Is The Crypto Winter Over For Good? BiKi Southeast Asia CEO addresses this question at Codex Top 50 Innovators in London

by
Danish Yasin
My articles My books
Follow on:

Featured

CEO of BiKi.com Southeast Asia, Ethan Ng, has been invited to speak alongside industry specialists at the prestigious Codex World’s Top 50 Innovators in London. This year, speakers include top specialists from NASA, Oracle, and IBM. Presently leading the progressive trading platform in its globalization efforts, Ng will provide the following exclusive insights into the crypto space.

The Crypto Winter

In 1998, Nick Szabo theorized about “Bit Gold,” a digital currency that requires proof of work to solve but was never conceived. A whole ten years later, in 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote a whitepaper detailing Bitcoin. A year later, Bitcoin was released. It was only in 2011 that Bitcoin’s value surpassed $1. Then in 2013, Bitcoin’s value exceeded $1000. By December 2017, in the peak of the bull run, Bitcoin has reached nearly $20,000. By the end of 2018, the Bitcoin price has plummeted to $3,200, signaling the crypto winter.

The crypto winter saw the market value of crypto tumble more than 80%, from $800 trillion to under $200 trillion. Weak consumer sentiment followed, and mainstream attention for cryptocurrencies has left and has yet to return.

However, it is a common misconception that the bear market reflects the current state of technological progress.Blockchain technology, as the underlying distributed ledger technology, should not be conflated with the incentive layer of public blockchains, namely cryptocurrencies. As Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak shared in a Bloomberg interview, people should focus on Bitcoin value creation rather than being preoccupied with the price of Bitcoin.

The Gartner Hype Cycle explains that shortly after a new technology is created, there will be a phase of inflated expectations, causing its visibility to peak and rise. After that, it will plummet to a trough of disillusionment before slowly plateauing upwards to a plateau of productivity. This is the exact case for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

BiKi’s Unique Position

BiKi has a unique set of users on the exchange platform, who are new to crypto and have joined since the bear market in 2018. There are users in third to sixth tier cities in Chinese markets, which are untapped by top tier exchanges. They are superbly loyal users who benefited in great value while growing together with BiKi, thriving in the bear market, forming a total of 200,000 strong active traders on WeChat today.

BiKi has adapted over the crypto winter to become more than just a medium of exchange. Similar to what Michael Ovitz did in Hollywood and Ycombinator for start-ups. For instance, in Ycombinator’s case, rather than being just an investment firm for start-ups, they provide advice, seed funding, connections to marketing resources, media exposure, and more for their start-ups. Similarly, BiKi helps listed projects with continuous branding and exposure to top crypto Chinese media, while creating influence for them in Chinese communities by building communities of active traders for them.

The future of blockchain and cryptocurrencies is bright. With crypto taking up only 0.3% of the total value of global markets, there is a lot of potentials for mainstream investors to enter the industry as it grows. Bitcoin was created during the financial crisis ten years ago when the US federal reserve was cutting interest rates and devaluing the dollar. The same pattern is repeating in the last few months, with President Trump pushing for interest rates to go to zero, or negative. This makes bitcoin extremely attractive to investors because of its sound money principles. The block reward halving coming up in 2020 also means a new supply of Bitcoin is more scarce

BiKi’s Bold Prediction about Blockchain

Here is BiKi’s big, bold prediction for blockchain in the next five years. First, the Bitcoin price will hit 10x in the next three years. With more than 800 blockchain patents under its belt, China is going to be a global leader in blockchain in less than five years. Their government has included blockchain as a strategy in their 13th five-year plan, and many countries will follow suit soon after. Exchanges with an Asian focus have an obvious competitive edge, and BiKi’s unique positioning will capture that growth. As we have grown to 1.5 million users and 130,000 daily active users in under the year under bearish conditions, we are bound to increase by multiple folds in the bull run. BiKi will continue to touch new economies in developing countries to give a unique asset class opportunity

BiKi hosts “Invest and Trade” London Meetup

Ng’s presentation is followed by another global meetup themed “Invest and Trade” at ultra-modern conference space, Wimpole St. 1 in Central London. One hundred industry specialists will gather at the exclusive BiKi event as keynotes and panel discussions address the hottest topics in crypto. Leading investment funds, exchanges, and media will be in attendance, with Ollie Leech, Chief Editor at Bitcoinist.com, moderating the panels. The event is held in conjunction with VC Partner SMC Capital, an established blockchain-focused VC founded by industry experts. 

The Codex Top 50 presentation in London marks the fourth stop on the BiKi global world tour, which has so far included Vietnam, Toronto, and Singapore. To top that off, last weekend, BiKi.com was crowned ‘Best Digital Assets Management Platform’ at FinWise: Macau 2019. 

Next up on the globalization calendar for this rapidly growing exchange will be the highly anticipated premiere Asian blockchain conference, Korea Blockchain Week. Attendees can expect the same magnitude and exclusivity of past BiKi meetups, to be organized this time with Korean partners who are influential in the crypto space.