How BTCPOP is growing the blockchain industry through lending services

0:00I'm Ashlyn Addison from event chain for investmentpitch media and FinTech news network and today on blockchain interviews we have Devin dear doll the CMO of BTC pop Devin thanks so much for being on the show it's a pleasure to have you here today all right thanks for having me you're very welcome I'm excited to learn a little bit about BTC pop exchange and

0:21peer-to-peer banking and lending this is very interesting project first of all if you would start what is the main goal and the solutions that you're providing through BTC pop so BTC Bob's main goal is to be a free market platform where users can borrow or lend cryptocurrency from all over the world um peer-to-peer money has given us this borderless common money that everybody

0:47can and so we wanted to open that up with peer-to-peer finance where users can connect from you know Asia or the North America and you know borrow and lend from each other so it's a free market platform we've always thought that the market decides best and so sorry about that I got distracted um and so what we want to do is we just

1:16want to provide a platform and the tools where users can meet in a market like a fireman's and we don't tell users what they can or can't invest in as well as we don't tell what the interest rate or how long blowing you have to have we just kind of let the market decide that and so that's kind of our goal is that open financed idea that's great Devin and it's very

1:40interesting because BTC pop is offering of a wider variety of different services could you just touch on the the main services you're providing and then what is gaining traction the most right now and what's growing with the platform yep so the main services we provide peer-to-peer lending is what we started out with and then from that we incorporated an altcoin exchange

2:02I'm very early on so at the time it wasn't really anything aetherium wasn't even out but from then we've added on the main old coins and so when that happened we've started at doing staking way before that was popular the proof of stake and so we would take coins for our users and then distribute the rewards into their wallet and so also we noticed that there isn't

2:28a rating system or very good collections process for peer-to-peer loans and so collateral was the main way that the industry does trust and so we started offering collateral loans I'm using the old coins which kind of tie in with the range for the service and so along with that we little bit of cloud mining because the owner the new owner was into that as well and then like bonds and you

2:59were kind of an expansion and that peer-to-peer one that's really interesting and you mentioned that the exchange part actually was around you know around the time of a theory before aetherium that's quite a while now how long has the project been running for and have you guys been developing this whole time yep so the project was originally started by a your group a group in

3:23britain leave our small I didn't know him exactly but anyway that was started in late 2014 early 2015 back in the days of BTC jam and Bitcoin Lending Club back when Bitcoin was a small tight-knit community and there wasn't really anything else there wasn't that much to do with Bitcoin and so peer-to-peer lending was a big exciting thing and everybody was excited to get into that

3:50however that in the kind of crashed and burned when the market started getting volatile and so well that was happening those exchanges were tightening restrictions and allowing less users and making it harder to do finance and so BTC pop came out is this free market where they would allow users to set their own terms and a free market to do peer-to-peer lending and then from there

4:17it went good for a while and then in 2016 the original team gained over their head there was some coding bugs and the new management stepped in in June of 2016 took over the website fix the issue is us found are not found replace the missing balances and from there we've been building fresh ever since that's great and what is the size of your team now and where are they

4:44mainly located yep so our team is a global we don't have an office or anything like that BTC pops always kind of went with the slow and steady when the work Race mantra and so our three developers and including the owner are based out of Germany and then our support staff and myself are based in the u.s. here but we also have a community of freelancers and

5:07just participants that help out as well with the website that's great and on the exchange side with your alt coin exchange is anybody able to go and trade on the exchange and is it similar to Finance which a lot of traders are used to or what are the differences there yep so anybody can sign up today at BTC pop deposit Bitcoin and start trading and deposit Bitcoin or all coins start

5:33trading them on our exchange or a peer-to-peer lending it's gonna be a little bit different than Finance and that our UI was made back in 2014 we're still using the same UI even though we called the back end so it's gonna be a little bit more clumsy and our volatility is obviously much much lower but that's a focus on building a new extinct no website

5:57actually and so then we're hoping to get a experience that's more like finance the higher liquidity the faster trading API and then our features can build off of that with a new modern exchange that's great and you guys normally make a cut off the transaction fees are you competitive with exchanges like finance and bit tricks on trading fees yep so we

6:22do a point to 5% I think which is a pretty competitive for the industry like I said we don't do a whole lot of volume now will change up as we grow to be more competitive kind of differentiate where we need to one thing that I'm also very interested in because it's not something that's happening a lot in the space right now is this IPO section that you guys have

6:47brought into BTC pops is this IPO section for companies that are looking to raise dad or equity in traditional raises and mainly for blockchain companies or who is allowed to raise through there and who is allowed to participate yep so anybody can actually participate um and so we kind of view it more as an extension of a peer-to-peer lending so instead of a loan you can

