Newly Launched US-Based Exchange, HBUS to Pay Users for Trading (Interview With Kenzi Wang, General Manager of Operations at HBUS)

HBUS, a US-based cryptocurrency platform and strategic partner of Huobi exchange, plans to win the American cryptocurrency community through top-notch services and unbelievable promotions.

In a recent interview with Salih Sarikaya of Smartereum TV, the General Manager of operations at HBUS, Kenzi Wang, gave a preview of a new promotion the exchange was working on while also addressing the major problems facing crypto exchanges in the US and globally.

Addressing the Concerns with Cryptocurrency Exchanges

As the cryptocurrency space continues to grow, it continues to grapple with its own set of problems, not the least, the old demon of hacking. According to Wang, “the number one issue in crypto right now is hacking.” He noted that users were more concerned about the security than any other factor. He explained:

“When you put your asset—your hard-earned money—into a digital wallet or into exchanges you must have peace of mind that it’s safe somewhere and it’s not going to be stolen and it’s not going to be hacked in one way or another”

He also identified ease-of-use, user interface, and customer support as other major areas crypto traders look out for in an exchange.

Centralized versus Decentralized Exchanges

Wang also waded through the topic of decentralized exchanges which divides opinions among cryptocurrency enthusiast. In his opinion, decentralized exchanges are a new innovation in the space but are hampered currently by their lack of liquidity. On the other hand, centralized exchanges like HBUS, offered more liquidity, customer support and a sense of security because people know who is actually operating the exchange.

How HBUS Is Winning Over American Cryptocurrency Traders

HBUS rewarded its first 1000 registrants with up to 0.1 BTC. Wang said this promotion was well received as the exchange quickly blew through the 1000 registrations. He gave a sneak peek into another interesting promo expected to start next week where users would actually be paid to trade on the platform. For their first month, new users enjoy free trading on the platform. However, with the promo in place, they actually get negative trading fees.

Beyond the mouth-watering promotions, Wang said the exchange is branding and growing itself to be a community virtual currency marketplace, through state-of-the-art tech, security, excellent customer support and competitive trading fees. While announcing plans to release it mobile app, Wang noted that HBUS uses a very advanced security technology through its partnership with Huobi.

HBUS Interview Transcript (edited)

 Salih:  Hi Kenzie, how are you today?

Wang: Good, good to see you.

Salih:  So can we start with yourself first, can you mention a little bit about yourself for our audience, about your background and how you got into blockchain and cryptocurrency world?

Wang: Prior to blockchain, I was an entrepreneur, founder, and CEO of a venture capital company in the digital marketing space and then I became a venture capitalist and then after that because of some initial investment that I’ve done earlier. I actually started doing crypto investments about 2013. So I started wanting to doing more token investments from VC investments about a year and a half ago or so since then I be involved with a couple of crypto funds as well and from then I was introduced and brought into HBUS. That’s kind of my journey.

Salih:  And what about your education background?

Wang: My educational background is mathematics at Columbia and also I studied MBA at Wharton, which is a part of universal Pennsylvania.

Salih:  What’s your role right now with HBUS?

Wang: Right now I am the General Manager of operations at HBUS.

Salih:  So for our audience, can you a describe HBUS? How, it will differentiate itself among the other exchanges in the U.S.?

Wang: At HBUS we really focus on a few things that’s big differentiation between US and other new exchanges for example safety. We pride ourselves self with state-of-the-art security technology, that through a partnership with our strategic partner Huobi, that’s a very advanced technology that protects us from being hacked. The number one issue in crypto right now is hacking. Just last year alone, there were close to a billion dollar hacked, so that’s a big issue and we pride ourselves at HBUS to have the type of technology and security to protect our customers from having to worry of getting attacked

Salih:  What are the main problems right now with the exchanges?

Wang: The main problem with exchanges right now, like I said, number one is security. When you put your asset—your hard-earned money—into digital wallet or into exchanges you must have peace of mind that it’s safe somewhere and it’s not going to be stolen and it’s not going to be hacked in one way or another. Secondly, I think a lot of it is ease of use. There are other exchanges on the market that still has a very outdated interface. Here at HBUS, we pride ourselves on ease of use as well. We have a full team of product and engineers here in San Francisco to work on UI/UX and to make sure that the it’s entirely user-friendly and we also have a 24/7 customer service. In case you have issues with the ease-of-use, interactions with our site, as well as depositing and withdrawing, as well as any security concerns, we offer 24/7 a customer service which is also a big differentiation here at HBUS as well.

Salih:  Great, because I asked my followers what the biggest issues with the cryptocurrency exchanges were and customer support was number one or number two—one of them—and also security. The other thing was service fees so what about service fees with HBUS?

