At Coins, community and users are at the heart of everything we do.
Recently, we launched our first management thought-leadership Ask Me Anything (AMA) where we got to know our CEO, Wei Zhou. The AMA also includes insights into the current crypto and Non-Fungible Token (NFT) scene and what’s next for Coins.
TL:DR & Key Takeaways of AMA:
- Part 1: Introduction to Coins CEO, Wei Zhou
- Part 2: Wei’s take on NFTs, crypto and bear markets
- Part 3: Coins’ roadmap into the wider metaverse
Alternatively, you may also watch the full AMA recording on Coins YouTube!
Note: Details and phrases have been edited based on the author’s discretion to make them suitable for text.
Part 1: Introduction to Coins CEO, Wei Zhou
How Coins' CEO, Wei started his career and journey to Coins?
Wei: I recently joined Coins about 6 months ago after an investor group that I’m working with decided to purchase Coins from the previous holder of GoJek. Coins have had a long and very exciting history here in the Philippines, serving some of the original bitcoin community.
With my previous background being the Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of Binance where I helped build and scale up the business on a global basis, I’m hoping to bring a lot of that know-how, knowledge, relationships and contacts from global communities to Coins and the Philippines community here.
Hopefully, we can continue to build Coins with a more crypto-native angle and go beyond capturing everyone’s interest in crypto to what they can do with crypto. For example, the utility around crypto, playing games, hanging out in the metaverse, and trading NFTs. All these are what we have in store for the Coins community.
What initially got Wei interested in crypto?
Wei: It was back in late 2017 to early 2018 where a company I had angel invested in through equity did an ICO. I was then airdropped some tokens and that was when I first owned crypto.
And I thought, “Wait a minute, I can actually be an equity shareholder of something and when they do something, I will be airdropped free goodies?!”
Previously, my career was built in the equity world where I was CFO for several businesses, such as being a CFO for a company I had taken public on NASDAQ. So, I know a lot about equity, VC fundraising through equity, Series A/Series B, then eventually raising capital on NASDAQ and trading as a public company.
I know a lot about that, but I didn’t really know about fundraising on the blockchain. With this opportunity, I then went down the rabbit hole. I learned about the smart contract method when I was introduced to Ethereum, where with a smart contract you can fundraise on the blockchain.
I was amazed by how someone who’s a token holder can be both an investor and a user of a new network or project. For example, I can be an early Facebook, Uber, or Google user but I only benefited as a user whereas the inventors took the bulk of the benefits. So I thought, if we are able to allocate tokens to the early users, they can enjoy the economic benefits from the growth of that network.
Crypto in this sense, can be an amazing tool and that’s where I went all in on crypto.
What was the opportunity you saw in bringing Coins back to its crypto native roots?
Wei: The interest in digital assets is very strong in the Philippines. It’s very important to re-pivot Coins, especially since Coins has been more focused on fiat payments and hasn’t invested in the digital assets space. As a result, Coins has missed out on the crypto growth that has been taking place over the last 18 months.
But it’s not too late. 2021 is a proof-of-concept in terms of NFT gaming, crypto as an investable asset and all of that remains true today. So we are and will be pivoting our business to being more crypto and digital-asset native.
Part 2: Wei’s take on NFTs, crypto and bear markets
How & when did Wei first get into NFTs?
Wei: I first learned about NFTs with CryptoKitties but the process of hatching another one was too complicated so I didn’t explore further.
The first NFT I bought was actually race horses from Zed Run and it was revolutionary because the horse breeding and racing process are now replicated in the metaverse. This paralleled with what I was doing at Binance where I ran its investment arm, especially when Binance was one of the early investors in Axie Infinity. All of these events definitely got me started looking into NFTs.
Experience being a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) holder
Wei: It was a significant investment for me. I really like how the Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) community was so active, and how the community operators were able to deliver benefits to the Ape holders. 🐵
I was airdropped the APE token and the Otherside LAND. And now when I meet another APE holder in person, we just catch up on these collective experiences!
I also did some research, and my trust was strengthened when I found out that they have a track record of delivering benefits to the users and are running a lot of events in the real world. It’s a global community of owners who have benefited financially from owning the apes and also from being cultural figures.
Long term potential for NFT’s?
Wei: NFTs is just the beginner for the digital ownership economy for the internet.
NFTs will allow users to own and potentially operate and earn from the internet. Before, we didn’t own the internet and we gave the giant operations (Google, Tencent, Alibaba) our time, content and sometimes money too.
The technology enabled by NFTs makes us able to own a piece of it and that is what I meant by the digital ownership economy. For example, if you enter The Sandbox in the metaverse, you can own a piece of land where you can build and lease it out.
