Highlights from Korean Jew AMA with QUOINE CEO Mike Kayamori

QUOINE CEO Mike Kayamori took part in an AMA with YouTube influencer Korean Jew on March 28 to talk about all things QUOINE, QASH and LIQUID. Here are the key highlights from what was a very fruitful discussion!

What other projects is Mike interested in?

• We are a regulated exchange. Have to be responsible in who we work with.
• Partnered with GBX as they share many of our values.

What did the forming of QUOINE look like?

• In 2010, there was only Bitcoin. Had to go to meetups to buy it.
• I was a VC. I then joined Softbank was in charge of Asia operations.
• In Asia, we knew smartphone market exploding, then the second wave of bitcoin came through, in 2013.
• Was living in Singapore and travelling around Asia and it became a hassle having to always change currency.
• At that moment, I knew bitcoin and smartphones, apps and mobile wallets were the future.
• Even the unbanked have a smartphone.
• Wanted to buy BTC, but no credible place to buy it. That's when I met Mario, who was at Credit Suisse, and we decided that if was no credible exchange built by banks or anyone in the financial industry, we might as well start it.

On the World Book

• New matching engine does multi market orders.
• Already connected to 17 exchanges: 3 in US, 2 in Europe, and others scattered.
• When we look at counterparty risk, only a handful of exchanges where we would want to put our liquidity.
• The important part is to have multi-market orders so someone can trade in own base currency but tap into other markets and pairs seamlessly.
• That's where hidden tech comes in.
• MMO goes live next week, first part of World Book.

QRYPTOS + QUOINEX = LIQUID

• We will keep QASH as the name of the token.
• We are looking at multiple way to increase utility.
• End of May or June for LIQUID launch.
• There was no reason to have all these brands. LIQUID will bring everything together with policy-based tailoring based on people’s locations.
• It’s a unified platform: ICO selfservice, listings, liquidity.

On ICOs

• The ICO platform almost there.
• Token issuers can tap into our KYC-cleared customer base and then list.
• We have a template for issuers to create their entire ICO within QRYPTOS or LIQUID.
• Might launch it as a beta on QRYPTOS.

On Binance and their recent announcements

• When you look for an exchange you can trust, you need to be sure you know who they are, where they are located, what licenses they have, all these things. When an exchange can’t disclose that, what kind of signal does it show?
• We work with regulators, do full KYC of all customers, customer-asset segregation, all things regulated exchanges do.
• When you don’t do that and are an offshore company and suddenly grow too fast, you don’t do some of the things you normally should as a financial service.
• We take an approach rather than spending on marketing or on affiliate, we focus on our platform, our foundation our team.
• Binance wants BNB to be listed in Japan, but to do so requires approval. They got a sanction letter so that they can’t service Japanese customers after they had been aggressively marketing in Japan.
• In Japan, you have to work with the government and regulators.
• If you don’t work with governments and regulators, you have to be a nomad? Not only binance, but lot of offshore echanges take that approach.

What’s the incentive for other exchanges to partner with QUOINE?

• You get more flow.
• In finance, liquidity providers are global banks. They help provide the tightest spreads.
• In crypto, none of these financial institutions can provide that liquidity.
• Exchanges need to work together. Having market makers is not enough.

On institutional players

• Your bank or online brokerage or Paypal wallet or any mobile investment platform will eventually start offering crypto because crypto is the future and the token economy is going to come.
• All providers with existing user bases will offer multi-asset.
• They will offer crypto: where will they get that liquidity? That’s who we want to work with.
• We don’t look at them as competitors but financial partners, if they are willing to dance.
• We want to work with everybody, but not those who cut corners and don’t respect regulators and don’t focus on security.