Wang: Absolutely, security and 24/7 customer service these are something that we pride ourselves with. In terms of trading fees, we are also very competitive so for you know the first month it’s entirely free. It’s completely free so definitely check it out. Entirely free. And we also have promotions right now that allows you to earn trading fees (negative trading fees). As you trade with us, you can even earn fees as well. That’s going to come up next week

I am giving a preview on that and after a month our trading fees would be very competitive now to the industry standards. We also have a lot of promotions that’s giving out to people that join us early on. We ran a BTC giveaway campaign for the first week or so where the first 1000 registrants will be able to get up to a 0.1 BTC for registration

Salih:  Is it still on? can they get it?

Wang: That’s already passed yeah very quickly.

Salih:  Actually I registered for it.  

Wang: We quickly blew through the 1000 registration but, like I said we are coming up with more promotions next week we’re launching a negative fee trading promotion where, instead of having to pay transaction fees you actually get paid transaction fees when you trade with us so we’re very excited about that

Salih:  So when we look into cryptocurrency world right now it’s it has gone so much down and what do you think will be the future of the crypto space in general?

Wang: The space, in general, is rapidly evolving and currently, we’re at about 250 billion dollars in market cap. I personally believe—as I’m a long-term believer—in the space I believe the space will quickly go into trillion-dollar size. I think blockchain, in general, is injecting a ton of innovation into technology in general so it will for sure be a bright future as we as we move into more and more technology innovation in the blockchain space. So, long-term, it’s going to get bigger and bigger for sure.

Salih:  HBUS and some others are mostly centralized exchanges and some people prefer DEX, decentralized exchanges what’s the benefits of centralized over decentralized exchanges?

Wang: There are a few pros and cons. Decentralized exchanges are a new innovation in the space where it bypasses some regulatory concerns and it gives it gives more flexibility in some senses. But, the issue is right now, is that the DEX don’t have enough liquidity.

For users, one of the most important things is liquidity (is volume and liquidity). Currently still, centralized exchanges offer better liquidity better, better security and also better support all of those we just mentioned just now sure you don’t see the decentralized exchange offer 24/7 customer support.

You also don’t know if they’re actually secure because it’s not run by anyone and at the same time you cannot get liquidity as easily because the volume generally is a fraction of what centralized exchanges offer right now. So all of those all of those are things that are improving you know we’re seeing now some of the biggest centralized exchanges also going to the decentralized space.

We’re seeing the space is generally welcoming the concept of decentralized exchange but just at the present moment it’s not as user-friendly, it’s not as practical and useful

Salih:  So with my experience actually I been doing some business, I prefer going through centralized exchanges because it seems to be safer for me and the support and security and liquidity is important but sometimes if I am doing it personally I might prefer doing it in a decentralized. This totally, I think, depends on the people and their concerns and what their long term or short term investment plans exactly are.

I actually prefer a little bit centralized the exchanges because it helps it gives me more sense of security and support but on the other side some people think that the centralized exchanges actually don’t have that much liquidity also maybe some of them are selling without having actually. How do you see this problem and how it affects some exchanges over here?

Wang: I think in the exchange space, it follows a power law distribution. Every day there are —new centralized and decentralized exchanges coming up and—I think there’s thousands literally right now. As you can see some of them because they’re relatively new don’t have enough tech support, it’s you’re not secure enough it does not offer the volume or liquidity that you want. So those are the ones that your friends probably talked about. Why there’s no liquidity is because they don’t have enough backing.

In order to grow an exchange, you need to have a ton of support and you have the community backing you. You have the technology as well as you to have the customer support to make people feel that it’s a trustworthy company and brand to deposit your asset into.

That’s why at HBUS we have a very good foundation to solve that problem. We have great security, great customer support, great technologies and UI you know so we have the foundation for attracting the level of volume that we’re looking for

Salih:  Okay great and last question, what is the future of HBUS what in US market

Wang: At HBUS, we really don’t want to position ourselves as a community exchange and virtual marketplace because we want to have the right brand, to have the right support from the community. That’s why we crowd our users and our customer base by the right type of promotions and the right type of you know operations that we have. At the same time, we’re also very keen on improving our technology. We’re coming up with a mobile app very very soon. We want our customer support to continually get better. As we speak, we’re listening to the requests from the community on what we can do better to serve them.

So as I said it’s very much of a feedback loop that we want to listen to the community and offer it back to the community and that’s why the focus in the US is to brand ourselves and also grow ourselves to be a community virtual currency marketplace.

Salih:  In that space I believe a new cryptocurrency exchange in the US market will help a lot for investors because it’s always good to have some competition in the market and new competitions will force the others to make better service to give better services because there are lots of people having big problems right now with the US exchanges and I believe HBUS will make a lot of stuff to deal with these problems with the us-based, San francisco-based team.  

Thank you so much thank you very much we appreciate

Wang: Yeah, Thank you.

Husband, Father, Friend | Writer at TowardsDataScience and Hackernoon | Salih Sarikaya is a data &product & media professional with many years of experience | Top Tech Influencers of USA (CES2017-Onalytica) | Key Blockchain Influencer (Business Insider, DisruptorDaily, TokenTarget, KLOUT, MOZ) | Entrepreneur | Author | Pro Member of PEN America & SPJ | Computational Sociology MA

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