On June 6th, CoinEx organized a Twitter AMA with founder and CEO, Haipo Yang to celebrate ViaBTC’s 6th Anniversary. Users were encouraged to ask anything Haipo from company strategy to industry insights to personal interests. Hundreds of entries were collected, and here we’ve selected some of them to answer. Each selected asker is rewarded $50 worth of $CET.
About ViaBTC’s Products, Development and Future Plans
- @astaeren: There are many places where we can do mining. Why should we choose ViaBTC?
Haipo: ViaBTC’s primary advantages lie in technical stability and products & services.
As mining pools evolved over recent years, we have seen many changes in the landscape of top pools. Many new pools attempted to seize the market with subsidies but finally failed because when it comes to mining, stability outweighs everything else. If no block can be mined, all efforts go in vain. Therefore, ensured stability, superior performance, fast block synchronization, and low orphan rate are the keys to earning the trust of miners.
With strong technical guarantees, ViaBTC provides a mining network that runs stably 24/7 and has achieved the lowest orphan rate in the industry. Apart from that, the pool also features Hashrate Fluctuation Notification. When miners’ hashrate fluctuates, ViaBTC will give early warnings, which ensures stable mining revenue from multiple aspects.
Products and services are vital as well. ViaBTC Pool has provided many industry-first services, including PPS+ and Transaction Accelerator. Moreover, we have always insisted on openness and transparency by offering mining statistics that are obtainable through various visual representations. We introduced Auto Conversion to ensure the mining revenue during market swings; it rolled out Hedging Service and Crypto Loans to help miners lock in profits in advance and ensure the smooth circulation of funds. Always focusing on miners’ interests, ViaBTC strives to offer more practical, effective products and services.
- @AMINZD2000: I’m going to get into mining. Do I need a lot of capital and a strong system to get started?
Haipo: The mining of PoW coins relies on the workload as proof, which comes with demanding requirements. For instance, users do need sufficient funding to bankroll early-stage costs such as mining rigs, electricity fees, and daily O&M expenses. Of course, if you have a small budget, you can always choose cryptos with short payback periods.
To begin with, users planning to venture into crypto mining should choose the right mining farm, and the specific mining site will determine the electricity price and O&M expenses. Moreover, they should also account for the local policy of the region where the mining farm is located to make sure that policy-related uncertainties will not lead to extreme circumstances during the subsequent mining process.
Secondly, miners should pick suitable mining rigs. The hashrate and power of a mining rig determine the mining revenue and payback period. You can also check the specific revenue data of different mining rigs under [Tools] on our official website.
Once miners identify the right mining farm and mining rig, they can then get connected with ViaBTC Pool. We will assign different network tasks and keep the mining network stable, which means that miners do not have to worry about the system and network.
- @samiltasdemirr: What is your strongest advantage that you think will make your team leading the market?
Haipo: We have always placed great emphasis on our team. ViaBTC has always believed that “the team is a company’s most important product”. We regard our team as our core competitiveness and aim to achieve greater business success by building a strong team.
We have built a team of top-notch talents from different industries, many of whom have rich experiences in traditional Internet and finance. The ViaBTC team includes many of the earliest crypto practitioners, pioneers, and investors.
Such advantages allow us to rely on our experiences in traditional Internet and finance in terms of strategic planning and product design. Moreover, by combining such experiences with our unique insights into blockchain and cryptocurrency, we have managed to achieve steady growth. As I’m from a technical background, ViaBTC emphasizes the importance of code security, and has never suffered any major security breach since its inception. Backed by a strong team, ViaBTC Pool provides miners with a secure, steady mining environment.
- @Dav3sj: Do you have local language Telegram groups for non-English speaking investors? What languages do you support?
Haipo: At the moment, we have created Telegram groups in English, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and Persian. Our official website is now available in five languages: English, Russian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. In the future, ViaBTC will also support more languages according to user feedback and market developments.
- @YoNom15: Do you have any plans to integrate the platforms of CoinEx and ViaBTC? Because it satisfies both mining and trading users, and I think that an increase in new users can be expected.
Haipo: Although CoinEx and ViaBTC are independent of each other in terms of products, many of their functions are interconnected. For example, miners using ViaBTC Pool benefit from free, real-time withdrawals through CoinEx. This, coupled with mining revenue settled on an hourly basis, enables instant withdrawals at no cost. In the future, we will also consider expanding the functional combination between ViaBTC and CoinEx to make it easier for miners to trade cryptos on CoinEx.
- @Guseka881: What are ViaBTC’s target next year? What do you do to attract more investors into your ecosystem?