7:13have an idea and a project and kind of list your terms in a different way and so when you're raising them at capital you then adjust it to a a unique way to do it it's not as security is there a nice exchange or anything like that it's just kind of a way to raise capital and then distribute that capital and shares and then the shareholders can then trade

7:37it as well as you can pay dividends and communicate with your investors and so a IPO is not the best word for it but we have had some company as a mutant but it's more users that have an idea that they kind of launch separate from their own personal lending account okay I understand and out of the services that you guys are offering with the peer-to-peer lending IPO section and the

8:02exchanges are you guys focusing on all three of those sections as you continue to grow and marketing those or where is the sweet spot with BTC pop yep so right now we're really focusing on building a solid exchange we kind of view that as a foundation that we can build on top of with this solid exchange collateral is our kind of our main form of trust right now because there's not a

8:28credit or anything like that so well those systems are being developed the more liquid our exchanges and less slippage we have on default liquidations or as people enter and exit certain cryptocurrency positions the better they can use our service for their financial in here because right now for example if you wanted to convert your Bitcoin loan and I and transferred out and you're

8:52gonna deal with either a lot of time or a lot of what do a trade like that and so with the better exchange you could do it in Lesley for a competitive fee and be a lot more competitive that way and as you continue to grow throughout 2019 are the developers mainly focused on redoing the front end of the exchange or what does the development roadmap look like for

9:18the next six months yep so we've actually been building and we ran into a little kind of a roadblock you could say we had a developer who worked for a year and didn't really get anything done but beyond that now that we got new development we are working on a whole new et c-pop 2.0 you could say and so we have a lot of the pieces in place that were just kind of connecting

9:43them and then we have to rebuild some of the important parts from scratch which is taking the of course longer than we anticipated but it's a whole new website it'll have the same features and then that allow us to build more features on top as well as that central exchange that we want to be a focus point that's really interesting and because my next

10:06question was what obstacles or challenges do you foresee as you continue to grow now that you settle the development perhaps acquiring users or just expanding the team may be challenging as you continue to grow do you foresee that yep so competition in the space makes it a lot more challenging I would say our biggest issue has been the volatility of

10:28cryptocurrency so if you can imagine you take out a big loan and the price can move literally 10 to 20 percent in a day well if you are not exposed on one way or another trader cash to buy a business equipment well that loan can get really expensive really quickly and so we noticed that people the defaults really went up when the price skyrocketed as well as

10:53investors weren't that interest investing when the price tanked and so with introduct when we the good news is that they're stable coins and we're introducing them into a platform and we think that'll get rid of that volatility issue and from there I'm just overcoming we're getting market share it's kind of a complex peer-to-peer lending a little more

11:15complex than normal you know you go to talk to a bank loan well and at BTC pop you give you the website and then you kind of are on your own you have been offering in the market with whether they're gonna fund that or not they're the the learning curve as well as they're you know the general cryptocurrency regulatory if countries start banning Bitcoin while that is gonna make a big

11:42coin finance or cryptocurrency finance a little bit more difficult for us yeah well let's hope that doesn't happen in the near future here so so as you continue to grow what are you in most need of for BTC pop is it more investors more strategic partners or just more customers good right now probably need the most is a borrower's good borrowers it seems like if you have a good good

12:11idea and a good or a reputation or end or a good collateral there's more than enough funding for people right now you know money finds a way to a good project and so right now it's just the demand for pure current loans is a lot lower as well as yeah so that's what it probably just need more demand on that end and then um when we have a new exchange of freighters and market makers

12:39and that sort of thing which hopefully API and um our own internal users can help them start that's really interesting because when I have been reviewing similar platforms before I was told that there was a need for lenders so now that there is more of a demand for borrowers at least that there are people with capital that are willing to lend it out in the industry so it's an

13:02interesting paradigm shift yeah it really is it started out where it was the opposite like you said there was more than enough borrowers but then all the investors currently on BTC public kind of weathered the storm you know saw the different platforms fall we're very skeptical and we're not going to invest in a poor quality of loan as community so it's more competitive in

13:26that end you have to have a better offering before you're being considered relative to in the old days people just throw away no no big acquainted for Bitcoin loans for no reason at all and if there are borrowers or people that are just interested in learning about the peer-to-peer lending or using the exchange what is the best way for them to learn more information and get

13:46involved in PTC pop yeah I would say the best way to learn is by doing so go to BTC pop that cosign up scroll around the website little intimidating at first there's a lot of features but if you can work your way through that we also have a blog social media and YouTube channel where I explain in detail some of the different services features and how they

14:10could work and yeah the best way you can hop on the chat and the main box once you sign in and that's probably the best way to get started anyway thank you very much Devon I'll leave those links in the description box below as well that's all the time that we have for today but best of luck in your ventures with BTC pop and let's follow up in the near future

14:30that one's good thank you very much for having me