 What's up? It's Rachel here. Thanks again for joining us for another AMA today. I'm joined by Max Kruppyshev He is the co-founder and CEO of coins paid. Hey, Max. How's it going? Hi Rachel going great and glad you have me here. Thank you Yeah, yeah Well, thanks again for joining us and I want to remind the audience before we get started with this AMA to send Your questions in the chat. We're here to answer those for you Great. So Max, let's just jump in to our first question Let's start off by talking about the biggest challenges associated with mass adoption in crypto today What do you think those are? Yeah, this is a good question. Basically, this depends on few things, right? So the first one is Education as I like to say right for people to understand what is blockchain? What is cryptocurrency? The second one is to understand why they need it, right? So this adoption, of course, we see that crypto adoption is going sort of through waves, right? When crypto price is growing, we see the wave of adoption But the sustainable way for crypto adoption is of course the ability to utilize crypto, right? As a payment method as an investment instrument as a payment vehicle So as we are mostly on the merchant side, right? So we work with businesses who want to accept crypto For them, we see the the major sort of challenge is right now understanding What is crypto? Why they need to accept it, which this helps a lot the general adoption of crypto I just see that the the percentage of people using crypto is growing. So it becomes interesting for them For those who experience less problems with the payments For them still a big challenge to understand why And for very big companies, of course, and other challenges, they're legal teams financial teams And they want to pack crypto in sort of a usual way of how they work with the PayPal with visa And mastercard. So there are still a lot of the things to go But anyways, I would split it into the customer adoption and business adoption and both of these things dependent on different reasoning But they have to go together, right? So there is no sort of question And of chicken and egg the customers will use crypto more if more businesses happy to accept crypto so people can spend it under everyday things Got it. Yeah. Okay. Now, let's also kind of talk a little bit about the need for crypto payment platforms Because that's what coins paid is doing. So how large is that need max? Um, I would say we started to see this this movement sort of in 2012 2013, right when when it was mostly obvious for For the average Joe who heard about crypto that This thing is gonna survive, right? We saw this with the bit pay who is the The the first mover, right who started sort of speaking about this business model at all Raised a lot of money and so on and over the years We saw the adoption starting from poor from more like High-risk businesses, right? And of course the history as we know Started with very dark businesses, right? We saw a lot of arrests in the u.s For the people who try to sell drugs online with bitcoin and so on um, then of course with the with the development of chain analysis instruments, of course this became Um Extremely obvious, right that you cannot use crypto just to hide your money and so on But the adoption as we saw was happening through more highly businesses, right? I'm speaking about like Sports betting websites, right e-sports trading websites and so on right now. We see the penetration into the e-commerce and Right now we sort of already can smell the adoption of Of crypto and sort of the need and urge for crypto payment solutions in the developing world Especially in the countries where the where the currency is unstable, right? So merchants trying to accept something which is not the local currency, especially businesses who Has suppliers from abroad, right whom they need to pay with with something more stable like qadt like euro And so on and right now is the regulators more and more speaking about crypto and more and more saying that That crypto assets are really a member of the global economic and the financial world We see that financial institutions and banks. We can see it in use, right a lot of announcements from different CEOs of the banks, right or or the business development Managers of different financial institutions are speaking that they are trying crypto the experimenting with crypto Some of them like a paypal are buying some crypto solutions So I think it's fair to say that the demand is growing for some of them The demand is just growing for for operational supplier of the services But bigger providers are also looking to buy someone completely or at least to sort of rent the software in the Way of of of getting a software as a service solution, right or something which they can host On-premise when we speak about bigger banks, I mean who have their their own security rules and policies on the very, you know, high High level Right. Yeah. No, great answer max. Um, let's talk a little bit about coinspad now So what problems does the platform solve? What are the goals behind the platform? From platform, I guess it's it's the correct to say at the moment, right? It's all started sort of with the group of people who are experimenting, of course How we can solve business needs right now our main business need that we are solving right basically our main product and Sort of the flagship right of the of all the products is crypto processing.com Which is exactly the the name sort of explains itself, right? This is the processing solution for merchants for other businesses to accept crypto or to pay to their customers in in crypto Right, so it works in both ways But our mission