On Yavin on Cointelligence’s crypto project ratings

0:00I'm Ashlyn Addison from event chain for investmentpitch media and FinTech news network and today on blockchain interviews we have Anya vien CEO and founder of Co Intelligence on the st. thank you so much for being on the show it's a pleasure to have you here today hey Ashton thank you very much for having me it's a pleasure you're very welcome I'm excited to dive

0:22into Point elegance if you could start off for the audience by just giving a background on what is Co intelligence and what are you providing for cryptocurrency and blockchain yeah absolutely so we started Co intelligence two and a half years ago when we started we decided that we would like to have a website with as much data and information for the public for people

0:50that are interested to learn about blockchain crypto or advanced people that already very familiar with blockchain and crypto but need a certain specific data that they might they help them to make better decisions so we started as a research and analysis company we actually analyzed more than 400 blockchain crypto companies out there and and by the beginning of 2019

1:24we decided to shift our focus from research to education and we started Co intelligence Academy and that's our main business as they're they call it these days mm-hm great and is this information geared towards people who are absolutely new to learning about cryptocurrencies as well as advanced users that have been in the industry and familiar with it for

1:51a few years or is it specifically targeted towards a certain demographic yeah great question so it's it's aimed at both beginners and people that don't know and don't understand anything and it's also aimed at people that do have the knowledge and experience but they would like to dive in into specific types of data mm-hmm great and is there a problem with the news and

2:22research in the industry right now and a gap that Co intelligence is looking to fill in absolutely I think that it it was the case when we started especially when it was the ICO craze period and back then I am sure that I don't need to educate you about that but back then it was the wild wild west it was crazy it

2:51still isn't specific aspects in my opinion but back then it was really horrible and until today we can see that too many players in our industry unfortunately even if they're not gamers even if they're not I mean there are scammers there are scam enablers and there are companies that are legit but even the legit companies I see all the

3:21time that they are misleading people especially with the education part every platform out there has an education not not every but many of them they have education sections or all kinds of the guides and they're so on and when you dive into it you can see that what they're doing is actually either doing it to promote their own project and

3:51that's completely fine with me by the way but what they're doing is sometimes they give false information or inaccurate information because they are not objective and that's the thing about Co intelligence that's the thing that we've said to ourselves since the beginning we said to be as impartial as possible for human for humans obviously we you can never be 100% impartial when

4:23you're a human being only if you're a computer an algorithm but we try to do it the best way possible and and and and the as impartial as as we can mm-hmm that's great and on Co intelligence you have many lists of current and upcoming crypto projects initial exchange offerings as well as exchanges themselves can you talk a little bit

4:50about the ratings you have on these projects how you came to that objectivity in terms of how you're rating them and what are your goals behind putting these ratings out for the community sure so we started with our rating system for icos actually I have to make sure that it's clear we did stop rating i ciose a long long time ago by by first of by the first of the first of

5:252019 we already stopped rating i ciose and and then we shifted our focus with regards to rating to rate exchanges crypto exchanges but to answer your question when we did rate i cos we had a very clear a method of rating them we had different categories and each category had different subcategories in

5:53that category now what we did is we had raters after a rater finished rating a project it went it was sent to the supervisor after the supervisor made sure that everything was done correctly it was sent to our head of research to do another checkup and only then it would get published and and go like and

6:23and the same procedure with regards to I SEOs he was happening with exchanges and it's still happening with exchanges by the way we still continue to update the exchanges rating we do not rate new projects new exchanges anymore we keep the rating that we already did to be as updated as possible because things happen things change I don't need to tell you with our industry things

6:51happen every day and oneexchange that was amazing maybe a month ago might be not so good anymore because they suffered from hex or it was discovered that one of the cofounders was not legit or anything else like that even even in small things like not as big as say scams and so on but but but just mismanagement which

7:20isn't really a small thing it's a big thing for us but but it's not as big as being asked Emmy and just to finish there that the answer and I'd like to to add that it was very important for us to to be one of the companies out there that actually does rating without being paid for the rating we never accepted rating we were offered a few times I should even say many times

7:52before we were offered with payments for rating we were offered with payments for research stories that we published and called out scammers or called out non legit project and obviously we always said no and and that that's something very important that I would like to to mention because unfortunately when we

8:22decided to create the system for the rating we've seen so many rating websites that are accepting bribes in order to improve ratings or remove low ratings and so on and so on and it actually made innocent investors to invest in projects that they shouldn't have invested in because of false rating yeah that's very interesting and I'm

8:51glad that Co intelligence has that level of integrity and objectivity that's to see that in the industry and it's hard to tell you know the context of different sites whether they've been influenced or not right and through these rating systems it seems you've been able to identify a lot of untrustworthy and even scam like projects if you could elaborate on the

9:12details behind that you know it's become so prevalent and it's more just for the safety of investors I'd love to hear a little bit more about that absolutely so definitely our first goal was to protect investor to protect innocent investors especially mom-and-pop investors I have been an investor myself for over a decade way way before I got into blockchain and

9:38crypto two and a half years ago and the thing that got me worked up the most is when I saw so many scammers cheating and stealing money from mom-and-pop innocent investors now don't get me wrong I am NOT a pro I'm not in favor of cheating accredited investors or a fooling sophisticated investors obviously I

10:06don't want anyone to think that but when it's mom-and-pop investors it really pains me because accredited investors and sophisticated investors that's what they do they are supposed to know what to invest in and they are supposed to also have more funds and they are able to lose more than the mom-and-pop investors when I've seen cases of scams let me just give you one example for