@sohelrkhan: What are your top priorities towards the end of 2022 and 2023? Can you share some plans for the coming year? And What do you think of that makes ViaBTC more attractive than other projects?
Haipo: In terms of the mining pool, we will keep refining our products, building a global presence, and providing first-rate, stable crypto mining services for users around the world.
Our efforts will extend to optimizing product experiences, including a series of improvements and upgrades in visual interactions and product functionality. Apart from that, we will also keep enhancing our bottom-layer tech structure, adopt solid security measures, and provide an efficient, stable mining network for miners.
We will continue to explore other business segments of ViaBTC Group from multiple dimensions, enhance the connections between the different products in the ViaBTC ecosystem, grant users easy access to the crypto industry, and provide more blockchain infrastructure services for crypto adopters.
Insights and Opinions on Today’s Market
- @Cybertech76Paul: As we have seen in the last month’s BTC drop, which dragged all the other tokens along, is there an impact for ViaBTC?
Haipo: During the past six months, affected by macroeconomic policies, geopolitical tensions, and the global pandemic, financial markets around the world have continued to plunge. Meanwhile, the crypto market, which is worth a trillion dollars, is bound to be affected by macroeconomic factors, which is the major culprit in the recent crypto slump. But ViaBTC don’t expect any impact.
Looking back on the financial growth in the past ten odd years, we can tell that the growth of financial markets and the crypto market are subject to growth cycles. Facing the current high inflation, many believe that a new round of quantitative easing will come from 2023 to 2024. Previous statistics indicate that the hit projects that flourished during the last bull market were all launched against bearish conditions. As such, in today’s bear market, both companies and investors should make preparations and stay patient and optimistic, enabling the high-speed growth of blockchain technologies and applications. As the market sentiment becomes more positive, and as the global economy recovers, everything will get better, and our efforts will surely be rewarded.
So under such circumstances, we should focus on development over the long run. For years, ViaBTC has always focused on long-term prospects, getting itself through 6 years of ups and downs in the crypto industry and earning extensive user recognition. Meanwhile, looking back, we have noticed that the crypto market has always spiraled upwards. Today’s market has progressed in terms of technical maturity, market scale, and user base. As such, we remain prudent but also optimistic and will continue to build better products for users.
- @connecting4191: Have the continued discussion of mining by governments and rising energy costs changed your goals and mission? How do you think ViaBTC should follow?
Haipo: In a world suffering from global warming and energy crisis, sustainable development has become a global consensus. We have seen many discussions about mining and the associated high energy consumption. However, it is not advisable to ban mining just to save energy. Therefore, we now focus more on mining with clean energy.
Always committed to the mission of “Via Blockchain, Making the World a Better Place”, ViaBTC is one of the staunch advocates of mining with clean energy and has been looking for solutions for energy sustainability that apply to the mining industry. For instance, we have partnered up with SAI.TECH, a Singapore-based operator of clean computing power that horizontally integrates computing power, electricity, and thermal energy.
The company invented the “recyclable triangle”: the heat generated by BTC mining rigs will be turned into clean, renewable thermal energy through waste heat recovery, and will further be used to power the Bitcoin mining rigs. This model can effectively reduce carbon emissions and realize the secondary utilization of energy.
According to the block explorer, the global BTC hashrate of ViaBTC Pool stands at about 20,360 PH/s. Meanwhile, the unit power consumption of Antminer S19 XP is 21.5W/terahash. Therefore, a hashrate of 20,360 PH/s means that 437,740kW will be consumed every second. However, if SAI.TECH’s liquid cooling + waste heat recovery technology is adopted, then 393,966kW of the energy could be reused every second.
As a world-renowned mining pool, ViaBTC has been keeping track of the latest development in clean computing power, and we hope to partner up with more institutions like SAI.TECH to strike a balance between clean energy and crypto mining and explore the future trend of the two fields.
- @arman972611: What do you think about the mining industry for the future?
Haipo: As a key link in the production of cryptocurrency, the mining industry will receive more market attention. Driven by Bitcoin, the №1 crypto, PoW mining will remain a critical part of the crypto ecosystem. At the moment, many big institutions are also paying attention to the mining business. In North America, some BTC-mining-focused funds have already been created.
Meanwhile, many listed companies are also buying Bitcoin or even venturing into BTC mining and building large mining facilities. As a result, more institutions have forayed into BTC mining. At the same time, many mining companies have gone public in the past two years, which is proof of great market popularity and recognition among investors.
In an industry filled with more institutions, all BTC miners, mining farms, and mining pools have to enhance their tech capacity and build better products. Through intense competition, BTC mining will grow increasingly specialized, and companies with inferior technologies and sub-par services will be outdated over time.
