Lewis Nurcombe joined WalletConnect as Chief Revenue Officer after a career built squarely in traditional finance — first at the fintech scale-up Currencycloud, then at Visa following its acquisition of the company, where he spent the last three years. That background gives him a clear view of what it will actually take for stablecoins to meet the bar traditional financial institutions already hold themselves to.
Dayana Aleksandrova sat down with Lewis at Money20/20 in Amsterdam for an episode of the Payments Pulse, WalletConnect's talk show covering the convergence of traditional and digital finance, shortly after his appointment to the role.
In this episode, Lewis explains what a Chief Revenue Officer actually does, how WalletConnect Pay's customer base has expanded well beyond crypto-native companies to financial institutions, PSPs, neobanks, and corporates, and why he thinks the biggest opportunity for stablecoins isn't the movement of money itself but everything that builds up around it — compliance, permissions, and a customer experience that matches what people already expect from traditional assets.
Full Transcript
Dayana Aleksandrova: Welcome to the Payments Pulse, the WalletConnect talk show where we talk anything payments, from traditional finance to digital finance. Today we're here live at Money20/20 in Amsterdam with a very special guest, our brand new, recently appointed Chief Revenue Officer, Lewis Nurcombe. Lewis, welcome to the show.
Lewis Nurcombe: Thanks.
Dayana: What is a Chief Revenue Officer, and what is your role at WalletConnect?
Lewis: Good question. Chief Revenue Officer is a relatively new title, but broadly speaking, I'm responsible for the commercial function of the business. My job is to make sure we really understand our customers' needs, that we're sharing those needs with the business so we can build toward them, and that we're capitalizing on the right opportunities in the market and ultimately bringing in revenue for our customers — because our customers' success means success for WalletConnect too. So that's my job.
Dayana: Of course. Let's define "customers" here, because WalletConnect started off as a broad company — we launched in 2018 with technology that helps people connect their wallets through a QR code. But now with WalletConnect Pay, the demographic is different. Who are the top people WalletConnect Pay is for, and what do they get when they integrate?
Lewis: Great question, and I think that's still something that's changing all the time, because we're in this really exciting stage within stablecoins and digital assets where so many new participants are joining and so many new use cases are evolving. But ultimately, what do we do as WalletConnect? We're the standard, the protocol, the central connectivity layer that connects you to wallets, to chains, and to a trusted set of users through our partners. We want to work with anyone who wants to tap into that network and become a member. So we're seeing financial institutions who want to offer stablecoin payroll in a compliant and user-friendly manner. We're seeing customers who want to offer checkout through stablecoins and other digital assets, either online or in store.
We're seeing neobanks that want to top up their customers' accounts through stablecoin assets. And we're seeing institutional companies who want to create connectivity between different participants interacting with tokenized assets — crucially, wanting to do it in a really compliant way, making sure everyone is clearly identified, safe, and trusted while still being willing to leverage this new asset. So lots of use cases — PSPs, neobanks, cryptocurrency companies as there always have been, corporates. It's really across the board.
Dayana: I think that's such a vital point — compliance — because a lot of the time when institutions try to accept crypto payments, their first question is: is this compliant, how do we make it compliant, because there's so much that has to be done for the books. Now a question for you, Lewis — you can mention where you used to work before. You come from traditional finance, and now you're at WalletConnect. How do you see the world of digital assets — formerly crypto, still crypto — converging with traditional finance?
Lewis: So I used to work at a scale-up fintech called Currencycloud, which was sold to Visa, and I then worked at Visa for the last three years. I think I see it massively converging, and I've seen it converging over the last few years. Everyone knows now that stablecoin isn't a new concept, but it's absolutely a concept that's in customers' hands, being used for practical use cases. It's hit the mainstream and it's growing exponentially.
But I think what we're going to see more and more is the standards and expectations increasing. It's a great new asset with lots of upside, but how do we make sure the experience is just as good as the experience we'd expect from traditional assets? I think that's actually an area where folks in the stablecoin space can learn from traditional financial institutions — how to focus on the specific details that ensure the customer experience of a transaction is outstanding all the way through each step.
Not necessarily the movement of money itself, but everything that builds up toward that: how do we make sure it's as compliant as possible, that we've got the right approvals and permissions, that we can layer on agentics safely with the right rules, and so on. So I see a massive convergence there, and that's why I see the really big opportunity — I think it will massively accelerate adoption.
Dayana: That's exciting. What do you see as the natural next step for WalletConnect Pay, and what are you most excited about?
Lewis: What I'm really excited about is what a fantastic foundation we have. This is ultimately an organization that has been safely processing payments, exchange, and interactions since 2018. The value is there. What it's about now is understanding our customers better and building on those foundations to help them unlock new use cases, and perhaps improve the use cases they already have.
The customer conversations we're having at the moment are incredibly exciting, because our customers and partners are doing incredible things. We're seeing a lot of marketplaces, for example, whose customers absolutely want to be paid in stablecoin, and there are so many benefits to me as an international seller or an individual receiving that stablecoin. That part's known. What we're tending to see now is customers saying, "I'm a little worried about the regulator's perspective on this — I want to make sure my customer can do this safely."
Their customer wants to receive it, but they're a bit nervous about how the experience feels and want to make sure the money is actually going to arrive. That last mile is where WalletConnect is able to unlock the experience for our customers, and we're seeing it happen quickly, all the time.
Dayana: I love that, drive it home. Lewis, thank you so much for being a guest on Payments Pulse.
Lewis: Pleasure. Thank you.