Tokenplace head of content Gleb Sidorkin answered questions from the XT team and audience members in Telegram:
Can you give our audience a brief introduction of TOK?
Tokenplace is building the greatest next-generation trading platform. It’s also the gateway to cryptocurrency trading for the next generation. Right now, the crypto trading industry is maturing. With a number of excellent exchanges like XT.com out there, traders want to trade on multiple exchanges without the hassle. So we offer a product for pro traders, which will be released this year, and a single-KYC crypto hub that aims to be the entry point for new users wanting to invest in digital assets. Of course, a single account from which to trade on all exchanges will be useful for pro traders as well! But they can also keep their exchange accounts, and take advantage of Tokenplace’s unique multi-exchange order splitting tools via API.
Can you introduce the core team members of TOK? We hear that the team is highly experienced, can we get some examples?
I already referred to the maturation of the crypto market, which is very real right now. Our team is perfect for this moment, with a balance of strong business experience in the corporate world, the start-up world, and in crypto. Our CEO Nina Knox worked at Big 4 consulting firms in Russia before continuing her career in the USA, where she worked with many different startups. She became interested in crypto, and became an advocate for promoting development in the field, especially for the role of women. Evgeny, who incidentally went to the same elite Moscow high school as Nina, also had strong corporate experience, and was a successful entrepreneur in VR. He became a crypto trader, and soon realized that the market needed a solid solution for multi-exchange trading. I used to teach Russian language and literature at Harvard, but have always had a passion for finance since I was a college student in Manhattan from 2005-2008. When crypo emerged as a powerful force, I decided the disruptive potential of crypto was something I wanted to participate in. I believe Tokenplace is a great project for bringing crypto forward as a truly powerful force.
In the Crypto industry, what do you think of the current state? What do you think needs to be improved?
Overall, the state of the crypto industry is very strong right now. Average people’s ability to access basic crypto operations, like purchasing bitcoin, is skyrocketing, along with media attention. We are moving towards a new stage where the number of people using crypto will be in the billions instead of millions, and we need to be ready.
While there are great exchanges out there, like XT.com, there is a lack of a really good tool for trading on multiple exchanges. Tokenplace is the first platform to truly offer smart multi-exchange trading. And we want to become a hub for everything from crypto/fiat, to Defi, to day trading and arbitrage. Ultimately this benefits the whole market, making it more efficient and driving user engagement.
How does the TOK team plan to tackle these issues to reach mass adoption?
We have a clear vision of what needs to be done for the next generation of crypo trader. A single gateway, aggregating liquidity from the whole market, with good prices on fiat/crypto and a super-well-designed interface. We think there needs to be more attention paid to the user experience! So there is a strong combination we are working from: on one hand, we’re bringing institutional-grade tools to the retail market, so our technology can stand on its own. On the other hand, we’re totally focused on user experience, so the technology is all “under the hood.” The user drives a high-performance trading engine from the comfort of a leather cabin.
Currently, there are many projects sprouting up strongly, so why should we choose Tokenplace and not other projects? What are the strengths of Tokenplace?
I think the strength of our project is truly the long-term vision, which makes it possible for us to really become a huge company and attract millions of users. Right now, lots of projects are emerging that don’t have the global vision for the future of crypto. What will crypto look like in 5-10 years? There are lots of competitors out there, but we’ve been working for years to create a plan to become the go-to destination for crypto, DeFi, etc. We can look at the success of companies like Binance and Coinbase, and project forward to a time when there will be way more crypto users and a next generation of gateways into crypto. This will be Tokenplace: your home base for digital assets. We have the team and the vision to become dominant in Crypto 2.0, so join our community and help us build the infrastructure of the future!
What is your timeline, and what can we look forward to from TOK?
Right now, we’re driving towards a release of our API-based multi-exchange service in Q3 of this year. We just had an investment round using our token, TOK, with the help of the TrustSwap launchpad. Now we can accelerate our progress on this release. Once the Beta release happens, we’ll work hard to build up a community of traders using Tokenplace. A strong core group of traders will help us get the liquidity (and credibility) to launch Token Trade and the single-KYC version of Tokenplace. So our focus now is to tell traders about our API product, which has powerful multi-exchange tools not available anywhere else.
Security & User Interface are the most important aspects that users see on a platform. How has Tokenplace worked on this? Is Platform suitable for Newbies in the crypto field?
I agree, those are two key aspects of our product. We have a great security team, but we realize that the challenge of encryption, storage, and constant maintenance is too great to be done ourselves. This is why we are partnering with https://www.vaultproject.io/. Vault is a very strong encryption and secrets management system. It is open-source, so their code is constantly being tested both internally and by a large community. The interface is something we’ve been focused on for a long time. We’re very excited to be able to release our redesigned Beta product in the next quarter. If you check out our website tokenplace.com, you’ll see that we have a good design team! The idea is for it to be very welcoming to newbies and contain the tools needed for pros. And then having ‘everything under one roof’ will also be appealing to new crypto users.
What are your plans for token holders and people who stake your tokens?
In the short term, we have some plans in the works for liquidity mining, but can’t release the details just yet. Long-term, TOK will be the native token of our ecosystem, with many functions. First will simply be discounts on subscriptions to the platform, etc. Then, TOK will go beyond simply a utility token, since it will be the “medium of exchange” between our liquidity pools at various exchanges. Furthermore, we plan to build an ecosystem of tokens for companies of all kinds, called Tokenplace Delta, and are also working on a “cross-coin” tokenomics model to bridge the crypto world and the real world. Please check out our whitepaper for more details on our plans for TOK!
