CoinEx, a crypto exchange that serves more than 3 million registered users in over 200 countries and regions, has adopted a new brand slogan — Making Crypto Trading Easier. We interviewed Mr. Haipo Yang, CoinEx’s founder and CEO, and discussed topics concerning CoinEx and the future development of the crypto industry.
Q: What are the considerations behind CoinEx’s new slogan — Making Crypto Trading Easier?
A: Today’s crypto market has entered a new stage in terms of technological progress, market scale, and user base. At its height, the total market cap of cryptocurrency approached $3 trillion. Meanwhile, surpassing Facebook, Bitcoin has become one of the 10 most valuable assets globally. Cryptocurrency is now an integral part of global assets, and crypto technologies are also influencing more industries and users.
At the same time, many are daunted by crypto technologies. In their view, the market is reserved for geeks and professional investors only. Such a stereotype is not wholly unfounded — many trading platforms out there are indeed designed for professionals. They just keep introducing new functions and pile up all features and products without considering user capabilities, which discourages many newcomers.
Picture this: An average user visits a crypto exchange to buy Bitcoin. However, swamped by derivatives like delivery contracts and European options, he has no idea how to buy Bitcoin at all. Are such platforms really designed for the general public? They think users might need this or that but ignore the most important fact that for most users, it is not that easy to complete the very first crypto trade.
Decentralized crypto technologies are created to serve the public in the first place. All crypto users deserve respect —not only just the professional, but also retail investors, deserve access to the crypto industry. The dismissal of beginners and retail users goes counter to the crypto sector’s original mission, which is to break the financial monopoly.
As such, we work to remove users’ misgivings about the crypto industry and break financial shackles. We want to deliver a message that crypto trading is a level playing field and that finance is by no means the privilege of certain groups of people. We will build a bridge that connects users with the crypto space. As a gateway to the crypto market, CoinEx helps users complete each crypto transaction with ease.
Q: The slogan upgrade of CoinEx involves strategic adjustments in terms of branding, product and technology. Could you shed light on the future vision and strategic plans of CoinEx?
A: CoinEx will “make crypto trading easier” through product, token listing, and user services.
First of all, when it comes to products, we exercise restraint and never pile functions upon functions. Instead, CoinEx promises to offer sufficient and satisfying functions. Unlike many exchanges that offer an excessive number of redundant functions, CoinEx pursues “EASIER”. This does not mean that there are fewer things you can do on CoinEx. On the contrary, we aim to turn sophistication into simplicity by building products that meet real demands.
In addition, we also attach great importance to token-listing. CoinMarketCap shows nearly 20,000 types of crypto assets globally. However, many of them come with great risks. As we can see today, most trading platforms suffer from either a lack of diversity or garbage assets. This is why our research team spends plenty of time screening the cryptos available in the market. To a certain extent, CoinEx saves users the trouble of risk filtering, allowing them to invest easily in assets minimizing users’ workload.
Last but not least, CoinEx emphasizes user service. Here at CoinEx, we offer professional, efficient and considerate user services. When beginners are confused with crypto-related products, which is frequently the case, they can always turn to our intuitive beginner guides, all-encompassing help documents and humanitarian user support. CoinEx respects each ordinary user via first-rate services.
Q: Compared with the past, many professional investors like VC firms, hedge funds, and asset managers have joined the crypto market. Will this lift up the investment threshold of the crypto space? Do retail investors still have a chance in such a market?
A: Professional investors and retail investors are not in an antithesis relation. The fact that more investors have joined the industry comes as a recognition of the market and injects more liquidity into the crypto space. It is natural that an established market will attract various investors, but that does not mean there are no opportunities for retail investors.
Here, we can compare the crypto market with conventional financial markets. In a conventional financial market, large investment banks are inherently centralized. A company needs to go through a complicated process before it can go public. As such, stocks can only be issued via big institutions, while primary markets are exclusive to professional investors. Retail investors, on the other hand, are kept out of this process.
Such a centralized monopoly incurs expensive costs and creates a high threshold. Essentially, stock issuance offers funds to project teams and creates investment opportunities for investors. Meanwhile, intermediary players like investment banks and VC firms do not improve capital efficiency. Blockchain and crypto technologies have brought a new decentralized solution that allows retail investors to directly participate in primary markets through IDO and IEO, thereby breaking the monopoly of professional investors.
Over the past few years, we have seen many new attempts in the crypto industry, covering DeFi, meme and Play-to-Earn. Many of these new categories are neither created by professional traders, nor are designed for big institutions. The crypto sector is now accessible to all, which means that every investor has the opportunity to profit from cryptos.
Q: During the last two years of rapid growth, CoinEx has always prioritized user experiences and user demands. How do you put “EASIER” into practice during constant product iterations? In the future, what are your priorities for streamlining the trading experience?
A: We have been focusing on mechanisms, interaction, and content-guided when upgrading CoinEx products. Users use a product to meet their intended goals. As such, “EASIER” means that we should help users meet such goals as quickly as possible.
As for product mechanisms, we hope that users can meet their goals via the simplest operations. For instance, Swap, a new feature recently launched by CoinEx, helps users meet one simple goal, which is to swap one type of cryptocurrency for another. Unlike other swap products that often ask users to account for complicated terms such as slippage, market price, and limit price, CoinEx Swap is backed by a set of independently developed smart algorithms, which only requires users to enter the target cryptos and the swap amount, and everything else will be handled by CoinEx. With Swap, users benefit from fast conversions at excellent prices.
Other than mechanisms, we also value interaction, which covers webpage interaction and visual guides. Instead of stacking up all the functions and information on one page, CoinEx strives for simple content that allows users to spot the function they need at the first glance. Moreover, we will keep improving our text introductions and product descriptions in content guidelines, helping all users get started with CoinEx right away through simple, intuitive expressions.
During the interview, Haipo Yang also mentioned that the improvement of user experiences is a never-ending process. According to him, product development requires unremitting efforts. CoinEx insists that crypto assets should be made available to the general public. It aims to “break financial shackles” and strive for “EASIER” with user-centered design (UCD) or user-driven development (UDD) by improving its products. We have every reason to believe that driven by CoinEx’s efforts, the crypto trading sector will provide new opportunities for more retail investors.