right is to satisfy the world's everyday needs using cryptocurrency means that it's not only about businesses, right? It's also about retail clients So we have other products as well. So for the b2c product, we have a Wallet, right, which is right, which is still in the beta, but we are working hard to Make it better and find the launch at life We have an OTC desk for sort of the bigger clients who need to trade Let's say millions in one go We have the educational platform and the news website under the coins paid media website And also as mentioned before we are also aiming to satisfy needs of the platforms who want to have their own Solution so we have the SAS Product as well and the token that we launched as an as an asset to sort of combine All the products together and create the transfer of value and incentives Across all the products I want to remind the audience quickly questions. This is a really interesting platform that max has Developed or that, you know, his team has developed to send us your questions so max can answer them Max let's talk a little bit about the best use cases for coins paid. Can you go into some specific use cases for us? um, yeah, the The main one and probably this is the most obvious one is the online business who needs to collect payments from all over the world Right who don't want to bother to collect payments from Separately from brazil separately from argentina. I know separately from china They can basically use us to collect the payments from all over the world in the In the way of collecting sort of the money of the internet, right, which is the cryptocurrency um, this business It doesn't matter where business operates, right? Let's say It's somewhere in europe, right? So the base currency that business needs to receive right to pay the salaries to pay their suppliers and so on is euro And of course when you start start an international business While your base currency is euro you spend a lot of money on collecting all different providers for all different markets You spend money on the conversions from all other currencies into euro Right and it sort of creates a bit of a bit of an operational headache With us we give the option to the client to collect Different sorts of cryptocurrencies on different blockchains and convert it on the fly into the currency that the customer needs Right so in euro So for the customer is just a usual deposit method to collect money from their customers And it doesn't have the risk Of delayed payments. It doesn't have the risk of the volatility of cryptocurrency, right? And it's truly truly global There is also one advantage which i see as an advantage. Some would say it's probably not that much of advantage Crypto is irreversible, right? So for the merchant is also a very secure way that they understand that when they provide the service for the payment The payment cannot be charged back in the in the one way Scenario Right. So this is this is the main use case I mean the same use case for the payouts, right? Let's say you are the marketplace The marketplace for freelancers or whatever you can collect money from all over the world from people who order something from these freelancers But you can also use us to pay Money all over the globe in cryptocurrencies to all the freelancers and you use the same bitcoin and you use the team Whatever Got it. Okay. Let's take a question from the audience Natalia is asking max. What should you and other projects slash companies do to promote crypto adoption? How can you educate current users in newcomers? Um, basically crypto education should be a program in in every crypto business Right, it should start definitely from employees, right? So the best way is to start from your own people Of course anyone who runs any crypto business in a crypto company You understand that hiring people who know everything about crypto or on the level that you need Um, it's not really a reality So educating your your own employees your own teams making them sort of ambassadors Not only of your brand but also of the technology I would say it's an it's most obvious step one Um, then educating your clients And educating your potential clients, right? You all do a lot of activities in the social networks You all have websites blogs and so on it makes sense to place some some educational materials What is bitcoin? What is blockchain? What are the use cases? So educating people is the main is the main sort of thing that will drive adoption And um with uh with businesses, right? yesterday Oh, I was just gonna say I agree with you education is really important, but go ahead max Um, yeah and for the for the businesses, right? Which which operate in the space Of course, all of us understand that business has to make revenue, right? And in order to make revenue you need to solve problems or challenges, right? And the more challenges we all together with all the businesses all the any everyone who is in the in the ecosystem The more challenges we solve the more useful cryptocurrency becomes and the more adoption will come automatically So there is no magic in this I think right, um, let me take another question from the audience or nesto parix is asking Can you talk about the foundation? When is the launch? the foundation, uh, I think the Nesto might be speaking about the cpd foundation because this is the only foundation that we were were launching We registered it in in switzerland and tsuk Um over the summer, right? So I think it's pretty much pretty much set up already Okay, let's see. I'm going to take one more question from the all of a sudden we've we've got a lot of questions coming in Sir hot is asking what plans do you have for further community