While last year saw the rise of cryptocurrencies, presently the craze is now everywhere and main-stream. We can hardly live a day without another news cycle on digital assets, as more and more people are lured to the industry looking for life-changing opportunities. Some have managed to reach new heights, though some others have left disappointed, with no desire to get back.
Covesting, a fintech startup launched by former Saxo Bank executives, believes there could be much more people happy within the crypto space. Unlike others however, Covesting knows how to accomplish this.
Presently, Covesting is building a comprehensive cryptocurrency trading infrastructure to become the ultimate solution for cryptocurrency traders. Finance Magnates spoke with Dmitrij Pruglo, Covesting’s CEO, to discuss how cryptocurrency trading will look in future (not least because of Covesting).
Could you tell us a few words about yourself and background as well as your diverse work experience in the finance space?
I have over 12 years of experience dealing in various asset classes: FX, options, futures, equities, commodities, complex OTC structured products and bonds. I am well familiar with most trading platforms available on the market today and have been involved in the development of several algorithmic trading strategies.
After working at Saxo Bank for several years I decided I should try myself as an entrepreneur, especially given the fact that new opportunities, such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies, kept emerging. I thought this is the right moment to make some contribution to the financial industry, that I could create a truly revolutionary project using my experience.
What is Covesting’s overall project is about? Who will the project’s solutions cater to?
We are building the ultimate solution for cryptocurrency traders. Our project has a comprehensive infrastructure. The core of our project is a cryptocurrency trading platform, which is already operational and currently in Beta testing stage.
We are working on the introduction of such features as copy-trading and algorithmic trading. We want to offer cryptocurrency traders a win-win approach: experienced traders will be able to showcase their capabilities, while novice traders will be able to track performance of successful traders and benefit together with them.
In addition, our project will feature liquidity aggregation and the exchange, so our clients will have a great choice of assets and prices.
How has the project been progressing and what have been the latest developments at Covesting?
We have been working really hard in late December last year. This was in many respects thanks to our experienced team that includes highly skilled professionals with background in trading, investment banking, blockchain, AI, data, and fintech (Saxo Bank, SEB Bank, JP Morgan, Zurich Insurance and others) with accumulated trading experience of over 100 years.
We held a presentation of our trading platform in February, which was already operational by that time, and community members gave it a – many said we exceeded their expectations. We have already launched beta testing at the moment to eliminate all bugs and make our platform as user-friendly as possible.
Cryptocurrencies are a new area, and there are lots of fraudsters who take advantage of the fact that little is known about this industry. We, in our turn, want to show the community from the very beginning that we have serious intentions and we fulfil our promises. We believe the market is mature enough for solid players to appear.
You mentioned one of your goals is to popularize cryptocurrencies, how does Covesting accomplish this feat?
Yes, that’s true, and that is why we are building , which is an important addition to our trading platform. We want to help traders make weighted decisions that lead to success, and there is the latest news, live quotes, trade ideas proposed by experienced traders, educational re-sources at their disposal on Crypto Intelligence Portal.
We will also expand this initiative further by introucing a forum, podcasts, as well as technical analysis lessons we are about to upload. We cannot overestimate the importance of education for this industry that is just taking shape.
We strongly believe that cryptocurrencies have a huge potential and educating people about the opportunities put forward by cryptocurrencies is very beneficial for the society.
Aren’t you afraid that volatility, market turbulence, and governmental regulations will eventually discourage people from using cryptocurrencies?
Cryptocurrencies are a new phenomenon, and market volatility is really high right now, that is why it is inevitable that many people may lose trust in the market as well as they money. Covesting’s platform has already “priced in” all these factors and we are building it with a view to help people profit not only on positive trends on the market, but also during turbulent times.
Professional investors will be able to help novice traders make right decisions. Also, our educational infrastructure will support investors in the decision-making process.
What do you think about existing exchanges? There are a lot of them already – what advantages does Covesting have over its competition?
I am very enthusiastic that the market is rapidly developing and becoming more sophisticated. Unfortunately, many cryptocurrency trading platforms have very similar problems. First, they are not transparent, their customers are not fully aware of their operating principles and guidelines, if there are any clear guidelines at all.
Such a platform may in fact wind down all its operations and disappear in the blink of an eye, eroding trust in the crypto industry. Also, many cryptocurrency exchanges are registered offshore, in jurisdictions, which offer no protection for customer assets.
Unfortunately, these jurisdictions do not set out any requirements for the quality of the company’s operations. This is a serious risk for the reputation of the industry, and I really look forward to the implementation of proper legislation for blockchain and cryptocurrency-related companies.
Finally, many exchanges do not think it is necessary to offer customer protection. At Covesting, we are working towards a much more serious approach, we want to move industry standards considerably higher.
We are registered in Gibraltar, one of the friendliest and at the same time strict jurisdictions for blockchain companies. We are now working towards getting a DLT license, and this is another signal to the community that we are serious about our business.
We have recently asked a security audit firm to examine all loopholes in our platforms, and we are going to perform such audits regularly. Finally, we have 24/7 multilingual support that will be able to help users immediately if they experience any problems.
We recently launched user support as early as at the stage of beta testing and are building a solid platform with serious intentions. We want our customers to feel safe and secure from the very beginning. This gives us a considerable edge over other players, as many of them do not offer reliable support to their customers.
We have witnessed lots of crypto exchange hacks recently, which has had a negative impact on the reputation of the industry and pulled the market down. Why do you think people will trust you and trade on Covesting’s exchange?
First, we comply with very strict safety standards. Our platform features a cold storage and multi-cluster system architecture, full data encryption and anti-DDoS protection. Second, DLT framework requires that cryptocurrency businesses registered in Gibraltar must comply with the highest standards of risk management, client asset protection, corporate governance, IT systems and controls, and financial crime prevention.
Furthermore, as I have already said, we invest hugely in security: security audits by in-dependent industry experts. In addition, we are going to launch a bug bounty program soon, as it will help us become one of the safest platforms on the market.
What do you think about the competition on the cryptocurrency market?
Social trading is being implemented by several companies at the moment. Meanwhile, our pace, speed of development, and a big variety of services allow us to be ahead of the market. We have set our benchmarks very high, and we are going to stay the frontrunner in the future as well. Of course, I wish good luck to all startups – the fact that they are creating services and products to help users and investors yields a positive effect on the industry.
What are Covesting’s plans for 2018 and beyond?
Our plans for this year are to keep achieving our goals and setting new ones as actively as we have been doing before. We have done our best not only to deliver on our promises, but also to exceed expectations of the community by fully meeting all the announced deadlines and rolling out projects, whose quality was much better than expected. And that is how we are going to progress further.
We will continue to work with beta testers to improve the user experience, add new features and scale every part of the project. We see how our product is improving every day, our developers with the help of our users and beta testers are polishing it non-stop, and we have already received very positive feedback from the community about the platform.
We will launch several more releases to continue with implementing more complex functions very soon. In H2, we will be ready to start massive user acquisition once our license and infrastructure is fully in place. And, of course, we will do our best to become a truly ultimate and most complete and legally compliant solution for investors and traders worldwide.
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