One founder. Twenty-six written roles.

The company

DeFiConnect Ltd (DeFiConnect.XYZ) is a consulting practice for licensed money transmitters, money services businesses (MSBs), and fintechs. We design, implement, run, and then transfer the operating model for a payments layer. See the practice for the work and boundaries for what we do not do.

Payments Marketplace is the lab: a simulation of a lowest-bid payments marketplace. It is simulation only — no real money movement, no production rail connectivity.

Background

Gilly Rall grew up around family businesses, on docks, job sites, and storefronts. Early work included teaching sailing, working as a fishmonger, facility maintenance, and landscape installation, and volunteer work with The Chestnut Hill Conservancy.

He studied at Philadelphia University, now Thomas Jefferson University, including the campus entrepreneurship center. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration and an M.B.A. in Finance and Management. He left Morgan Stanley to finish the M.B.A. full time in one year, then worked at Vanguard.

He moved to San Francisco with his wife, Chloe, and joined Coinbase in August 2017. He stayed until July 2026, on payments, treasury, and the ledger behind them.

Coinbase

He started in payment and wire operations, then accounting and treasury analysis, before the cash book and product economics.

• Cash management, 2021–2022. More than $12 billion in operating cash across 150-plus bank accounts, and a cash team in Singapore, Japan, Dublin, and New York.
• Product enablement, 2022–2024. Treasury product economics — fees, chargeback liability, and settlement time — and commercial terms with banks and payment providers. Finance lead for continuity through the 2023 failures of Silvergate, Signature, and SVB.
• Senior Business Controller, Payments and Platform, October 2024 – July 2026. Finance partner for global payments launches: ledger and accounting standards, reconciliation across systems, and validation of internal and client transactions. A self-service validation framework cut monthly finance validation cycles by about 90 percent.

That record is why DeFiConnect works on operating models for taking in, holding, and sending customer funds. DeFiConnect is not affiliated with Coinbase.

The roster

Twenty-six Cursor agents hold fixed written roles under Gilly Rall and draft and operate inside them. They are software — not employees, not licensed professionals, not outside counsel, and not a law firm.

Five roles report to the founder: Director of Engineering, Data Scientist, CFO, General Counsel, and CMO.

Office of the founder

• Data Scientist

  Marketplace health for the lab: bid depth, win rates, and take-rate scenarios. Simulated volume stays labeled simulated.

Engineering

The Director of Engineering reports to the founder. Everyone in this group reports to the Director of Engineering.

• Director of Engineering

  Sequences delivery for the current lab, accepts briefs for additional labs, and locks scope.

  • Staff Engineer, Marketplace

    Matching, bid ranking, a simulated fee ledger, settlement states, and the marketplace API in the lab.

  • Staff Engineer, Systems

    Persistence, deploy, and the API surface for the lab and the site.

  • Engineering SME, Auction

    Lowest-bid matching, standing corridor offers, and winner selection in the simulation.

  • Engineering SME, Rails

    Rail-shaped payloads and a simulated settlement lifecycle.

  • Engineering SME, Web and Demo

    The marketing site, the demo, and the simulation labels on both.

  • Engineering SME, Auth and Data

    Roles, onboarding records, and the schema for intents, bids, matches, and fees.

  • Engineering SME, Labs

    Writes a brief and a simulation page for a lab after the founder names the topic. Does not change the Payments Marketplace lab.

  • Payment networks. Eight advisory roles on corridor descriptions and public claims. They do not operate payment rails.

  • Payment Network SME, SEPA

    SEPA Credit Transfer, IBAN, and euro corridors.

  • Payment Network SME, SWIFT

    SWIFT messaging, correspondent banking, and ISO 20022.

  • Payment Network SME, Fedwire

    Fedwire and high-value USD domestic wires.

  • Payment Network SME, CHIPS

    CHIPS and USD wholesale netting.

  • Payment Network SME, ACH

    ACH, including CCD, PPD, and WEB.

  • Payment Network SME, US RTP

    US real-time payments, including The Clearing House RTP.

  • Payment Network SME, UK Faster Payments

    UK Faster Payments.

  • Payment Network SME, CHAPS

    CHAPS and high-value GBP.

Finance

The CFO reports to the founder. CFA and CPA report to the CFO. CFO, CPA, and CFA are agent role names. They are not directors or officers of DeFiConnect Ltd, not licensed accountants or auditors, and they do not provide audit opinions.

• CFO

  Unit economics, take-rate framing, and runway for work that is still simulated.

  • CFA

    Corridor economics, FX and spread framing, and fee benchmarks inside the simulation.

  • CPA

    How a match and a settlement would be recognized, the chart of accounts, and tax and nexus questions if the lab ever leaves simulation.

Legal

General Counsel reports to the founder. The paralegal reports to General Counsel. General Counsel and Paralegal are agents. They do not provide formal legal opinions and they are not outside counsel.

• General Counsel

  Reviews public claims, pilot-contract drafts, terms, privacy, money-transmission risk, and the gate on any real-money work.

  • Paralegal

    Checklists, clause comparisons, and open questions for General Counsel. The paralegal does not give legal advice.

Marketing

The CMO reports to the founder. Banks, Agents, and Content report to the CMO.

• CMO

  Positioning for the consulting practice and the lab, and a check that public claims match what we do.

  • Marketing, Banks

    Drafts aimed at liquidity-provider readers. That work stays off until the founder allows outreach.

  • Marketing, Agents

    Builder and demo messaging for the lab.

  • Marketing, Content

    Short drafts for the site and the newsletter. A draft is not a publication.

What stays off

Most of the roster is dark: written down, not in active use, until the founder expands scope. These are internal scope switches for software roles. They are not job vacancies, and they are not a statement that a live payments pilot is open. Outreach to banks and liquidity providers is one of those gates. It is closed.

Engineering SME, Labs is in use for additional simulation labs. The founder names each lab topic before a page is built. That work stays a simulation. It does not open a live payments pilot.

Boundaries

DeFiConnect is not a licensed money transmitter. We do not custody or transmit client funds. We do not provide legal opinions or audit opinions.

Unless separately engaged in writing, we do not serve as BSA Officer, MLRO, CFO, Controller, or NMLS qualified individual. We do not guarantee regulatory outcomes, bank sponsorship, exam results, or cost savings.

Inquire

A consulting inquiry goes through the form on the homepage, or to hello@deficonnect.xyz. Submitting it is not an engagement.

Start a consulting inquiry · hello@deficonnect.xyz