NFTs can allow normal people to own, operate and earn from digital assets or earn from the internet. And that’s why NFTs will have massive potential.
Advice for those going through their first-ever crypto/NFT bear market?
Wei: This applies to NFTs and crypto tokens in general, but don’t try to catch the bottom. Stay invested in projects with a strong investment thesis behind them. I’m a strong believer of ETH, so I’ve been slowly buying it on its way down.
Lastly, make sure you’ve enough cash in the bank that you can last for the next 1 - 2 years.
Future of NFTs 5-10 years from now?
Wei: There are 2 themes which I see coming up - first is DeFi and another is gaming & metaverse. With the upcoming ETH merge and the yield coming from staking, that will be a core building block for the real DeFi. This is what I would call the crypto risk-free rate. It’s like having the US dollar treasury for gaming.
What we are doing at Coins is lowering the barrier of entry for crypto gaming and making the games more fun.
This will be a real driver, so in 5 - 10 years, we might all be hanging out playing games, socializing, spending, saving and trading in the metaverse.
Part 3: Coins’ roadmap into the wider metaverse
How does Coins not only survive, but continue to further build and develop its products despite the bear market?
Wei: We are currently hiring and building pretty aggressively now. We are also currently tearing down and rebuilding our tech stack from scratch again. This is to make our platform more scalable. Currently, Coins only supports ERC-20 chain due to our tech stack being quite old.
With the new tech stack, we should be able to support more chains. I’ve noticed that the community is requesting for BNB, Solana and Polygon chains. Once we build a solid and strong tech stack, we will be able to bring you more exciting tokens and more exciting dapps.
How is Coins driving 🇵🇭 crypto adoption and education through partnerships with Globe Telecom, Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) & Miss Universe Philippines (MUPH)?
Wei: By working with the mainstream brands and media outlets within the Philippines, we want to make crypto less intimidating because crypto to many people is still a pretty intimidating topic. Also, we strive to make crypto much more inclusive through these partnerships!
For Globe, we allow users to redeem their loyalty points with our crypto vouchers. It’s also so easy – open a Coins.ph account, convert your Globe loyalty points into crypto vouchers that you can use.
In Coins partnership with PBA, as long as you're watching some of these games, you can sign up for a Coins.ph account with our exclusive code coinspba and get P75 right away.
With MUPH, there should be more opportunities with the pageant contestants to help us to educate crypto ownership.
Upcoming P2E integrations with Coins.ph
Wei: We are actually working with a couple of gaming partners currently for that. We want to lower the barrier of entry for people to play weaponry games. The easiest way to do it is by playing the games directly from your Coins wallet without owning an NFT, paying a couple of hundred dollars upfront, or going through any of the hassles in getting started. Many times, there are almost 10 steps you need to take before actually playing the game.
At Coins, we want to make it easier and integrate a little bit deeper with a couple of games that people can play for free. A lot of games are now coming out with free-to-play mode, so if we can build that within the Coins game center, it will be a discovery zone for web3 games. Our users can then come in and try things out.
Read more about Gala Game’s Free-to-Play Townstar
How does Coins plan to lower the barrier to entry for NFT’s?
Wei: There are many NFT marketplaces out there where users can buy, sell and trade. So for us, we’re looking at it more deeply – “What can we do differently from these existing NFT marketplaces?”
Hence, we are taking a different approach such as working with our partners to come out with NFTs natively within Coins.
Updates on Coins Pro!
Wei: We are still in the beta phase. We should have an updated beta that we can roll out around mid to late October. We look to public release in November.
How can Coins help the integration of Metaverse with regards to Philippine industries and what key industries do you see Coins making huge waves in?
Wei: There’s a pretty massive opportunity for the metaverse in the Philippines. This is not necessarily in terms of just for the Philippine domestic market but actually using metaverse as a way for Philippine creators to bring their content into the global economy. The biggest advantage I see in the Philippines is the native English language. The Philippines is probably the most westernized country of all the Asian countries where there’s a Hollywood thematic culture (here).
Hence, we can actually become massive creators in the metaverse economy. For Coins, I want to figure out how we can activate the creator economy in the Philippines through the metaverse project and then help distribute that content on a global basis.
This is not our core focus right now as we prioritize building up our core product and servicing our users well. Once we get that traction off the board and have a very easy onboarding platform for users in web3, let’s figure out the next iteration of adding new content into the metaverse.
Frantick: Until then, see you #Coinmunity!
Disclaimer: The information and publications in this article are not intended to be and do not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice or recommendation offered or endorsed by Coins.
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