Arut: In late 2016, my journey into the world of cryptocurrency began. It was truly eye-opening when the bitcoins I received as payment for the debt went up in value. I was astonished to learn that during that period, a single bitcoin had surged to $2700. From that point I delved deep into the cryptocurrencies, striving to comprehend the factors behind this asset's growth.
During 2017, I participated in every possible ICO. Most of the projects where I participated gave very big Xs. For example, I participated in Binance ICO. At the time, I was one of the biggest BNB holders. I bought 1,300,000 tokens at 25 cents, then sold my BNBs for $1.3 per token. Those were my first big crypto Xs, but I regretted selling tokens so early afterward a million times. At its peak, my portfolio could have been worth almost $800 million. I learned an important lesson from that situation: the best thing about crypto is Hodl.
At the end of 2017, the cryptocurrency market began to fall. Hysteria broke out: people lost faith in Bitcoin. During that period, my partner and I began to devote less time to the crypto sphere, focusing on the parallel business, which brought stable cash flow.
Bistox
In 2018 we set up the Bistox crypto exchange. The exchange is a very expensive and complex product, which is extremely difficult to implement technically. I learned from my own mistakes, I remember how hard it was. I was closing the Bistox project with a loss of $4 million.
Morningstar Ventures
In 2020, I met Danilo Carlucci in an Indian restaurant. We quickly found common ground and soon decided to get into deals together, creating Morningstar Ventures. At the time, I had a company called Morningstar Technology. The name was sound, so we took it for our new company.
Since then, we've invested in projects like MultiversX, Superfarm, 1inch, STEPN, and Hashflow. There were so many Superstar projects, an hour would not be enough time to list them all.
EXBI
At the beginning of 2023, I left Morningstar Ventures. We decided that Danilo would handle all the investment projects, and I focused on my projects, one of which was EXBI. Not long ago we announced our transformation into a Launchpad platform.
How did the idea for Launchpad come about?
Arut: We possess expertise in project launches, encompassing team building, investor relations, and user acquisition. Organizing these processes has consistently been one of my strong suits. For example, with the help of my networking, it was possible to attract 1,100,000 users to the Walken project. In addition, many people in the CIS learned about STEPN because of our high-quality work. Launchpad is exactly the kind of product that still hasn't become a unicorn, so I won't rest until I bring it to success.
Askar: I am from Kazan, I have been involved in programming for many years. In 2017 I became interested in crypto. I worked in different well-known companies: for example, Sberbank. At the moment I’m working with Arut in the position of CEO and creating an interesting Web3 product.
Askar: Right now the focus is on launching the EXBI launchpad. Regarding CEX: We will add a fiat pay-in function, P2P, and in 2024 we will add futures with margin trading.
Arut: The right thing to do at the moment is to move to DEX, that's the number 1 goal. Looking at the FTX example, we see that the assets that are on CEX are not your funds. Our goal is to make EXBI decentralized because there is nothing better than decentralization.
It is important to clarify again: we are a Launchpad platform and the spot is a nice addition.
Arut: The percentage is floating. It's not always 14%. The percentage could also go down to 3-4%. We do this to keep the platform liquid. Most of the commissions that we earn from the spot we give back to the users.
Askar: It is also worth mentioning that pools with high-interest rates are more of a marketing thing. In addition, they have their limitations: not everyone will be able to place their funds.
Askar: The main idea of the Launchpad is to create an easy entrance to token sales for newbies. Also with the ability to buy project tokens for fiat. We want guys from CIS countries to have an opportunity to take part in launching promising Web3 projects. Also, we have a KYC procedure on the Launchpad.
Askar: We will have 2 formats:
Askar: Yes, we are using some means to struggle with multi-accounts + we have a good KYC provider.
Arut: We will try to work in a way that sanctions will not touch our users.
Arut: We are tuning in to the expertise. It's aimed at business-oriented projects. Unlike launchpads, which care about making a pump/dump, our job is to make sure that people develop business. So we will only provide our users with a quality product. In addition, new projects have to appear on the market to avoid monopolizing the industry. The Web3 space should be decentralized.
Arut: We don't have any specific preferences by area. If the project team is strong, if the team understands Web3, and if it has a background - we're ready to discuss cooperation. We also do compliance and research.
Arut: In my opinion, the next trend is complete decentralization and anonymity. The non-smart trend is AI. Most investors in AI tokens have no idea where they are putting their money.
We need to go back to crypto serving as a way to pay and create apps for quick transactions. We need to leverage the strengths of blockchain 100%.
Arut: We will work with projects that have MVPs. We also plan to create an incubator where we will help assemble teams and bring good ideas to life.
Arut: Tokensale exclusively will only be hosted by us.
Arut: We're in favor of people thinking with their heads. For example, Amazon was showing great profits at the height of its development, and its stock was going down. So we can conclude: the development of the project doesn’t depend on token price movements up or down.
We will do our job qualitatively and provide detailed information to future investors.
Arut: The token will be released this year. Utility: all commissions and staking will go through our token.
Arut: I'll make it short: AirDrop.
Arut:
Arut: We have guys who have worked at Yandex, Mail.ru, Sber, and VK. Our team mostly worked in the Web2 space.
Askar: An exchange is a very complex technological product. It has to have low delays and a large number of simultaneous working orders. Most of the problems have to do with programming and architecture.
Arut:
Arut:
Askar: We do a lot of audit reports. Some partners and teams conduct them.
Arut: We will have a Web3 decentralized platform. However, at the moment it doesn't make sense to use DAO elements, because DAO is where the richest decide. We want decisions to be fair, not triggered by money.