Jelena Djuric is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Noble, an asset issuance platform focused on the Cosmos ecosystem. She is also a Co-Founder of the Canadian Web3 Council, a national advocacy organization for the digital asset industry. ^{[1] [2]}

Education

Djuric attended the University of Toronto, where she earned an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Peace, Conflict and Justice Studies, and Political Science. Her academic background also includes international studies through several exchange programs. She completed a semester exchange at Sciences Po in Paris, France, where she focused on International Relations and Affairs. Additionally, she participated in a summer exchange program at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, studying Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution. ^{[3] [4] [16]}

Career

Jelena Djuric began her career in roles related to public policy and international relations. In 2016, she worked as a Program Assistant for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and served as a Secretariat Member for the InterAction Council, a role she held until 2019. During this period, she also worked as an Operations Lead for the Council of Canadian Innovators from 2017 to 2018, which served as the basis for working with blockchain technology.

Her transition into the blockchain industry began in 2018 when she joined DFINITY as a Community Manager. In 2019, she moved to cLabs, the organization supporting the Celo blockchain, where she was a Partner in Global Community until 2020. Following this, she joined Informal Systems, a company focused on the Cosmos ecosystem, first in an Operations role in 2020 before transitioning to Product Marketing and Business Development from 2021 to 2023. Her experience within the Cosmos ecosystem also includes a role as Head of Developer Relations and Marketing for the Interchain Foundation, where she focused on expanding the developer community and promoting the adoption of the Cosmos SDK and the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.

In 2021, Djuric co-founded the Canadian Web3 Council, a national advocacy organization for the cryptocurrency industry in Canada. In late 2022, following the collapse of the Terra stablecoin, she co-founded Noble, where she serves as CEO. She also holds an advisory position at Kado, which she began in 2023. ^{[7] [3] [4] [5] [6] [16]}

Noble

Djuric co-founded Noble in late 2022 with Stefan Coolican (COO/CFO) and John Letey (CTO). The company was established to address the liquidity and infrastructure gap for stablecoins within the Cosmos ecosystem and the broader multi-chain landscape, a need that became critical after the collapse of Terra's UST stablecoin in May 2022. Djuric stated that the motivation was to create a "stable, secure and durable asset issuance platform that would make blue chip stablecoin issuers comfortable with the appchain ecosystem." ^{[8] [7]}

Noble operates as an application-specific blockchain, or "appchain," designed for the native issuance of digital assets, including stablecoins and real-world assets (RWAs). Its primary function is to provide infrastructure that allows asset issuers to distribute their tokens across numerous IBC-enabled blockchains securely and compliantly, eliminating the need for fragmented bridging solutions. Djuric has expressed an ambition for Noble to become the "Venmo of stablecoins" and a "stablecoin-centric platform."

The Noble mainnet went live in September 2023, with Circle's native U.S. Dollar Coin (USDC) as one of its first assets. The platform has since expanded to support other assets and issuers. In January 2024, Djuric announced a partnership with Hashnote to bring USYC, a token backed by U.S. Treasury bills, to the Cosmos network, marking the ecosystem's first cross-chain RWA. ^[10] Other partnerships include Monerium for a Euro-denominated stablecoin and M0 for the infrastructure underlying Noble's consumer-facing product, Noble Dollar (USDN).

The platform has demonstrated significant growth since its launch.

• By November 2024, approximately one year after its mainnet launch, Noble had facilitated over $5 billion in transaction volume and supported the issuance of over $450 million in assets. ^[8]
• As of April 2025, these figures had grown to $6.5 billion in processed transaction volume and $570 million in issued assets. ^[9]
• By June 2025, the platform had processed over $8 billion in total transaction volume, with over $2 billion in cross-chain volume and a total value locked (TVL) of $600 million. ^[7]

In November 2024, Noble announced it had raised a $15 million Series A funding round led by Paradigm. The round also included participation from Polychain, Foresight Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, and Informal Systems, bringing the company's total funding to $18.3 million. ^{[8] [7] [9]}

Advocacy and Public Views

In addition to her role at Noble, Djuric is a co-founder of the Canadian Web3 Council, a national organization that advocates for the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry in Canada. She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, such as CoinDesk's Consensus, where she has participated in panels discussing the public image of crypto, the future of stablecoins, and Canada's role in the global digital asset landscape.

Djuric is a vocal proponent of stablecoins as a foundational element for the future of payments. She has described stablecoins as a "bear-proof business" and envisions a future of frictionless global payments where users can hold and transact with multiple fiat-backed digital currencies from a single wallet. In a 2025 interview, she stated, "I want to eventually get to a point where I have a digital wallet. I swap for the euro when I'm on my way to travel and instead of using my Visa, I can just pay for stuff in Europe with euros." Her work and public statements emphasize a focus on blockchain interoperability, particularly through the Cosmos ecosystem, which she has identified alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum as one of the three most important blockchain ecosystems. ^{[12] [1] [2] [7] [9] [11]}

Interviews

Stablecoin Innovation with Jelena Djuric #01

On March 6, 2025, Jelena Djuric participated in an episode of DeFi Decoded, hosted by Alex Tapscott and Andrew Young on the Ninepoint Partners YouTube channel. The discussion focused on stablecoins, real-world assets (RWAs), and the direction of decentralized finance (DeFi).

Djuric noted that ETHDenver 2025 emphasized a transition from speculative initiatives toward projects centered on interoperability and practical applications. She described Noble’s introduction of the Noble Dollar (USDN), a stablecoin backed by U.S. treasury bills, and explained that the design includes a framework for distributing yield in a programmable and customizable way.

She also addressed the growing use of tokenized RWAs, including bonds and equities, as an area of interest for institutional participants. According to Djuric, such developments could position stablecoins as a link between blockchain-based systems and traditional financial markets. She further discussed macroeconomic and policy-related dynamics, including the possibility of synthetic digital dollars backed by multiple currencies and the potential impact of U.S. regulatory approaches on stablecoin adoption.

Djuric characterized stablecoins as a segment of the crypto market that continues to expand despite volatility, suggesting they may provide a foundation for financial products that integrate ease of use with yield distribution. ^[17]

Discussion on Stablecoins and DeFi Infrastructure #02

On August 14, 2025, Jelena Djuric appeared in episode “S2 E3 - Jelena Djuric, CEO and co-founder of Noble” on the YouTube channel Jeremy Black | Replatforming Finance. In the conversation, she outlined her views on the role of stablecoins within decentralized finance. She described stablecoins as a fundamental component in the transition of the internet toward enabling direct value transfer. She also explained Noble’s focus on providing infrastructure for stablecoin issuance and orchestration, drawing an analogy to a platform model for financial applications.

During the discussion, Djuric explained the idea of composable yield, in which returns from collateralized assets such as U.S. Treasury bills can be distributed in different ways, for example to incentivize users, offset protocol costs, or support other activities. She indicated that such mechanisms expand the potential uses of stablecoins beyond efficiency improvements in payments.

Djuric further commented on the predominance of U.S. dollar–denominated stablecoins and noted that adoption of stablecoins tied to other currencies, including the euro or yen, could contribute to diversification. She also addressed regulatory differences in North America, contrasting approaches in Canada and the United States, and referred to her involvement in the Canadian Web3 Council as part of her broader engagement in the sector. ^[18]