial activity with existing financial systems, with MiCA providing a regulatory framework for institutions. Sell also discussed how European banks were developing their own infrastructure to maintain control over data and payment systems, while on-chain stablecoins could enable faster settlement and improve corporate liquidity management. The conversation covered the evolving role of payment acquirers, including their potential transition toward crypto custody, liquidity orchestration, and connections between on-chain and off-chain transactions. Sell emphasized interoperability and open standards, while noting that greater efficiency could eventually put pressure on margins even as streamlined processes create opportunities for near-term growth. [6]
