The Cryptonomist had the chance to conduct an interview with Andy Cheung, Head of Operations at OKEx.
What are your thoughts about the crypto industry in general including Bitcoin as main asset among the others?
Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency markets continue to unlock a global, open market for financial services during a period when many nations are resisting the global economy. Because of this, we would not be surprised to see the price of Bitcoin rise in 2020 and beyond. Bitcoin and other digital currencies have changed the financial landscape and shifted the way we look at all assets. The open-source ethos of cryptocurrency has put institutions on notice, and we expect all financial services to be disrupted forever.
We all know OKEx as one of the leading players related to global crypto to crypto exchange: how is the company living this continuous competition versus other huge players and what is your approach when trying to innovate as much as possible?
As an exchange, we support the cryptocurrency market’s growth and evolution. We’ve adapted our business and are always innovating to meet market demands. In terms of our competition, we strive to be the best version of OKEx that we can be, serving millions of users in 200+ countries. We’ve built a one-stop-shop for digital asset trading from the ground up in just over two years, and continue to place an emphasis on delivering secure, user-friendly tools for crypto traders all over the globe.
During the last 2 years, everybody noticed global exchanges approach the crowdfunding industry which exploded in 2016 with ICOs and recently with IEOs. How do you evaluate blockchain projects for your IEO services and which are the key values that you usually look for?
Our IEO platform is called OKEx Jumpstart. Our team has the privilege of bringing new cryptocurrency projects to the forefront, and we know we have a strong responsibility to the ecosystem to ensure projects on our IEO platform are of high quality. We combined evaluation models used in the venture capital and crypto markets to comprehensively assess projects on seven major criteria: creativity, operational competence, marketing competence, progress, activeness of community, sustainability, and scalability. To join OKEx Jumpstart, a project needs to demonstrate not only strong technology development, but acumen in marketing and user acquisition.
In the crypto to crypto industry, we know now that the market has to focus on acquiring new users and mass adoption, including fiat to crypto services, such as OKcoin. How important is this business unit for OKEx at the moment and what do you expect in short, mid and long term?
There are several strategies for which we can promote blockchain adoption. We also target retail and institutional investors through delivering sophisticated trading features, including options and futures. In addition, we reach new user bases on our “CrypTours” globally.
Recently, we’ve hosted these events throughout Africa, Ukraine, and several other locations. These meetings are a great way to bring together cryptocurrency leaders and communities to share how OKEx can serve their needs. As we prepare to launch OKChain and OKDex, this will help us reach even further adoption with solutions geared towards unbanked populations and investors who prefer trading on decentralised exchanges.
In conclusion, do you have any ideal goal or case history that you’d like to see live and implemented in the global blockchain industry as real demonstration that decentralisation could have a real social impact?
Blockchain technology has the power to remove intermediaries and provide economic freedom to people all over the world. Financial inclusion is the ultimate goal of blockchain technology from a social impact perspective, and our industry is making strides towards that. Soon, we’ll be launching OKChain, our proprietary blockchain, and part of our aim for this project is to help unbanked populations access financial services.