On the current UI/UX of QRYPTOS and QUOINEX

• Our UI and UX took a back seat while we worked with regulators, which is not a trivial task.
• We have a full team working on regulators, compliance and governance.
• We’re one of the few exchanges audited by Deloitte. They audit our financials and crypto segregation.
• Also important to us is security. We can’t have another Coincheck moment. We want to make sure, even if passwords are stolen or someone takes over account, that your assets are safe.
• That’s why we have our Iron Shield set of security protocols.
• We recently brought in new CISO who worked in DC on cyber security. We are bringing in all these guys as we are a target for hackers.
• So we haven’t really looked at user journeys… but now we can. Now with LIQUID we can make improvements on UX. It’s going to come. It will be a continuous revamp and will have one of the best UX in the world.

On QASH and the blockchain

• QASH is a liquidity token. We are packaging our platform and white labelling it. There’s an element of connecting liquidity.
• GBX platform is essentially our platform. We are going to do that in every large continent. Those who whitelabel our platform, the QASH token will be a standard token there.
• Binance wants BNB to be used on their one exchange. We want our QASH token embedded in all our partners.
• Our aspiration is is for local exchanges to tap into this liquidity.
• We will scale our white label solution into these markets, expanding utility, which brings up value.
• I believe in decentralisation, but when you touch currency, governments and states won’t let you go.
• There needs to be a hybrid.
• Performance and latency are key.
• We need to be able to cope with high frequency traders. If can’t stay up to innovation as an exchange you will go out of business.
• When you are a decentralised exchange and you have these nodes, latency between nodes can be a killer. If you want to do tens of thousands of transactions every minute and want to have an automated investment strategy, you can’t do that on a decentralised exchange.
• But we are trying to find a combination where it’s distributed but with a certain amount of control.
• There’s no blockchain we could migrate our services onto that can be used for financial services. We need high frequency, high performance, low latency.
• Our blockchain will be commercial not academic. Don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but have something that any fintech company can launch their services from day one.
• The native token is QASH.

Security

• You are better off having someone like us manage your private keys.
• Every day we have 3-500 requests to change password because people forget them.
• If you lose your keys or passwords, your tokens are gone.
• More than 20% of BTC in circulation is coin that is lost.
• We think about security every day. Safer to have with us. That’s the biggest threat that keeps me up at night.
• All exchanges aspire to have a fiat element but opening bank accounts is difficult. That’s why big trend to tether or stable coins as a peg.

QASH listed on other exchanges

• We have not made a big effort to do this, but if we did, we would want to do it with regulated exchanges.
• When the time comes, our token will be listed on preferred exchanges.

Any institutional investors working with QUOINE

• We continue to talk to Goldman Sachs and other institutions. Interest from mainstream finance is unbelievable. We continue to talk with them on the prime brokerage, FX side, and they are very keen.
• We are also talking to institutional investors who want to do over-the-counter or blockchain trading.
• The amount of institutional investors who want to include crypto in their portfolio as an asset is growing.
• When they reach out directly to us, within next 12-24 months, will be big migration of institutional investors and Wall Street coming into this asset class.
• We can be that bridge. With our pedigree, we can be the bridge between mainstream finance and early crypto people.

Instant deposits for fiat?

• JPY instant deposits already. Hope to do with other currencies.

When QASH tokens are used on the platform, what happens to them?

• We will distribute or sell on our exchanges.
• Coin burn would in most jurisdictions be deemed as a security.
• Those QASH in circulation should stay in circulation.
• Value goes up if token utility goes up, not because of scarcity.

Bitcoin predictions

• With the recent correction and challenges, security will always be an issue, but despite that, I think it’s a correction period of six months, then will go up again.
• The fundamentals haven’t changed.
• 3-5x from here by end of year for BTC possible.

On fear in the market

• If there’s a financial crisis, everything will go down, but crypto will rise again.
• It’s not governed by one government or entity.
• Long term here to stay and safer bet.

QASH token price prediction

• As a token issuer if you give predictions, you can get in trouble. I would say with the LIQUID platform and increase of utility, it has so much potential.
• By end of year we will announce our QASH chain and ecosystem around it.
• I still have no doubt it will be a top 5 marketcap currency.
• We are one of the few pro-regulation tokens out there in the world. I think there will be a big push towards pro-regulation tokens.