- @Selva30009369: How do you think our world will look in 5 years? Do you think it will be an economic fallout or do you feel that bitcoin will ease the eruption?
Haipo: Inflation rates in countries around the world remain at a high level. Meanwhile, the world still suffers from the lingering impact of COVID-19, as well as certain geopolitical conflicts. In light of these circumstances, many feel pessimistic about the future of the global economy. Yet, we believe that it is only a matter of time before these problems disappear. Although it might take five years or longer, once such issues go away, the world economy will start to recover.
At the same time, we have seen that blockchain and crypto technologies have always moved forward. After the economy rebounds, the advancement in such technologies will lead to huge changes and a new economic boom. We are confident that all aspects of our lives will be reshaped by the digital economy.
About CoinEx and $CET
- @Phoenix_dev1234: What is your vision on $CET What are your plans in increasing the value of $CET? What are your plans/ideas you can use to tackle crypto coin hackers?
Haipo: CET is envisioned as a cryptocurrency with real value and multiple use cases and functions. At the moment, CET can be used to pay for trading fees on CoinEx at a discount and enjoy VIP services and event privileges. Moreover, the token also acts as the “gas” of the CoinEx Smart Chain ecosystem.
Based on that, we will also improve the application value of CET from three aspects. Firstly, we will expand the scope of CET on CoinEx. For instance, CET holders will have more opportunities to invest in quality projects. Secondly, the CSC ecosystem will be enriched, with more premium projects and DApps available on CSC. Thirdly, we will strive for the adoption of CET in more external scenarios (e.g. payments).
As for security issues such as crypto hacking, we have accounted for such problems when designing our products. As security is the №1 concern among crypto users, we have repeatedly audited our codes and regularly conducted stress tests to keep the system safe. Additionally, the most secure wallet system is adopted to ensure wallet safety. Lastly, we will never misuse users’ assets for any purpose whatsoever. CoinEx promises to keep users’ assets safe and secure, and all withdrawals will be processed in time.
- @Aras_1400: Does CoinEx have plans to support and open up the market for NFTs? What mechanisms does the platform adopt to introduce new currencies?
JovaniJio05: As one of the rising blockhain platform, does CoinEx have plans to consider NFTmarket?
Haipo: We need to conduct comprehensive assessments to determine whether CoinEx will introduce the NFT market, and related plans will be announced, if any.
We have always attached great importance to token listing. After all, there are plenty of cryptos in the market. CoinMarketCap alone shows nearly 20,000 crypto assets. However, not all assets are good trading choices, and many of them are subject to great risks. Therefore, we have insisted on independently reviewing the token listing process while aiming to list a premium, well-rounded selection of assets as quickly as possible.
To begin with, quality is the №1 priority. We look for premium assets on a global scale by assessing projects from multiple dimensions, covering team background, tech innovation, community activity, and category-specific prospects. Secondly, backed by a coordinated, efficient token-listing team with perceptive market insights, CoinEx ensures fast token listing and helps users stay ahead of peers. Finally, while pursuing quality, we also focus on well-roundedness. CoinEx strives to offer an all-inclusive selection of premium cryptos that meet all trading demands.
Our insistence on independent token listing is aimed at providing CoinEx traders with reliable assets. We know that when it comes to the number of cryptos available, existing trading platforms suffer from either a lack of diversity or garbage assets. Therefore, our research team spends plenty of time screening the cryptos available in the market, helping users avoid risky assets. To a certain extent, CoinEx saves users the trouble of risk filtering. Eventually, when a user opens CoinEx, he will be able to easily get the kind of first-rate cryptos he wants.
About CoinEx Smart Chain
- @emersontntky: CoinEx Smart Chain is ideal for use due to its high efficiency and low fee. What other novelty does CSC offer that invites developers and users to join?
Haipo: CoinEx Smart Chain’s greatest advantages are its high efficiency and low fees. Moreover, the public chain is also fully compatible with EVM, which allows developers on Ethereum and other EVM-based public chains to easily migrate their DApps onto CSC.
In addition, the CSC Foundation has introduced the Multi-Million Dollar Supportive Plan to provide financial support for developers. Meanwhile, backed by the resources of ViaBTC Group, we will also support first-rate CSC projects in terms of liquidity, user traffic, and other aspects. For instance, CSC will help promising projects acquire investment from ViaBTC Capital, list cryptos on CoinEx, and conduct yield farming, offering all-encompassing ecosystem assistance to developers.
