Welcome Xander, Luis & Mark

Their backgrounds in financial services, infrastructure, and enterprise software will help us strengthen our commercial and technical teams as we expand globally and support more regulated institutions in digital assets.

Xander Carpousis, Head of Americas

Xander joins Dfns to lead commercial operations across the Americas, bringing over a decade of experience in finance, institutional sales, and digital asset go-to-market strategy. His background includes leadership roles at Strike, Hoseki, Alpaca, Darktrace, and AB Bernstein, with a focus on bridging traditional finance with emerging technologies and digital assets.

Most recently, Xander served as COO/CRO at Hoseki, where he led operations and growth for a platform delivering proof-of-reserve infrastructure to institutional digital asset holders. Before that, he was Head of Strategy and Partnerships at Strike, where he drove business development and expanded Bitcoin-powered payments across enterprise and fintech channels. Earlier in his career, Xander held senior roles at Alpaca, an API-first brokerage offering access to financial and crypto markets, and at Darktrace, where he helped scale cybersecurity solutions for global financial institutions.

At Dfns, Xander will oversee go-to-market efforts in the Americas, from enterprise sales to ecosystem partnerships, with a focus on regulated markets. Based in New York, he’ll work closely with product and leadership to drive adoption among financial institutions, fintechs, and crypto-native platforms. His priorities include refining sales strategy, growing partner engagement, and helping institutions integrate secure wallet infrastructure.

Luis Almeida, Senior Software Engineer

Luis joins Dfns with a strong background in backend engineering, financial systems, and high-availability infrastructure. Most recently, he was a Senior Software Engineer at the crypto exchange Nash, where he helped build a scalable platform for crypto-native banking and investment products using Elixir and functional programming. Before that, he spent four years at EBANX working on payment systems, accounting platforms, and reliable APIs.

Earlier in his career, Luis worked at Ericsson on 5G infrastructure and telecom services, focusing on distributed systems and mobility management. At Dfns, he joins the engineering team under our CTO Noah Cornwell, where he’ll focus on expanding our blockchain integrations and building API connections to high-value third-party services (such as staking, yield, and other interest-generating products) that we want to offer our clients. His experience in backend development and financial systems will help us deliver a broader range of onchain capabilities through a single, secure wallet platform.

Mark Passando, Staff Software Engineer

Mark brings over 15 years of experience in full-stack engineering, with a strong focus on building robust frontend systems and scalable backend services. Before joining Dfns, he spent four years at Thirty Madison, where he led teams working on user-facing dashboards, mobile apps, and real-time systems. He also held senior roles at MonetaGo, developing secure applications for institutional financial platforms.

Mark has deep expertise in React, Next.js, and building modern interfaces backed by reliable infrastructure. At Dfns, he’ll lead several initiatives across our frontend and backend platforms, with a particular focus on improving our developer dashboard and mobile experience. He’ll ensure our UI remains fast, secure, and intuitive as our customer base grows.

In parallel, Mark will help evolve our internal architecture and development practices, enforcing clean patterns, reducing complexity, and maintaining a high standard of quality across everything users interact with. His leadership will be key to delivering a world-class user experience for a platform that now supports billions in monthly transaction volume.

Interested in joining? Explore our open roles.