The Live Expert Talk: Cryptocurrency and Blockchain was held on Friday 25 June 2021. GetLinks invited 3 Thai experts in this industry which are
- Khun Keng, Pongsakorn Sutantayawalee, a Chief Product Officer from Bitkub Online
- Khun Tum, Kowit Charoenratchatabhan, a CEO and Co-founder from Dopple Finance
- Khun Dome Charoenyos , Founder of DomeCloud
by having Khun Ae, Pichaya Srifah, CTO and Co-founder from GetLinks to host the event
under 2 sessions;
- Q&A about Cryptocurrency and Blockchain
- Panel Discussion topic: Cryptocurrency towards the future of work
Starting with the Q&A session. We collect lists of questions and feedback from interviewing the young generation about what they thought about Cryptocurrency and the industry.
Ae: Some people think that Bitcoin is already too late. The return could not be that high as any other coin. Is this statement true or not? how?
Dome: Now in the Crypto market, there is no difference because every coin is in a downtrend. To buy coins and go high, maybe it's a Glue coin (Ridiculous and risky coin). While Bitcoin is in many people's hands. It's not easy for someone who wants to raise the price. Other coins which have a higher profit potential than Bitcoin, maybe it's risker. But if you're ready, you can take a risk.
Tum: I used to think that investing in Bitcoin was too late. Bitcoin price was 1 BTC to 500 baht in 2011. At that time, it was considered very expensive. But It has been increasing somehow. For those who held BTC for more than 5 years, no one lost profit now. Bitcoin keeps growing compared to USD. So if you start investing today and loss your profit tomorrow, it may be right. But if you hold it long enough as a long-term investment, there is almost zero chance of losing. The graph continues increasingly. So I think it's never too late to invest in BTC. Right now it's still the consumer market. But when the day that corporate come in, the market will change again. So now it's not too late. This is just the beginning
Ae: Some find it way too serious (For example, they need to focus on a graph or information analysis) that they don't want to be that stressful. So they decide not to buy it. Is this statement true or not?
Tum: There is a way to make it not stressful. It's a risk at each level. If it's a long-term investment, you put your money and keep waiting for DCA, it doesn't have to be stressful. You don't have to look at the graph at all. But you want to be a trader. No matter, there will be a swing up and down for sure. Personally, I divided my investment portfolio into medium-risk, low-risk, high-risk. If it's a very low-risk, I go into stable coins and I get quite good returns but not very well. However, The return is still better than depositing my money in the bank.
Dome: It's stressful for sure because there is a timing for each investment. Let's say when opening a new farm. It would take about 10 days before their price went down so I still had time to take a look. But after that, when it started to decrease, people would sell. Recently, It won't take days but only hours. For example, when investing money and the next hour, it appeared that the price super low. This is definitely stressful if you choose to play the coin that has just been released. Everyone is already competing with each other. You have to look at the graph by the minute.
Keng: If you are stressed, It seems like you go to war with bare hands. So, you should have a weapon first. The first weapon is the tool you use to trade. You should deeply know how it works The second is the platform that you use, Do they have the facility to set up additional strategies or not? For example, Stop Limit, You can set if the price reaches this point to send what kind of Limit Order. Fundamentally humans fear and stress because they don't know it. So if you don't know, you should find out what you don't know.
Ae: Some feel that they do not yet have enough knowledge to invest in Bitcoin as they want to know or understand it first. So, for the beginner, what do they need to know before making the decision?
Tum: At least you have to know the coin you are about to invest in? In fact, you should assess coin for two things: Financial Risk and Technical Risk. It will help you understand whether this can go on or not. There are many tokens launched to the market from product to non-product. For long-term investment, you have to see it will have its product or not? or is there a model that really can go on? Most of the things that I invest in will be the one that has a clear business model that can generate money in the future.
Dome: Knowledge is very important especially in the DeFi's world. You have to read the contract, have a trusted friend or you can read the Audit Code. In addition, we need to look at what kind of investment we are going to make. For example, if it's short-term, there are not many things to consider, you can just look at the price for 3 days. Let's say if you're lucky to get 2-3 times the price from the farm, you get out in time or get out quickly, you don't have to consider much. But if you want to take longer, you need to see that what this farm basically does, where does the fee money come from to support the buyback?
Ae: As we can see, Elon Musk's Tweets had some effect on Bitcoin, how did it relate mechanically? And are there any other factors that also directly relate to Bitcoin that we should study and follow?
Keng: Things like this happen a lot in the crypto world. In 2016-2017, there were coins like this. A good market is easy to receive news, just posting on Twitter that having dinner with a famous company, its coin's price is double high. Or there was a news that McDonald's will use this coin in POS machines then the coin's price is double high as well. It's a news mechanism. There are many backgrounds behind it. The market does the same thing over and over again.
Dome: If we look at the fundamentals of Bitcoin, there is a fundamental factor like if you buy, it will go up or if you sell, it will go down. Everything else is nothing but waiting for the news, waiting for the trend, waiting for something. If there's no news, It will keep a sideways trend. I think Elon Musk is quite outstanding. He came out to support this sometimes. For the very first time, it might work well because it's new. I don't think he is manipulating the price. His every movement was just profitable. Let's see how much effect he will make for the next time.