CSC uses CPoS, an innovative consensus mechanism, to protect users and keep the chain decentralized. At the moment, CSC users can also benefit from a full range of blockchain infrastructures, covering wallets, cross-chain bridges, blockchain explorers, etc. Of course, users care most about the user experience, so fast transactions and low fees are also vital.
- @Adityaroypspk: Since there are many DeFi hacks and attacks are happening, people leave millions in losses. What security measures will CoinEx implement with the DeFi apps that work on CSC that give investors confidence?
Haipo: The CPoS algorithm used by CoinEx Smart Chain effectively ensures the security of the public chain ecosystem. The community will also adopt strict security measures concerning the codes and nodes to keep the chain stable and safe. At the same time, we will encourage DeFi projects built on CSC to work with third-party auditing companies to ensure their coding security and keep users’ assets safe.
- @AsombraArt: As ViaBTC and CoinEx Smart Chain are always developing and evoling, how does CSC create a space where it is easier for artists to create and trade their artworks? How does CSC exploits NFTs potential?
Haipo: We encourage and support more artists to create NFTs on CSC. At the moment, there are already several third-party marketplaces where users can mint and trade NFTs on CSC. The public chain also features some NFT games and minting platforms. We have kept exploring the NFT category and will encourage developers to build more NFT-relevant apps by offering more ecosystem support and funding.
About ViaBTC Capital
- @kabir_XZ89: How ViaBTC Capital sees DeFi, NFT and Gamefi markets in the coming years? How does its partnership with CoinEx will help the sectors grow?
Haipo: We are confident in the long-term prospect of DeFi, NFT, GameFi, and the related crypto categories and have invested in many such projects. So far, ViaBTC Capital has invested in multiple promising projects that can stand the test of the market, covering projects that focus on infrastructure building, creative Web 3 applications, GameFi, innovative DeFi, etc.
Due to the previous market boom, these crypto categories abound with projects that significantly differ in terms of quality, which have blurred the judgment of many investors. Many premium projects will stand out from today’s bear market where all projects will have to rely on performance and products. Meanwhile, the growth in user demand and product performance will make the project increasingly valuable.
Today, projects can no longer profit from stories and endorsements like they used to. Therefore, we believe more outstanding projects will flourish in the next few years, and ViaBTC Capital will also adopt long-term investment strategies and stick through the current crypto bear together with promising projects.
Interesting Facts About Haipo Yang
- @theewhites: How did you first find out about Bitcoin? What did you think of it at the time, and how has your view changed since then?
I had my first introduction to Bitcoin and open-source software around 2011. At the time, fascinated by the technical principles of Bitcoin, I supported the view that we should facilitate industrywide progress by lowering the threshold of tech development via open-source coding. This led me to blockchain technology and the blockchain industry. Later on, I started to have some insights into the blockchain space. Back in 2013, I started running Bitcoin nodes and joined the building of the Bitcoin community. In March 2016, I completed all the code of ViaBTC Pool on my own in two months.
At the time, the inception of ViaBTC was motivated by factors relating to technology and product. Back then, the blockchain industry was in its infancy, and many technologies and products, including mining pools, were immature. Though the technical requirements for a mining pool are frequently underestimated, BTC mining pools are tech-intensive projects. Mining pools demand high stability and strong performance, which makes it a challenge to build a pool that’s sufficiently stable and efficient. In addition, mining constitutes a major part of the maintenance of the BTC network, and I wanted to drive Bitcoin toward a better future by building a mining pool.
These were the initial motivations behind ViaBTC Pool — I wanted to build a great product that would become the infrastructure of the blockchain world. Later on, more and more users chose to trust us, and our team expanded. Right now, ViaBTC is not just a mining pool. It is an ecosystem that covers CoinEx, ViaWallet, CSC, and ViaBTC Capital. The final goal of all these products is to facilitate blockchain progress by providing reliable services for crypto users across all categories.
- @BeenEkonomistim: What was the most difficult issue for you during the construction and development phase of ViaBTC?
It was frustrating when our products were not recognized by the market. For example, CoinEx’s user base was very small at the very beginning. However, as we overcame such difficulties, they became memorable milestones. As the exchange grows and evolves, we keep refining our products, building a global presence, and offering reliable, satisfying services, thereby earning more user recognition and attracting more users. To date, ViaBTC Group’s products are recognized by over 4 million users across more than 200 countries, which is an achievement in which our team and I take great pride.
Thank you all for your questions, and congrats to the winners. We’ll see you soon. Happy 6th Birthday to ViaBTC!
Follow ViaBTC on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ViaBTC
Follow Haipo Yang on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yhaiyang