Payments Powerhouses: Decoding the Mysteries of Cryptocurrency: An In-depth Conversation with Alrick

In this episode of the Payments Powerhouses series, we talk to Alrick Oh, VP of Marketing at Coinhako, about the ups and downs of the cryptocurrency industry, changing consumer expectations, and increasing regulatory safeguards.

Alrick Oh, VP of Marketing at Coinhako, started in the cryptocurrency industry right out of college when digital currencies were still in their infancy. Over the past six years, Alrick has built a dynamic and well-rounded marketing and communications team from scratch to support Coinhako’s growth into Singapore’s leading financial services app and help it stand out in the industry.

Alrick, welcome to Payments Powerhouses. As one of the founding team members of Coinhako, you have made a huge contribution to what the company is today. You have built a team from scratch to over a hundred talented people to help Coinhako become Singapore’s leading financial services app. I was wondering, how did you get into the cryptocurrency space?

Alrick: It’s interesting, I actually went straight into the cryptocurrency space right out of college. I came across the word "Bitcoin" while watching a drama. At that time, I was busy writing my graduation thesis on how to use disruptive technologies in the financial services sector to promote the industry. I found that many emerging fintech companies were committed to improving the financial ecosystem after the 2008 financial crisis.

Therefore, when I learned about the value proposition of Bitcoin to improve the financial ecosystem, I was deeply interested and started researching it, thinking that it was a topic worth writing a thesis on. This was my initial experience with Bitcoin, and I really put it into practice after graduation.

I am not the kind of person who is keen on the traditional work model, so I started to try cryptocurrency trading, thinking that it was a way to get rich. The first few weeks were quite smooth, but soon after, I started to get a little arrogant and made several bad trades one after another, which eventually led to my losing almost all my funds.

Since then, as a young person who just graduated and had no money, I realized that I needed to find a job. At that time, the only company that searched for cryptocurrency-related jobs in Singapore was Coinhako. So I submitted my resume, met with the co-founder and CEO Yusho, and successfully joined Coinhako as the seventh employee of the company.

It’s been nearly six years now, and it’s been an amazing journey, watching the company grow from a small team of seven to what it is today.

I’m curious about the name Coinhako. Does it have a special meaning?

Coinhako is made up of two parts, “coin” refers to cryptocurrency, and “hako” is a Japanese word for box, so together it’s “coin box”. Why Japanese words? Because our CEO Yusho is half Japanese, which is how the company’s name came about.

In a nutshell, what is Coinhako’s core business?

Coinhako is an industry-leading platform that provides secure, reliable, and seamless access to digital assets such as Bitcoin, allowing users to easily convert fiat currencies into cryptocurrencies. For example, if users want to invest in Ethereum to participate in ETH-based DeFi protocols, they can trade directly in Singapore dollars through Coinhako in just a few minutes, which is our core business.

Given the recent events in the cryptocurrency space, such as the collapse of FTX, how have consumer expectations of cryptocurrency changed compared to when you first joined Coinhako?

Since I joined Coinhako, the market environment has changed dramatically. The key node for this change was in 2021, which can be said to be the last bull market in the cryptocurrency circle. That period witnessed the largest wave of adoption in the history of cryptocurrencies and a surge in the number of new cryptocurrency holders.

In 2021, many people flocked to the cryptocurrency market for short-term trading purposes, but at that time the market was maturing and people's demand for crypto technology was more diversified.

Therefore, in the second half of 2022, NFTs quickly emerged, and many new cryptocurrency holders who flooded into the market in 2021 began to explore the Web 3.0 space in depth, followed by the rise and popularity of GameFi and DeFi. Today's market is undoubtedly more mature and more familiar with the application of various technologies.

What about regulatory safeguards? Have the increasingly stringent regulatory safeguards affected Coinhako and the entire industry?

In addition to individual investors, we have observed that more institutions are now beginning to show a strong interest in this field. Why is this? The current regulatory standards around cryptocurrencies are becoming more and more perfect, allowing these institutions to integrate digital assets into their business models.

In addition, last year, Singapore introduced some guidelines that restricted our use of third-party services to promote our platform, which meant we could not advertise through Google or Facebook, work with agencies, or conduct promotions through e-commerce platforms. At the same time, Coinhako is highly dependent on the Singapore market, so we had to focus more on content marketing strategies to increase platform traffic through organic growth. We had to increase product marketing efforts to showcase our product advantages.

In the early stages of Coinhako's development, we deeply understood the importance of building a strong community. Our early development was largely due to the support of the community, and word-of-mouth became an important driver of our influence. Our user referral program has always been one of the most powerful means of acquiring customers.

In the past, we also worked with local media platforms to promote discussions on cryptocurrency issues, but due to last year's regulatory restrictions, this path is no longer feasible. At present, we are strengthening our blog construction and providing more popular science articles.

