The throughline is automation. The work is everything between zero and one.
I'm a founder, GTM operator, and AI/frontier-tech consultant. Through-line: automation and disintermediation of legacy systems. From NYMEX open-outcry to blockchain rails to agent stacks — same game, different layer.
I've built zero-to-one. I've sold seven-figure deals in bear markets. I've shipped a retail CBDC for a national bank. I've raised, run, and exited a top-10 CrossFit gym. I've tested the stack so you don't have to.
Autonomist works because a human did the hard part first. Then designed the loop the human still wants to be inside of.
“Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming.”
// receipts
- 15+ yearsoperator across NYMEX → web3 → ai
- $2M+ ARRFYEO · 5 months · bear market
- $3M+ raisedSolace NY · top-10 CrossFit · exited '17
- CBDC shippedSoramitsu · NBC Bakong · Cambodia
- TestifiedUS Congress · Blockchain Caucus
- StrategistGlobal Blockchain Business Council
- Villanova '09BS · finance & economics · academic scholarship
- Remote since 2017st. petersburg · copenhagen · nyc
Things I've spent 10,000+ hours on.
“James Loperfido was born in Riverdale, the Bronx, in 1986 — a product of 1990s New York, shaped by a city that rewarded speed, ambition, and the ability to read a room faster than the next person.”
// origin
Full scholarship to Regis High School — the #1 Catholic high school in America, and the most academically rigorous Jesuit preparatory in the country. Academic scholarship to the Villanova School of Business, ranked between #1 and #10 in the country every year since he enrolled in 2005. He held a full-time job the whole way through and still carried the GPA the scholarship required — BS in Finance and Economics, 2009. The intellectual foundation was set early: a seventh-grade teacher taught him what science actually means — hypotheses, experiments, repeatability, the humility of theory, and the imperative to challenge established fact. That lesson became a lifelong operating system.
// wall street
Interned at NYMEX under Mark Fisher, CEO of the largest clearing firm on the exchange, in the last year of open-outcry trading. Watched buyers and sellers shout face to face. Learned to read markets through greed and fear. Then joined Imperial Capital, trading the full capital structure from distressed bank debt to hybrid securities. Saw quantitative trading would dominate; saw sell-side brokerage would be disintermediated. Decided to get ahead of it.
That pattern — spotting where technology creates a market incentive to remove friction, and positioning at the front of that wave — became the through-line of everything that followed.
// hard knocks mba
Co-founded Solace New York in 2014: a Manhattan CrossFit gym that Self Magazine ranked in the top 10 in America. Raised $3M+ in hybrid securities. EBITDA positive in six months. Grew to $3M+ ARR and 600 members. Coached hundreds through physical and personal transformation. Boards, fundraising, operations, people management, zero-to-one building, full lifecycle. The real MBA. Exited October 2017.
// frontier tech
Went remote in 2017, never looked back. Soramitsu(VP BD North America — contributed to NBC Bakong, the National Bank of Cambodia's production retail CBDC; co-led a token launch that hit $250M market cap). Tangem (Global BD — built the enterprise motion from scratch; the company now does $75M+ top line on a $500M+ valuation). FYEO (CRO — generated $2M+ ARR personally in 5 months during a crypto bear market). Throughout: Digital Asset Strategist at the Global Blockchain Business Council. Testified before the US Congress Blockchain Caucus on Web3 and stablecoin policy.
// now
Founder of Autonomist.ai — education plus fractional advisory for operators building an AI OS they own. Operates under Kismetrics LLC.
// north stars
Carl Jung · shadow integration, individuation. Richard Feynman · simplification proves understanding. Nikola Tesla · the visionary decades ahead. Buckminster Fuller · ephemeralization, the trimtab. The Stoics · amor fati, dichotomy of control. Ray Dalio · principles engine.