Tum: I think it reflects that humans not only use reasonable but also emotionally determined to buy coins. There is no reason for it to increase the price that much, but people are easily driven by feelings.
The second session would go deeper into the future perspective. We focused on “How Cryptocurrency and Blockchain affect the future of work.”
Ae: Each panelist has their tech background or involved in the tech industry, Do you think this is related to step into cryptocurrency or not? and how is the difference to be a tech or a non-tech person?
Tum: I think it's very influential. Crypto in the past was very technical, but in this era, people on the Finance side are constantly creating new financial products. The global market is the main thing that drives the market. I think it takes a wider variety of professional knowledge to jump into the Crypto world. People in each industry are trying to use Blockchain in their own industries.
Keng: It's influenced me, I also graduated in Software, so I understand technology, what kind of encoding, I read and then immediately figured out this is kind of Blockchain and Bitcoin or something. This is the first time that humans have been able to transfer value things over the Internet using Blockchain as a base. In the past, we don't know the money we send can be copied or not, but it's possible to send value to someone else. Now It is certain that if we send 1 BTC to the other side, our BTC in wallet really decreases and BTC in a friend's wallet actually gets 1 BTC.
Ae: Blockchain Technology is disrupting the financial industry, is there any other industry that might be disrupted?
Dome: I think Blockchain has to wait for people who encounter problems first. For example, in logistics, when we're going to send stuff abroad, it's very messy to open LC. When I listened to this, quickly I think it's very appropriate to use blockchain.
Tum: Logistics is very clear. When it comes to a Blockchain, it's open to anyone around the world to hitch the price of oil. Or you don't have to wait to buy only the market in your own country, there are several platforms that can guarantee these prices. In the future, assume that this year, the rice is 20,000 baht per ton. We hitch the price of rice that if the price is less than 20,000 that we will make a contract. This is a financial product that helps other industries by using blockchain to solve problems honestly.
Ae: How the uprising of Cryptocurrency can affect the Future of Work?
Tum: The Blockchain developers are now rich from the money they earned from this, even though they might not be having a fixed salary. For the tokens that are being distributed and shared, these people already have up to 10-20 Million worth of money in their pockets since the products create a global impact. For instance, by opening a farm with not many things at first, you will still be able to reach global customers since with no Thai web pages, allowing money to flow in from all over the world.
Dome: The group of developers that are coding stuff on the Crypto platforms, see that their developing projects will not take that long. When it is not long and secure, the process of going through markets is now shortened. It might require only a month to launch and can also be renewed if find it doesn't work. There will be a high chance to hit the global market. Therefore, developers that know how to code this no need to have a salary, which might have made the market harder to recruit them. Startups may need an MVP in order to ask for funding but this does not require at all. Just have a product, it can create a ‘go through market’ for you right away, making you an entrepreneur.
Keng: It gives the feeling of a business that combines the process of raising funds and operation into the same process. While other businesses, they will have to find investors before initiating something, but for this, the product itself is the fundraising tool as the ecosystem that comes in a set. This has led to it being the Developer’s golden era where blockchain developers have the upper hand, since people that have the knowledge and the know-hows wins.
Ae: For the various projects that have been created within the DeFi or the crypto market industry, what are the criteria and things to look out for when evaluating which projects to contribute to?
Dome: Right now, we are entering the mode where DeFi starts to be repetitive, making it very hard to see who will really survive. Firstly, we have to look at the code, whether the code is secured, or they conduct an audit or not. Moreover, we have to see how professional the marketing team is as well as the size of the investors.
Tum: If we were searching, it is better to consider the people before considering the technology and the product since the utilized technology rarely has any differences as well as having very similar products but the product can take off because of the people. For example, Agoda asking if we can copy their technology, but it is the team that will actually drive the uniqueness and also determines to become a unicorn like Agoda. This can be influenced by the leader, which explains why I would give importance to the people first.
Keng: Bitcoin has been through a lot of studies which have led to it being widely accepted. Anything that has been carefully studied, will not be considered as a trend, but it is an infrastructure and the basics in all things that will stay with us in the long term. I believe that people who follow the news will be aware of its consistent growth. This is why I would like to give importance to its development in the future.
Ae: How do you see the cryptocurrency in the next 5-10 years? And how do you prepare yourself for that?
Keng: Today we have to understand the state of the world economy. such as Covid, this has accelerated the growth of IT-related matters. Today, if any company can't go online, it ends immediately. Another thing is that the way of work has changed. Covid has made Work From Home. We have to look at how we have to adapt in 5-10 years. Now our world has changed exponentially, so things that have happened in the past will become more violent. We have to look back at ourselves. Our investment tool to keep assets growing and how good we are at wealth management.
Dome: I feel that it will apply what we are doing now into the real sector of the business. In the next 5-10 years it will become applicable to the existing IT business to Blockchain
Tum: I think that in the next world, it will be a Native Blockchain Application. It is an application that was born as a Blockchain without adopting the current product. Now we may not see that but in the future, we will see things that have never been seen before. But it was born out of Blockchain.
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