In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released “Bitcoin, A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, introducing a brand new online payment system. At that time, no one thought that this simple paper with only 9 pages would detonate a new industry with a market value of trillions a few years later and set off a revolution in the financial field.
Traditional finance: high cost and high threshold
The term finance has a long history, and its purpose is to improve the utilization rate of funds, covering a series of economic activities that transfer funds from the abundant side to the scarce side through market tools. For example, a bank takes deposits and lends, which is an act of providing idle funds (i.e. deposits) to users in need. The same principle applies to corporate finance and stock listings.
In the process of capital circulation, the party providing idle funds will have the opportunity to obtain certain income, such as deposit interest and stock/equity sale income, etc. Therefore, a large part of the activities in the financial market are investment and financing. Although most people are full of longing for the financial industry and investment and financing, in fact, most people around the world are being rejected by traditional finance.
In the traditional financial market, investment is high-threshold and professional. If a user wants to invest in the secondary market, he first needs to have a bank account that supports this market, and complete multiple requirements such as identity verification and minimum deposit. According to data released by the World Bank, there are 1.7 billion people in the world without bank accounts, accounting for more than 20% of the total population, which means that these people have lost their right to enjoy financial services.
Even in the United States, where the financial system is relatively complete, there are still tens of millions of people without bank accounts. After all, even the most basic traditional financial services have high costs for ordinary investors. For example, account opening fees, bank card annual fees, and minimum deposit thresholds, etc., these factors have forced many low-income customers to give up financial services.
If we talk about the primary market, the threshold is even higher. Most of the early participants in the primary market are private equity (PE), venture capital (VC) and other professional institutions. It is even more difficult for ordinary investors to invest in the primary market, which makes them lose many high-quality Investment Opportunities. This phenomenon has exacerbated the unequal distribution of wealth. As stated in the “28th Rule”, the richest 20% of the world’s population currently controls more than 80% of global income.
The financing market is also high-cost and high-threshold. In traditional finance, a company needs to go through a series of complicated procedures to go public. Only large institutions such as investment banks and trust companies have the right to underwrite operations. Financing parties cannot bypass centralized institutions and issue stocks directly to ordinary investors. However, these investment banks, VC and other intermediate links did not improve capital efficiency, but brought high intermediate costs.
Bitcoin and Blockchain: A Quiet Financial Revolution
In 2008, the world encountered a huge financial crisis. Bank bankruptcy, business closures, and stock market crashes have made people realize that the financial industry under the control of centralized institutions is not as stable as they imagined. Ordinary investors don’t know how many holes these banks have, and how many companies are embezzling their funds to engage in high-risk investments. Once a thunderstorm occurs, ordinary investors can only be forced to wait for several years to appeal for compensation, and only a few people can get compensation in the end.
And Bitcoin was born at this time. On January 3, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto dug out the first Bitcoin genesis block, and left a headline on the front page of The Times: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”. Satoshi Nakamoto used this message to ridicule the traditional financial industry. Centralized banks control the money supply, and the appreciation or depreciation of currency in the hands of ordinary investors is entirely determined by the bank. The modern financial system is just a game for the financial elite.
The birth of Bitcoin and blockchain was destined to challenge the inequality of traditional finance from the very beginning. The cryptocurrency industry has brought a decentralized, open, free, open and transparent financial market, eliminating the cumbersome intermediate links in traditional finance, making the investment, financing and payment process simple and easy.
Through Bitcoin, the world’s 1.7 billion people without bank accounts can easily realize online payments, including cross-border payments, and can arrive at the account very quickly, and it only takes you less than a minute to create a Crypto currency wallet. The cryptocurrency market guided by blockchain technology provides low-threshold investment opportunities for more ordinary investors who have been shut out by traditional finance. For example, on the global cryptocurrency asset trading platform CoinEx, there is no fee to open an account, and even if there are only a few dollars in the account, you can trade at any time.
The cryptocurrency industry is a global, open, and easy-to-use innovative financial market. Blockchain and cryptocurrency technology have brought a revolution to the financial industry. Obviously, the cryptocurrency industry is not just a small-scale carnival belonging to the elite group, but is becoming more and more popular. This industry is witnessing countless miracles, financing costs and investment thresholds have been greatly reduced, and capital utilization efficiency has been significantly improved. Things that are impossible in the traditional financial field are constantly happening in this industry.
Minimalism: The Push for Financial Universality
The low threshold and low cost of the cryptocurrency market have given many ordinary investors opportunities, but not all platforms in the market agree with this concept. With the development of the industry, there have been many platforms that only serve professional investors, and these platforms are constantly adding new functions and services. However, as a financial service, it is not that simple for a novice to complete his first crypto asset transaction. The design of some products will discourage some ordinary investors.
Whether it’s the brevity of the Bitcoin white paper or the simplicity of the decentralized design, it’s easy to see that simplicity has always been preached by the cryptocurrency industry. The same should be true for the products in the cryptocurrency industry. Sufficient and easy to use is the best form of product.
Therefore, there are some different views in the industry. While everyone is talking about “professionalism”, CoinEx is upholding minimalism. They provide easy-to-understand novice guides, comprehensive and professional help documents, focused page interaction and visual guidance, so as to minimize the steps that users need to operate and complete the exchange or investment operation in the most convenient way.
The smooth experience comes from the product philosophy of the CoinEx team. They once stated in their blog that before developing a new function, they will first consider whether users really need the function. In the view of the CoinEx team, many product functions on the market are redundant, and these redundant requirements no longer bring convenience to users, but become a burden. The CoinEx team keeps reminding itself: don’t complicate the product, keep it simple and practical. Currently CoinEx has successfully achieved this goal, many of their users are newcomers to the cryptocurrency market for the first time.
Despite the increasing diversification and complexity of products in the cryptocurrency industry, there are still platforms like CoinEx that have always exercised restraint and insisted on “making cryptocurrency asset transactions easier.” CoinEx respects every user, reduces the workload of users, and makes it easy for ordinary investors to get started by simplifying the product side, making investment easy on the asset side, and warm customer service.
Although there are still many users around the world who do not enjoy convenient financial services, there is still a long way to go for financial universality. However, under the minimalist cryptocurrency market, the cumbersome intermediate links will gradually disappear, thereby promoting direct cooperation between investors and financing parties. This trend will transfer the financial discourse power from the elites to more ordinary investors, truly achieve an effective increase in the utilization rate of funds, and allow more people to benefit from cryptocurrency finance, so that wealth will no longer be concentrated in a few hands.