development? Um, basically creating our wallet, right? So our idea to build the community is of course with the b2c wallet So the wallet is there. It's still missing a few key features that I wanted to have So the main driver of the community would be the product for the b2c And basically with the with the token which gives discounts to the customers in the wallet and um the The other very important but might be a tricky to understand thing that we are very strong in in b2b, right? So we have we have hundreds of clients with millions of end customers So the idea of the community is to port the A fair amount of the customers of our clients into our wallet, right? So the people who already use our software on the merchant side Will be able to use our software as in the wallet and basically have a closer connection to us as the customer and provider and also in Enjoy all the educational materials and and all of the incentives and referral programs that we order in between our b2c and b2b in the token businesses Okay, I think sorry, I think you might have cut out there max, but I think you definitely made your point with that question. Let's talk a little bit about I know that you guys have a pretty strong HR strategy. Can you talk a little bit about that and what benefits the employees receive? um, yeah, so HR strategy is basically to To make sure that we that we develop each other, right and that we we grow together Right, I can I can speak about this more in details like with the cases That we that we really see working or not working But the general idea is the common growth, right? So we grow as professionals while we are growing the business, right? And we grow in our teams as we grow professionally and as we grow the business um, this is all sort of Created around the common goals, right and the main value I would say is the product Seating innovative product an excellent service around this product, right? We are mostly b2b company. So of course only product is not usually enough for the business clients, right? We need more individual approach. So the service of course is extremely important um Speaking about people in it business and product business Especially people are the main value of the company, right? This is this is the hugely intelligent sort of job, right? You have to analyze many things and and and understanding the market very well So while we are spending the geography of our business, right? We have to face that we are creating right now the multicultural In about 100 people, um from 15 different countries And of course you can understand the mentality the languages are different, right? So we have to be very transparent about the values and about the strategy of the business to sort of align everything together And of course the hr team with many activities incentives are working hard to make sure that everyone are really welcomed in the team and get their get through adoption and Onboarding as smoothly as they can Got it. Um, now, obviously we are seeing a down turn down turn in the crypto market right now Has that impacted coins paid at all in terms of hiring? Um, this is this is something i'm i'm basically extremely proud of right so speaking about the crypto winter um You might be surprised but we see that the Volumes and basically traction of crypto payments during crypto winter doesn't really Influence that much the payment space, right? So here just I will allow myself to educate our listeners a bit about the misconception, right that I see happening So merchants the the the influx of new businesses who want to accept crypto We see that the main Sort of the most of the interest that we see from them is when crypto is on the hype, right? When we see all-time highs when the evaluation of the market is booming But in the reality if you think about when people really want to spend their crypto They don't want to spend crypto when it is on the top, right? They understand that they will be able to spend it tomorrow and they will have to pay less bitcoins for the iphone, right? For example, so from what we see That the main traction businesses accepting crypto really have either During the bear market or just the sideways market, right as we have already for a few months probably so I must say the interest from businesses on the bear market Decreased slightly we are growing this year only Only double right so we are doubling our our volumes this year Which which which sounds like an amazing number, but our plan was slightly higher We plan to grow at least three times, right? So you see that the bear market is influencing our gross ambitions but if you compare us to two crypto exchanges, right or like for more usual businesses for the retail market who are Who have to fire a lot of people right some of them are shutting their doors completely, right? So closing filing for insolvency and so on I'm informing you that we grow x2 But we didn't fall right even in May june, right when we saw that the market was sort of In blood we saw news everywhere that the companies are closing insolvency um Have to cut the costs on the personal has to lay off 20% of the stuff and so on Uh, we were growing right in the in the numbers and i'm not even speaking about hiring right we Um, I think one year ago. We were 120 people right now. We are 200 people, right? So we are hiring also extremely actively if you go on the coins paid website and the careers I think we have around 50 open positions Uh, right. I think we will end up hiring around 30 50 people until the end of the year, right? So I would say crypto Crypto winter so-called helps us a bit because the amount of talent on the market increases Yeah, I mean it's interesting