Today we have Esmond Hwee as ProBit Global Head of Partnerships joining us to answer our questions for the next hour.

Esmond Hwee, ProBit Global Head of Partnerships
I am Esmond from Singapore. I moved to South Korea in January 2019 and joined ProBit Exchange. I am currently Head of Strategic Partnerships at ProBit where I am responsible for driving sales and forging strong working relationships with various stakeholders in the industry. Prior to ProBit, I was at a Singapore family office managing VC investments. I also hold a Masters in Finance at London School of Economics.

Question from the CryptoRank team

#1. Can you tell us about ProBit? What problems do you solve, both in the space and for the community?

Esmond: – ProBit is a global exchange with over 600 tokens listed. Launched in late 2018, we are most known for our solid IEO track record and ability to integrate many blockchains safely and efficiently.

We did not start at a great time. In fact, we were in the midst of a bear market where BTC was trading at slightly above $5K, having collapsed from the $20K peak. Yet, we went ahead as we were confident of the tech infrastructure we have built and the strategies we plan to deploy.

The opportunity was clear. The industry was missing a versatile exchange that is able to accommodate hundreds of blockchains while delivering superior user experience. Our in-house platform, designed to manage high throughput, has completed rigorous testing to ensure users trade in a fair and secure environment.

Our aggressive growth strategies, including the first mover advantage of an IEO platform and relentless pursuit of lesser known projects, are testimonials to our desire to break out from norms and explore new markets. These are also key factors that played into the gap in the industry.

We also find users craving for side events, apart from listings. Hence, we fill our exchange with tons of exciting events with rewards to be won such as Exclusives, Trading Competitions, Staking and AMAs.

Today, we are a true global exchange with almost 2 million users worldwide. Our reach covers all continents and across more than 200 countries. We also support 41 languages on our platform and customer support service, in addition to our 12 active Telegram communities: https://t.me/ProbitEnglish/474568

#2. Could you shortly describe the milestones ProBit has achieved, and tell us about your upcoming plans?

Esmond: – There are many but I will highlight a few important ones.

For the first half of 2021, ProBit IEOs have successfully raised over $20M for less than 30 projects. Our IEO platform offers users the opportunity to dive in as early adopters in promising crypto projects. These remarkable fundraising campaigns also go a long way in helping projects build and develop their products and services. As a champion for tech innovation and growth, we are delighted and very fortunate to be playing such an integral role in the blockchain startup ecosystem.

In the Listing segment, we managed to list over 100 different blockchains in a short span of 2 years. We are by far the largest exchange in terms of the number of trading pairs, with over 1,000 markets accessible to users. Users may tap on our additional trading tools such as Hummingbot to seek arbitrage opportunities across different trading pairs. Over time, we will be launching other advanced trading bots to further equip our users.

In July 2021, we celebrated the 1 year anniversary of ProBit Exclusive. ProBit Exclusive is a trademark event in ProBit where top market cap projects launch their tokens at a 50% discount. The results from this initiative were so overwhelming that even bigger exchanges started introducing similar events. I like to take this chance to thank Polygon (MATIC) for their continued support since 2020. If you had participated in our inaugural Exclusive with MATIC, you would have made a whopping 253X: https://t.me/ProbitEnglish/472105. If not, please do not miss out on our latest collaboration with Polygon here: https://www.probit.com/en-us/exclusive/20210702

We pride ourselves as a fast-moving exchange. As we continue to expand in various markets, we will be introducing more products and initiatives. There are a couple of big plans coming up for the second half of the year. Please stay tuned and I welcome all suggestions for the time being. Thank you!

Questions from Telegram

#1. Southeast Asia is a very vibrant market and many many Projects developed overthere. So, What you think about Southeast Asia and Do you have any plan to develop in there?

Esmond: – SEA is indeed a very active market and we have acquired hundred thousands of users in that region, Indonesia and Vietnam in particular. We have been expanding very swiftly in those markets through our excellent regional managers Yonas from Indonesia and Sasa from Vietnam. We have also built strong relationships with several projects there and there will be many more new projects launches coming up soon! I am very excited and highly positive we will continue to do well there!

#2. What is your plans in place for global expansion, Is #Probit EXCHANGE Is focusing on only market at this time? Or focus on building and developing or getting customers and users, or partnerships? Can you explain this?

Esmond: – There are many plans for global expansion in place but let me break them down in segments.

1. User acquisition
We have done an amazing job in this aspect, having translated our website to 41 languages in order to better cater to the needs of our global users. We have seen remarkable results in BRIC markets (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and also many other countries such as Turkey, Poland and Nigeria. We will continue to listen to our users and examine growth data to determine our strategies.

2. Projects and partners
Over the last 3 years, we have built an impressive network of projects and partners. For projects, these come in the form of IEO and Listing services. This is an important piece of puzzle as they form and shape the ecosystem supported by the exchange. We will continue to strive to seek out the best projects to bring to our users. As for partners, we are fortunately to establish good business relationship with the likes of Hummingbot, Bituniverse etc. They have been instrumental in providing various solutions to assist our users. There will be a few blockbuster partnership deals coming up, please stay tuned for that! If there are projects or partners you would like to see on ProBit, please feel free to reach out to me on Telegram or email me at esmond.hwee@probit.com

3. Regulations
This is an extremely sensitive yet important topic as we see large exchanges being pulled to the ground by regulators all around the world. As a global exchange, we are fully aware of the risks ahead but we are ready for the challenges. We have a strong legal, compliance and AML team to guide us through this. We plan to be fully compliant in as many jurisdictions as possible. We are in deep conversations with regulators from various regions, and are also in the midst of acquiring a handful of cryptoexchange licences.

#3. About the Competitors. Every exchange has its own position in the market, how does Probit plan to stay competitive compared to other projects such as Binance, FTX, Probit ..?

Esmond: – It is great to hear our names next to the larger exchanges but honestly, I do not see ourselves as direct competitors. We serve different markets from them altogether. There are many early stage gem-like projects rejected by larger exchanges because they do not have the time and resources to examine and nurture them. On the other hand, ProBit IEO (www.probit.com/ieo) serves as a credible platform for blockchain startups to raise seed funds and for early stage investors to invest in projects they would never get the chance to. This speaks volume to our eagerness in embracing cutting-edge blockchain technology and innovation.

#4. Does your project support staking, to program? If yes. How is your stake, to system work what is the requirement, for user if they want to stake, in your platform?

Esmond: – ProBit provides staking service, you may find our staking service here: www.probit.com/stake

We offer various staking periods and rewards. There are also 2 types of staking:
1. One-time – This is a time limited event where staking will close once total allocation is completely filled
2. Continuous – There is no restriction to this staking, anyone can stake anytime they like.

A big shoutout to our partner Velas! You may find their staking event here: https://www.probit.com/en-us/stake/VLX;eventId=202004vlx

#5. Does Probit support DeFi based projects? Recently, there has been a big DeFi craze. Moreover, there are bad projects among these projects. What is the Probit exchange’s perspective on DeFi?

Esmond: – ProBit is the first few centralised exchanges to be supporting defi projects. Our early headstart has given us the lead as the number 1 exchange with the most defi projects. You may find our defi selection on www.probit.com/app

Indeed, with any new innovation, there are bound to be bad actors. It is the same with defi when it first started. There were many scams and of course users got hurt at the end of the day.

At ProBit, we work our best to minimise the risk of listing scams by performing tough and strict due diligence on all our projects. It is important we play an independent vetting role in the best interest of our users.

Having said that, we are very positive on defi and will continue to showcase legitimate defi projects!