Graham Jenkin, a Brisbane-born entrepreneur who began his career making websites for centrist political party the Australian Democrats, has hit the big time with his four-year-old crypto start-up CoinList, after raising $US100 million ($138 million) in a deal that values it at $US1.5 billion ($2 billion).

Mr Jenkin quit political life in dismay in the late 1990s after Democrats leader Cheryl Kernot defected to the Labor Party, and embarked on an impressive US-based tech career before co-founding CoinList in 2017.