Mary Stankevich: Bitcoin Halving, Coronavirus, Global Crisis, and Business Prospects

Alexander Belov – Hello everyone, I’m so pleased to be here with Mary Stankevich who is the chief business development director of EXMO Exchange, and today we are going to speak about current market conditions, about the latest news in the crypto field, and of course about EXMO, which is quite a significant player in the crypto market.

The latest news are all connected to the Coronavirus, what is the impact has Coronavirus had on your business and your exchange or has there been any?

Mary Stankevich – I will not lie to you that for us it’s actually good when Bitcoin’s price goes up or goes down so people start to trade. And the trading volumes are quite decent, but a lot of events are canceled currently so yes we’re all working from home. For us it’s ok, since we are truly a decentralized team that is spread all over the world with four physical offices in different countries.

AB -What do you think about Bitcoin? It is a critical point that Bitcoin went down to 5200, now it’s a bit higher it’s about 6200, and is this so dangerous for our industry right now?

MS – I must say I’m really surprised. People don’t think that the crypto market is connected to stock exchanges. Of course, it is connected, it’s connected to the economy because people who trade Bitcoin (you and me for example) they live in these countries where there is currently an economic crisis. For me its rather strange when people say “yeah you know Bitcoin is such a decentralized system why it is going down with the stock exchange?”. The price going down to 5200 USD was a way to get in, and sure some hopes have perhaps been lost, but nevertheless I am sure  you’ve seen a lot of ads that say something along the lines of “every year Bitcoin price is still bigger, it’s still higher than it was before”.

AB – Halving is the big event coming soon in the Bitcoin network, set to happen in May or it may be in late April. What do you think about the halving? What kind of impact we will see on Bitcoin’s price?

MS – Our technical team says that the price will go up, but I’m in business development, so I actually consider all the factors that we have. Currently, we have a lot of factors that could support Bitcoin going down, for example, even this economic crisis. So I don’t believe it’s gonna be rocketing. There will be positive up swings but I don’t believe that the price will go up “to the moon”.

AB – What do you think about the connection between this crisis and the Bitcoin price? Maybe the stock market will go down even more aggressively and will take Bitcoin down with it, or Bitcoin will be a kind of safe haven in the future? 

MS – I believe in the second option. A lot of investors see Bitcoin as gold. It’s still a super volatile digital currency, but look at the stock exchange market —  it’s crazy! During my generation, we never experienced such a crash before. I talk to a lot of investors, traditional investors as well who are hesitating what to do right now, and they all see Bitcoin as a kind of safe way forward. So I still believe if this stock market will go down it will affect the price of Bitcoin. But it will not be like a total crisis for the Bitcoin world.

AB – There is a widely-recognized point of view that the crisis should bring more people to trade Bitcoin, to buy crypto because fiat currencies are not stable, and the crisis shows that. The fiat currencies, like Russian ruble during the last two week, it proves that point. Keeping you money safe during such a recession, could this bring more attention towards crypto? 

MS – I’m certain it will. We saw something similar with the Venezuela and Turkish markets. People were buying Bitcoin like mad. We create this chart with my team for the volatility of Turkish Lira and Bitcoin and it turned out that Bitcoin was less volatile than the Turkish Lira. Lot of new users came from Turkey as of recent. There is a chance that this crisis will have a major impact upon mass adoption.

AB – I also see a threat developing as markets go down and some of these countries are going to witness the loss of their power, in turn their will become very authoritarian-like regimes and prohibit many things, like Bitcoin for example. 

MS – I don’t think so. You sit at home, what are you supposed to do? People go online, shop, trade etc. I don’t think that currently governments are really concerned with crypto. They have a virus to struggle with so, I really don’t think so.

AB – Bitcoin is 60% of the crypto market right now, it’s really the dominating currency. What do you think about other currencies as we say Altcoins, do they have an opportunity to reach Bitcoin level of adoption?

MS – No, I don’t think so, but that’s very important because we are an exchange we have a lot of applications you probably know the saying “shitcoins” mostly. In this market, it’s very hard to find a coin or token that is really good. But there are some very good Altcoins. I’m a very big fan of Ripple, I mean I still believe that it’s going to go up! I believe that there are some very good coins, and the Bitcoin is the mother and it actually translates the idea of the free decentralized market. But yes, I believe in Altcoins.

AB – So what do you think about the opportunities for crowdfunding in crypto right now? Some people saw that security offering is a big trend in crypto, what are your thoughts regarding this?

MS – I guess it could be the next trend for a crypto market because it’s huge and it’s regulated so it’s a little closer to what we want to have from the crypto market, so yes. But I guess the trend is already ongoing, but we are waiting for the regulations and for the laws.

AB – Generally speaking about this year, will it be good for crypto? Because many countries are going to implement the regulation, we have some good news from India. So it’s now possible to buy crypto there, it was restricted there previously, and we have some good news from South Korea, it was also regulated there. But what do you think about regulation in Europe, are we going to see it this year, and what decision will they have?

MS – Every year journalists ask us this question, and every year we say “the next year will be the year of the crypto regulation”. It’s been going for three or four years and we don’t see anything. So I believe that this year is gonna be a year for crypto regulation. We have really good points from FC from the UK, because that’s a regulation we are interested in really, but still, I don’t believe it’s going to be like THE year of crypto regulation. We require maybe five years to have that.

AB – So many people are trying to find their opportunity in the crypto industry, trying to build some kind of a marketplace, or an innovative service or a new coin. I personally had an idea to create a new crypto exchange. Do you think this is a good time for new ventures?

MS – I must say that last year was truly the year of exchanges. Because this IEO trend started, this whole process allowing new exchanges to appear out of nowhere. The market is still okay it’s still wired, there is a lot of space for everyone, it’s still huge. So yes, it’s a good time for an exchange, but you need to do it right because even for us it’s very hard to compete with “big names” out there. So you need to find your audience, you need to find the advantages that you could offer. So it’s kind of hard but it’s not much harder than for the irregular market. If you want to open a shop in Moscow or a cafe it will be insanely hard, because it’s so many offers, and the demand is quite high. So yes, better open a crypto exchange!

AB – What do you think generally what kind of business models will be successful in the crypto industry? What do we need in our community? Which service provider do we need to have and use?

MS – I guess the most important thing is this bridge from fiat to crypto, that’s why as you probably know, last year a lot of exchanges went to fiat, because they understood that still fiat is quite scary for the customer, people still have their salary in fiat. And that’s why we are going to be so compliant to the banks in order for them to accept us and love us. But still currently we actually at this moment when we are super compliant, we’re super wide, we have all these tractions, there are services and systems, we have mandatory verification, so we are super compliant and the banks still don’t want us. So we lost a lot of users from this mandatory verification, and when you go to lots of institutions now and they say “no you’re crypto, sorry we don’t do that…”  I ask myself  “WHY?”,  I mean “we are transparent” and these institutionals are still trying to stay away from crypto…

AB – So speaking about the EXMO Exchange, we have seen that Bitcoin went down right now, and I noticed that so many people are looking forward to buying crypto in Moscow. Did you feel that on EXMO Exchange, did you find a higher interest rate in buying crypto on EXMO right now?

MS – Currently yes. So I must say that the demand for buying Bitcoin currently is much higher than it used to be. I must say that this doesn’t mean that BTC will go to the moon in the next few months. It means that the traders trade these higher volumes because they see the profit. With the halvening looming upon us, we might see a quick decline before the next big growth period.

Interviewed by Coinstelegram Media & Fund Co-Founder Alexander Belov