max because I just read an article on a mainstream news outlet about just all of the hiring freezes and layoffs with big tech companies And some crypto companies were mentioned there as well So it's really interesting that coins paid and some other crypto companies that I know of are continuing to hire At um a high demand without having to go through any freezes or layoffs. Um, it's really encouraging to hear that Also just wondering with the positions that coins paid offers. Are those remote positions or are they actually in person? Yeah, so we switched with the with the beginning of the covet, right? So in q1 2020 we moved to remote first Right, so we have few offices around the globe where people Can go to right if they don't want to work from home Either the dog or the kids are distracting them from from concentration But in general, we don't have the requirement to work from the office And we also allow our people to move across the world As freely as they like, right? We have some locations which we do not recommend to be yet Right right now this obviously would be russia and ukraine Uh, but um, we allow our people to work where they want As soon as the location we treat to be as relatively secure Right I'll take a question from the audience silvio is asking. Well, they're saying hi from argentina Then they're asking will coins pay be present in lobbit conference 2022 in Buenos Aires? Um, I think we might be right. Honestly, we visit over 100 events During the year, right and I'm unfortunately not familiar with all of them, right that we visit I mostly fly to events across europe but A bit sounds interesting, right if you Is if you have any contacts of myself of or of my team, just please share some info about this event So I can I can check if we are coming. We are building a presence in latin america, right? So South america is a to-go market Basically in the second half of this year and definitely a focus for the next year We are growing our Local team in argentina and brazil and pru So I hope we will be going to the events more and more Yeah max you make a really interesting point That there is this demand for payment platforms in places like latin america and I think that kind of Leads into my next question, which is how is coins paid aiming to speed up crypto mass adoption in the process there? So aside from just having a presence in regions that need crypto payment providers. Are there any other Ways that you guys are speeding up mass adoption? Yes, I said right. I think here here. We are probably the chicken, right? We are the chicken which should Create some some eggs, right? So we are getting there of course to help businesses to adopt crypto and Speaking about the retail adoption I know that latin america has been on the on the good traction for for adopting cryptocurrencies and I mean Not only bitcoin right or usd t but in general crypto adoption is growing with with new Crypto platforms appearing, right? I see this movement in South america, but let's say from 2015, right new exchanges appearing. We see new New projects appearing. We see more and more About the south america in the news, right? For example with the l salvador, right? Who suddenly said that right now bitcoin is the official mean of the payments there? So I think with this Effort together with the retail platforms We have all the chances to sort of increase the adoption in the region. So it's education our Coinspaid media is translated in in spanish as well. Not in the portuguese though Um, I think this is probably a good way to go but our Our news website is is translated in spanish With the b2b we are getting to latin american region helping merchants to accept crypto with the wallet We will go as the stage two of course going as the additional product for latin america basically south america as well Yeah max another good point that you make is translating information into different languages for people to understand it in their native language I think we're seeing a lot of that now and that's super important To just drive mass adoption and help even build out web 3 just to get more people interested in that space By allowing them to actually read content in their language. So that's a really good point that you make Um, I'll take another question from the audience and just to remind our audience keep the questions coming We still have about five minutes with max Burke is asking do you consider it possible for world renowned companies to use crypto payment gateways? World renowned Rachel, how would you rephrase this question because i'm not sure understand which company is exactly? Yeah, I would say maybe they're talking about enterprises Like large enterprises that we're seeing versus small retailers. So maybe like macy's for instance That's a huge retailer Yes, exactly. I mean I see this. I mean if you read news, this is already happening, right? Just recently there was the announcement From between the coin base and google cloud Right that you see a big company starts to accept crypto for the services, right? We see that the paypal acquired Curve if i'm not mistaken two years ago or something, right? So they definitely also Cooking the enterprise so solution, right for bigger brands. You see that visa is sort of dancing around crypto already for years Right launching different solutions and so on. So we see that enterprises from the payment space Definitely interested in crypto. We see some fashion brands are also doing some funny things with nfts with crypto Right, so we see this announcements in the twitter basically on the accounts with a million of subscribers of celebrities So this is this is sort of happening, right big brands well known