Cryptocurrency is at its peak of influence today, especially for those seeking to improve their assets.
Coins.PH’s CEO, Wei Zhou, is no stranger to this goal as he explained in a Tech Times Exclusives the company’s goals – not just in flourishing its standing in the industry, but more in helping people from Southeast Asia, specifically from the Philippines, in knowing more about the legal crypto exchange.
Coins.ph is the largest crypto exchange in the Philippines. Wei shared that they are licensed by the BSP, the central bank in the Philippines. The company has been around since 2014 and is one of the first cryptocurrency wallet exchange in the country. It is the place where a lot of Filipinos go for the first time to buy Bitcoin.
The CEO revealed that the company has gone through a couple of iterations in terms of the investor group that he’s a part of. “We actually purchased Coins.PH from Gojek, which is one of the largest sharing conglomerates in Southeast Asia. Then the deal went through approved by the regulator in February of this year,” Wei pinpointed.
Wei observed that crypto price moves very violent, and it always moves on the weekends like Saturday night or Sunday morning when everybody is asleep and taking some time off – that is when these up and down movements can be seen.
“Crypto is not for the fake, especially you know you’re a junkie and you like to see price movements again I think that that’s one sort of general theme right, but that being said if you can sort of look beyond daily price movements, I think it’s actually a really exciting place to be in especially if you want to be a part of a sort of what I call like almost like a global movement, where you can have control over your own assets,” Wei said.
The biggest thing that has been Wei’s takeaway from cryptocurrency is the ability for you to own your funds, invest your funds, and then move your funds.
The clarity in the United States regulations towards cryptocurrency, specifically not fully knowing the regulator and regulating the market correctly, are a few reasons Wei likes APAC more. He even said that he could be doing the same thing as how APAC regulates for his post-finance career; as he is focused on Southeast Asia, specifically, it has something to do with the regulations.
He further expressed that SEC is basically regulating through enforcement rather than through transparent and clear policies about what is allowed for businesses, investors, and institutional investors that basically all want to come in.
Wei added, “I mean I think there’s general interest among global institutional investors leading investment banks endowments retirement funds. They kind of want to come in here right they see this opportunity, but they don’t know if what I’m investing in is that going to be illegal or make you know mandatory legal illegal right by one investor class I think that unclarity is actually being one of the contributors for this you crypto winter or bear market right now. “
As a business, Wei thinks that what you need are both transparency and certainty. Citing these reasons for his company in choosing APAC, at least they know the regulators are open in terms of having an open dialogue. They have laws in black and white about how to get licensed, and once someone is a licensed player, these are the rules that you kind of have to follow to become to stay in the Philippines.
Read Also: Filipina Woman at the Forefront of Blockchain Technology
Wei believes that the Philippines is a unique place, but there are no as many sorts of founder-entrepreneur exist in the country, evidently because Coins. ph is one of the first of the earliest successful ones in the field of cryptocurrency, which speaks to a sort of like looked to not as a place for an entrepreneur, just like many people.
Wei expressed that there are a lot of international banks that have a significant amount of compliance and back office operation in the Philippines. But they do not really teach entrepreneurship.
“I think we’ve seen a lot of that over and we’ve probably seen more Filipino entrepreneurs or companies being built out of the Philippines over the last three years than any time, and sort of the history around the country, so I think that that’s actually what’s really interesting about the Philippines,” Wei said.
He shared that he was not originally from the Philippines, as he is a Chinese-American, born in China and grew up in the US. But since his college years, the last 20 years, he has been physically based out of Asia, spending time in Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore, and now Manila.
After spending almost at least three months in the Philippines, he saw a lot of similar trends in growth perspective that he saw when he first moved to Beijing in the early 2000s, in terms of “youthful energy.” This grew his willingness to try new technology and things that youthful vitality, is quite common for.
“Looking back like in the days, Philippines is actually one of the top countries from the youth perspective, like Facebook has a massive following years passed even until now, and today, TikTok has a mass following too, and if you go around, if you travel around southeast Asia, Philippines probably one of the few countries other than Singapore where you know the billboard that you see are all in English interest,” he mentioned.
With that condition, people are considered to be very savvy, like how people in the Philippines consume western movies for entertainment, without any subtitles or dubbing, which makes it interesting.
“That’s why I think like building coins into not just sort of you know helping Filipinos to access digital assets, I actually think we can reverse it in terms of helping Filipinos to create digital content and digital assets for consumption in the global economy and I think that’s what we’re seeing from an entrepreneur to building perspective and that’s fun as long as I’ve been really passionate about my business that’s good points about digital assets about crypto,” he added.
The company extends its reach of service in the Philippines as Coins.ph officially sealed a deal of partnership with the Philippine Basketball Association last July 31, 2022, at Mall of Asia Arena.
As per the website of Coins.ph, they explained that the partnership aims to increase the Filipinos’ awareness on blockchain, digital ownership, web3, and NFTs. Suffice to say, the Philippines is being prepared to become a financially empowered nation through crypto education and engagement.
“The PBA is a good avenue to do these education initiatives as several basketball players are already well-involved with crypto,” Coins.ph stated on their website.
When asked if they are going to do anything game-related? Wei immediately responded, “Yeah, we are.”
He detailed that he wants to have QR codes where people can scan in games, play some of these, and then try to win some NFT during the games.
For more information, please watch the video interview here.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Riene Cortes
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