10:31example one coin 1 coin is one of the biggest scams out there and I was in contact with a few victims of one point before we called them out and before we published something about them and I've heard their stories and I've seeing the evidence I'm telling you it's it's complete shock to see these things actually there is one victim that became very famous because she was interviewed

10:58to the BBC podcast about one coin scam and and and and when you hear her story it's it's it's it turns you apart because you hear that she didn't lose a lot of her own money but she made her family and friends to join in the scam and and think about how shameful it feels for a person to to make him or her family and friends lose money and they lost overall

11:30hundreds of thousands of pounds which is not the pocket money and and and that's an example of something that gets me so worked out and that's why we have been calling out scammers and continued to call out scammers again and again we I think that by now we called out more than 100 scams overall if we take all the ICL's and the research stories and the skinny exchanges that we've called

11:58out but don't but but don't they I'm not sure that it's actually more than 100 it's it's definitely close to 100 Wow that is very impressive and and very interesting and I've heard of one coin being one of the biggest scams and I still receive text messages from people in there in their 40s and 50s that aren't even familiar with Bitcoin yet being thrown a proposal for things like

12:25one coin and it definitely rings true that with monpa investors they can be very vulnerable so I'm glad that you're working towards protecting them now have you and Co intelligence received backlash for this objectivity and calling people out because I could feel how there could be tension in calling out people for potential scams especially when you know it's sort of

12:55your word versus their word and you have to present the research so how has that been going for for quintella gence yeah great question we've been suffering a lot from this backlash we we've been first of all we've been threatened especially me personally we've been threatened legal threats and death threats

13:23and when I say legal threats I'm talking about completely non based legal threats because obviously we never published anything without clear and obvious evidence I'm also a lawyer by profession I never practiced law and never presented clients I did it for a companies and businesses that I was either either I owned or I was involved in but I never represented their clients

13:54and I know law so I know what shouldn't be done and what you can do especially when it comes to this and obviously I check myself with other lawyers on a regular basis having said that we did get many threats before and we still do get many threats I have to say not as much as we get as we got when it was the ICO craze because back then it was really crazy

14:21with the threats and also with the amount of scammers that we called out but until today we are being threatened all the time and there is one case that happened recently that was the most extreme case that happened to us and me personally and that's the case of the LA token exchange any token exchange is one of the most scammy

14:49exchanges in our industry we called them out and we kept calling them out again and again and again I think for the last year or so and what happened a few weeks ago when I started asking LA token official representer at one of the telegram crypto groups which is called

15:18locked on London blockchain for open Brooke and I when I started asking that they promoted their meet-up in London they did a meet-up in London a couple of weeks ago and then when they promoted that Meetup I started asking them all kinds of questions like how do you claim how could you claim that you sell securities to UK citizens I had a screenshot with an L a token

15:43employee approaching me and and and soliciting me and I asked how can you sell securities they don't answer the questions whenever they are being asked difficult questions they start attacking back and what they did in this case they started publishing all kinds of blog posts with fake stories about Co intelligence and me personally and what

16:11they also did they started sending emails to many many people from the industry with a fake story about a complaint an SEC complaint against me and Co intelligence and when you get the email with the headline you actually think that there is a complaint at the SEC but there is no complaint when you read the text you actually find that

16:39they are talking about the fact that they are looking for evidence in order to file a complaint but what they did as well is they actually used names of official people from the SEC in that email to make it look as if it is connected to the SEC and it's sent from an anonymous email which doesn't have anything behind it or any organization

17:09behind it even if even though they are calling themselves the digital transparency group but when you look for that group when you look for that organization you don't find that anywhere and you don't find any trace of it so it's all completely fake and I would say that this is the biggest attack that we suffered until today and and and just to finish off the story

17:33beside doing everything that I mentioned that they did they also went into dozens of different telegram and whatsapp groups and they published these stories by non-identified profiles to make it look as if different people are posting and sharing these stories and as as if there is really a problem Wow Wow yeah that is absolutely crazy and I can't believe that that's happening but

18:02I guess that's the reality of this industry right now and that there's always the potential for that so and we're running out of time here but with all that has happened here what is your message to the coin telogen s– and the general crypto community and and how can they reach out to you to learn more information or get involved on the good side of quintella gence thank you for

18:25asking so first and foremost I would say that whenever you are interested in learning in getting education for blockchain and cryptocurrency be sure that you are educating yourself from credible sources obviously I will I will say that coin televisions Academy is one of the most credible sources out there

18:52but I'm not saying this in general a to promote or to shield Co intelligence I'm just giving it as an example usually when it's a service provider or any type of a product that is educating you in order to use the services or the product is already a red sign the second thing that I would say is never never invest

19:22in anything unless you understand it and never never trust your family and friends to be the ones that can recommend you investment for investment not because you shouldn't trust your family and friends because they can be scammed as well and that's something that we've seen over and over and over again and the biggest problem in our

19:49industry is that we've we've seen all kinds of high level people and celebrities promoting scams we actually have a presentation showing our many examples like that and the last thing that I would say is that anyone can reach us point elegent and me personally anyone can visit our web website point elegance calm anyone

20:19can look us up on social media and me personally and anyone that is interested in asking any question if it's about scams or potential scams or about blockchain or crypto education feel free to approach me we have a program that is completely free we don't ask any payment for getting the basic 101 education and I'm inviting everyone to visit a quaint

20:48elegance calm or look us up on any major social media platform and we're always happy to to help great thank you so much on it's been a pleasure I'll leave the link to Co intelligence in the description box below for the viewers it's been a pleasure speaking to you and thank you so much for this education all the best moving forward and let's follow

21:08up in the near future thank you so much for having me today you