brands They like the hype around crypto around nfts I mean nft right now is probably on the on the decline Slightly but people who sort of start digging into nfts. They are also very much around blockchain and around crypto So I I bet this trend to continue and we will see amazon's e-base netflix's Accepting crypto very very soon Yeah, no, I agree max just quick question on my end. Do you think that inflation Is going to impact Greater and faster adoption of crypto payments Um crypto payments probably know But I think it will influence how people store value, right? So here we we don't see this happening honestly, right? We can all agree that we we don't see this happening But I think the same way how gold and silver is sort of the real assets Which are not Which is the good hedge around against inflation I think really decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin might become this hedge Against inflation as well together with the real estate and precious metal Yeah, okay, cool Um, we have a few minutes left So audience if you guys have any other questions send them our way, but in the meantime max, can you talk a little bit about? Um, what we can expect next from coins paid Um, basically we are Improving this solution, right? So we are we are getting more enterprisey ourselves, right? We understand that the businesses The more mature businesses, right who have higher requirements from their providers Um are getting into the game, right? Also, we see that regulators are sort of becoming more aware of what cryptocurrencies and enhancing their Um making the regulations stricter and the audits stricter, right? So right now we are in the middle of a very important architectural changes in the system to make its scale better Um, a lot of the improvements are happening in the back office to make more institutional clients happy with the solution And in the meantime the reporting for the regulators and financial audits, right? So these three things are of course sort of very logical Um together with that, um, which is more interesting probably to the listeners of this call. It's basically our B2C solution and media. We are creating new version of academy, right? This will be a course of seven Lessons, right, which give the good understanding of what cryptocurrencies what NFTs are What are the blockchains? What are the types of tokens and so on which will again help the The adoption and education and the probably the most interesting is the wallet, right? So wallet will have few things which I find um Might be slightly innovative to have in one place, right? So we are aiming to have a simple crypto wallet Together with the bank account inside, right? But to be to be not bank with crypto but to be crypto wallet with the bank And having two types of the card, right? So one card is the usual crypto card, which is connected to your balance and bitcoin ethereum or usdt But the second one is the usual debit card, which is connected to your bank account inside of the wallet So opening the wallet you also open yourself A bank account in europe and you can use it just your just as your usual bank account Yeah, great I'm going to take one last question. I know we're basically out of time But this is a pretty interesting question actually A mirror is asking which countries have the most applicants in terms of human resources in the field of blockchain and crypto new slash marketing um The most applicants I would say from india This is uh, this is probably quite because of the population, right and the amount of of the really skilled developers there um So I would say from there we see a big a big amount of very organic traffic Right. Also, we right now start to see a lot of the applicants from russia. Of course because The people are fleeing the regime, right and the war and the mobilization and so on and uh because Russia has a lot of the fintech solutions, right and really innovative Banks, I don't know if you've heard about them But also we see a lot of applicants who are coming from from russia Well, who are looking to relocate in in different space in different places and from balarus As well, right. So we see a lot of the russian speaker applicants, right and to be honest our development teams are Mainly russian speakers, right. So we see that the people sort of try to Try to be together depending on the language which they which which they use But also from european countries, let's say from the from the baltics. We have some traction from the poland From the west west europe, I would say not that much And to be honest, right, we see that the Specialists there are pretty much overpriced, right when i'm speaking about the netherlands about Germany about friends, right there the talent I think is a bit overpriced The prices there for developers are pretty much compared with the us And in the middle europe and eastern europe are Probably 30 40 cheaper Got it. Okay. Well, we are actually out of time. So I just want to say thank you again to our audience Thanks for joining us. Thanks for the great questions. We got a lot of those today Please remember to subscribe to our youtube channel. We do AMAs like these very often So we would love to have all of you back max I just wanted to say thank you again for joining us and for sharing your insights about points paid Now I know before we officially log off. There's a video from coins paid So I think we're gonna roll that real quick, but max any final thoughts before we get to the video Uh, good luck everyone with whatever you do spread the word about crypto and use Crypto solutions when you see them on the merchant website. Thank you very much for having me rachel Thanks, let's roll the video