Trust Has to Be Earned – One Crypto Investor at a Time

For the crypto industry, the case of FTX begs the 8-billion-dollar question:

Can trust be regained once it is lost?

Sadly, this is not a rhetorical question, as the disgraced FTX, led by Sam Bankman-Fried, has ran into the ground and the idea of a restart was floating. The whole internet was gasping in utter disbelief.

The word is that FTX has managed to convince “investors” to pour $7.3 billion back into the exchange so that it can open its business doors in the second quarter of 2024.

David vs. Goliath

“After FTX became the black sheep of the crypto industry – and rightfully so, we can say that it has helped us reaffirm the basic tenets on which we were founded just a couple of years ago. For us, nothing has changed and today, we are stronger than ever,” said Peter Sumer, BITmarkets COO.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged that the head of FTX, Bankman-Fried, has defrauded investors in the company by raising more than $1.8 billion in equity while concealing that the company was diverting customer funds to Alameda Research. Rampant money laundering & fraud seemed just like another day at the office at FTX.

In the wake of FTX, it was a stab in the back for the newcomers to the crypto industry, such as the likes of BITmarkets which has a genuine interest in advancing the blockchain cause, not just after making a quick buck (or a billion).

The result was that the average guy on the street has been dissuaded from getting into crypto – and the full extent of the damage to industry’s reputation has yet to be fully felt and assessed.

Educating the average crypto investor

At BITmarkets, we want an informed & educated trader mainly because a trader/investor which has been denied crucial information has ever more reasons to become distrustful of the crypto game – and the whole industry as such, and that is bad news for the future.

Almost all classic brokerage houses and crypto exchanges alike claim that educating clients is a top priority, but how deep to they really go? Are such claims credible? For some, any “attempt” at educating their clients stops with a mandatory risk warning.

That is why we knew from the start that we had to do things quite differently. Hence, we are developing our intuitive & inclusive Crypto Academy – tiered from the beginner trader to advanced crypto investor. This way, everyone can hop on the learning train at their own skill level.

"We are also actively educating ourselves by participating in events, just like the ones in the Gulf region, to share our experience and views on the rapidly evolving phenomenon of crypto and blockchain," commented Peter Sumer, COO of BITmarkets when asked about the achievements of the crypto exchange.

Full disclosure for the highest level of security

In the crypto game, there are 2 main avenues of risk: assets are at risk when they are being traded due to trader decision, and in the way they are stored – whether they are in the exchange's storage or if the holder stores them in a crypto wallet and owns the key for that wallet.

Since we are firm believers in the blockchain technology and its importance for the future, we go the extra mile to engineer advanced technological measures to protect our client’s digital assets.

In fact, 99% of cryptocurrencies on BITmarkets are held in Cold Storage. This means that investor funds are safely stored in an offline crypto storage/wallet. Hot storage, on the other hand, means that investor digital assets are kept online.  This form of storage carries the risk of being hacked. Even though the odds of this happening are quite low, it is probably not a risk one would want to expose themselves to with substantial crypto funds.

Wrapping thoughts

At BITmarkets, we know that we are primarily in the business of trust. We want to safeguard and hone this trust vis-á-vis our existing customers and the crypto-curious public at large. This trust has a definite and solid foundation - blockchain technology with its myriad variations and real-life applications.