Can you share TOK opinion on DeFi ? What steps are already being taken towards the future progress of TOK ?
Our upcoming Beta release will integrate CEXs into a single window, but we hope to follow that very soon with DEX integration, and other DeFi tools following that. We’ve had great experiences working with DEXs like UniSwap and Balancer during our recent launch of TOK, and working with XT.com has also been great. The landscape is always changing, but our vision is to bring everything under one roof!
What can we expect to see from this project in the short-term (at some point in 2021) and 2022 and beyond (long-term goals)?
I’ve spoken a lot about the big picture, so let me talk about the short term. This will also cover our ‘killer features.’ Right now we are working to communicate about our project, build up the community so we can get some traction with the TOK token. In Q3 we will release our Beta version. The competitive advantage of our beta release is our smart order routing / order-splitting service. Right now multi-exchange terminals like Coinigy offer a trading UI, but you are still switching back and forth between different exchanges, trading on them individually. In our Beta release, you will be able to connect 30+ exchanges, select them all, and put in an order that will be executed optimally. Our Smart Post order type splits the order and makes it stealthy. So in the near-term, we will start saving our users lots of money by optimizing their trades, and saving them lots of time by providing multi-exchange trading.
If regulations change tomorrow, how to incorporate them into your business? How to comply with regulatory authorities in terms of KYC and AML?
The regulatory questions certainly loom large in the minds of everyone building businesses in the crypto space. However, we are confident that ultimately we will be able to reach a compromise with regulators. A few years ago, it seemed like there was a chance that regulators would step in and “make crypto illegal,” but today it seems like we have reached a tipping point. The industry is worth trillions of dollars, and is not going away. This will be a difficult process, however, as recent events in China have shown. Since the very start of our project, Tokenplace has begun laying the groundwork to work with regulators. Our CEO Nina Knox is New York-based, and has great connections with top attorneys, whom we have already spoken with. She also worked with the Digital Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC, and our advisor Dan Spuller is active in Washington as well. Since the US regulators often set the tone for the rest of the world, we think we have a good finger on their pulse. And as we grow our presence in different countries, we will put a lot of resources into making sure we’re on top of things from a legal standpoint.
What is the roadmap for the next six and twelve months? The Covid-19 pandemic and global crisis is very complex , how will it affect the $TOK development plan? What is the future direction of $TOK?
We are very excited for 2021 and 2022. The Beta release is fast approaching, but what is most exciting is that our ultimate goal of single-KYC access to the whole market is also not far away. We already have the basic technology to make it happen. The COVID crisis has been terrible for everyone, of course, but people have been sitting at home and more and more of them have had time to look into crypto trading, which is great for us. And our team is a global one, so we haven’t had any disruptions to our operations.
How will you be an intermediary for those who want to work with your team in TOK ‘s talent search and how will you evaluate candidates in terms of the quality of their work and access to their social accounts?
There are a lot of questions about our community, how we plan to build and develop it, so I will answer this one. We are still in early stages, of course, and talking to you all is a great step forward! We are in talks with a company called GameChangers to help us bring content to Chinese audiences, and will reach out to people with strong social media followings. Ultimately, however, the key is to have organic growth in the community. I think a key point in our development will be when we release the Beta version, and traders can start making videos of how it works. I personally will be looking for people who are using our product and posting about it, and reach out to them. We need great user-generated content that we can then collaborate with and promote. We are hoping to create communities in various languages soon: we are a global project!
Why did you decide to unite the cryptographic world with spirituality? Any particular personal experience you wish to share with us?
This is a great question! We’ve never spoken about spirituality before, but it’s a good way to look at our motivations for getting into crypto in the first place. Let me tell you my personal story. I was a student at NYU in 2008 when the market started to collapse. I lived near Wall Street, and I was on the water polo team with guys who were interning at the big banks like Bear Stearns. So when all that started happening, I started reading the Financial Times cover-to-cover every day and got a great education in finance! As the system seemed like it was falling, it was a good time to learn about it. And I didn’t like what I learned. The system of the big banks is fundamentally anti-democratic and immoral. In 2008 everyone could see it, but living in Manhattan I could see it all around me— all these powerful people with so much money, earned from a fundamentally unfair system. Around the same time, Bitcoin started to take off. There are a lot of people online who complain about the financial system, and just sit around waiting for it to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. The people working to develop crypto, on the other hand, are actually actively building a better alternative. A better world. So yes, crypto and DeFi are a way to work towards fairness, brotherhood, and love. All over the world, without borders!
Anything else do you want to share with our community?
I would like to invite everyone to join our community on Telegram! We’re very excited to connect with your audience. It’s especially interesting for me to meet people in China. Our team has experienced the crypto scenes in the USA and Russia first-hand, but I’m eager to learn about what’s happening in China.
Stay tuned for more info and follow us at:
- Website: tokenplace.com
- White Paper: tokenplace.com/white-paper
- Twitter: @TokenplaceTOK
- Telegram Community: @tokenplace
- Telegram Announcement channel: @TokenplaceAnnouncement
- FAQs: tokenplace.com/faq