At the same time, after the new guidelines were introduced last year, we intensively consulted with the legal and compliance team to jointly develop an internal marketing framework adapted to the Singapore market. A big part of my daily work is to review the content produced by the team to ensure that each content meets all current regulatory requirements.

Has your view on the industry changed?

Let’s put it this way, if I didn’t have faith in the market, I wouldn’t have stayed in this industry for so long.

It’s true that there were quite a few scandals last year, which is unfortunate. When the market is a little weak, the media tends to report more negative news; when the market picks up, the news atmosphere becomes optimistic. Last year, cryptocurrencies were often praised as the future development trend; now the public opinion is that the cryptocurrency market should be avoided completely.

I have always believed that the development of the cryptocurrency industry is still in the experimental stage. Since the birth of Bitcoin in 2009, the industry has only been established for 14 years. The market is still moving forward in exploration and there is still a lot of room for development. In my opinion, the many scandals last year exposed that there are still some problems in the process of combining centralized business models with cryptocurrencies. But on the positive side, these scandals are driving the market to mature and forcing us to explore ways to further reduce market risks. Now we have seen that centralized entities may face collapse at any time, which also gives governments more clear direction in building regulatory frameworks for crypto companies.

What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding of the cryptocurrency industry?

To be honest, I think it is the view that cryptocurrencies and Web 3.0 are the future development trend, which is sometimes controversial.

My intention is not to deny the huge role of cryptocurrency in promoting the development of financial technology.

In fact, from large banks to government agencies, they have all discussed launching their own digital currencies, which is enough to prove the influence of cryptocurrency. During the Singapore Fintech Festival last year, I found an interesting phenomenon that almost all payment companies are independently developing custodial wallets, which reveals the development trend of enterprises under the trend of decentralization, which is a new situation that is difficult to achieve in the original closed system. However, it is too one-sided to regard cryptocurrency as a future picture that will completely replace the existing financial system.

A more reasonable perspective is that the cryptocurrency ecosystem and the traditional financial ecosystem will coexist in the future and jointly shape the ecological landscape of the financial field. Only in this way can healthy competition be formed, stimulate continuous innovation on both sides, and promote the prosperity and steady development of the entire financial ecosystem.

Speaking of the trends at the government level, the development of central bank digital currency (CBDC) around the world should not be underestimated. Will CBDC pose a threat to the cryptocurrency industry?

This is similar to the view that cryptocurrency and traditional financial markets should coexist with each other. Similarly, CBDC and decentralized cryptocurrency should also coexist and coexist.

Why is this? The two have very different operating mechanisms. CBDC runs in a closed network and is led by the CBDC issuer. Decentralized cryptocurrencies run on an open network and anyone in the world can participate in its development process, which injects many new and interesting concepts into the financial industry and monetary management models. Therefore, entities engaged in CBDC development can draw inspiration from the decentralized field and jointly accelerate the pace of innovation.

What good advice do you have for newcomers who want to enter this field?

If you want to become a holder of emerging digital assets, be sure to do your homework and don't bet everything on it. This applies to all investment fields. You might as well start with a small investment, such as $50, try it out, experience a few applications yourself, and then decide whether it is suitable for you after a deep understanding.

Don't rush for success, remember, don't be driven by the fear of missing out (FOMO), and don't blindly follow the trend. Most importantly, have a clear understanding of your own behavioral motivations, which is a common challenge for many newcomers. In terms of career development, if you come from a non-cryptocurrency industry, be sure to keep an open mind, because this industry has many unique features that are very different from other industries.

For example, people from traditional industries are often surprised that their bosses are much younger than they are. In fact, many cryptocurrency investors come from millennials or even younger groups, because they entered the industry early and are now founders of various projects and companies.

Therefore, you may find that the company structure here is relatively loose. The best way is to join as a mentor and use your experience to help these young people grow and develop their companies.

I have seen many people come and go, and the biggest problem is that some people expect cryptocurrency companies to operate in the model of traditional enterprises, which does not apply in the fast-changing world of crypto.

If you want to get involved in this industry, don’t just blindly follow it because you think cryptocurrency represents the future. You must deeply understand why you believe that cryptocurrency can lead the future and what value this industry can create for society. Based on these understandings and cognitions, you will be better integrated into this industry.

After talking about so many professional topics about the cryptocurrency industry, let’s talk about something lighter: What are your hobbies besides cryptocurrency?

This question is interesting because from the outside world, I seem to have always played the role of a "cryptocurrency expert" and my personal identity seems to be always closely tied to cryptocurrency. But people in our industry are also ordinary people.

I personally like traveling very much. Interestingly, I have been to about 34 countries and am currently working towards my goal of visiting 40 countries before I turn 40. I also love music and play the piano. In short, outside of the world of cryptocurrencies, I am just an ordinary person among the masses.

"Payments Powerhouses" is a monthly feature series focusing on interviewing leading figures in the payment and fintech fields in Southeast Asia and around the world.