The KickEX cryptocurrency exchange, celebrating its first anniversary, is already between the sixtieth and seventieth rank for most popular trading platform according to CoinMarketCap. During this time, the platform has grown from a simple startup to an effective ecosystem, bringing together over ten products and constantly expanding. We spoke with Kick Ecosystem CEO and Founder Anti Danilevski to hear more about the company’s successes and future plans as well as discuss the current situation on the cryptocurrency market.
Q: Anti, your exchange is a newcomer to the market, yet it already made the top 100. Not every crypto exchange manages to make such a leap. What’s your secret? Tell us your strategy.
A: All we’re doing is making a quality product. KickEX began its development two years before its launch unlike most other “exchanges”, which were made on the spot, without any concrete planning, understanding how the market works, and what traders need. We have a powerful foundation as a result, which can be easily and methodically built upon after launch, and that’s exactly what we are working hard to do. Our architecture is built on microservices, which allows you to develop a product in any direction and gives you opportunities that other exchanges don’t yet have. Almost all other exchanges operate using a monolithic structure, where any change requires weeks, if not months or even years, of development. For example, it would take us only a few hours to add new tokens, whereas for many of our competitors it would take up to several months, and that’s considering that they wouldn’t even be able to support tokens with any kind of special economics at all. That was the original plan, to invest more time, money and resources in the development phase so that we could grow rapidly after launch, which is what is happening now.
Q: Exchange tokens made a real leap this year. Some have increased in value by more than 10 times. I know that your platform also has its own token. Tell us more about it.
A: Exchange tokens are especially popular among holders and it’s clear why: there’s an exchange behind each token, a real product with real value. Exchange tokens have real uses, and this is very important for token value. Among the thousands of tokens that can be traded, only a really used for something except for speculative trading. The actual use of a token ensures its demand so, as the user base grows, the number of people who want to buy it grows, too, and the price soon follows. When KickEX came out of beta, KICK token increased by 82 times, now corrected to x30 from the January 2021 price. This happened specifically because the exchange’s user base grew significantly this spring. That’s if we’re talking about exchange tokens, but this doesn’t mean the token has to stay that way forever. I’m always looking for ways to crack the current systems so that what we create works effectively on its own and has a cumulative effect. That’s why, very recently, we swapped the token out and replaced the old smart contract with a new one. This allowed our token to launch a hyper-deflationary model and run new features that were not previously available to our users. For example, staking. KICK token holders automatically receive a percentage of each KICK token transaction made on the blockchain according to their share of token ownership. That is, the more KICK tokens a user owns, the higher percentage of distributed tokens they receive each time someone transfers or trades their KICK tokens on decentralized exchanges. For tokens held by users on the KickEX exchange, the staking section and distribution will be launched within a month, and anyone holding KICK tokens on KickEX will receive what’s called “token redistribution” for all the time that they have not received them in the past.
An automatic burning feature has also been added to the new KICK token contract. Thus, each KICK token transaction burns 5% of the transfer amount. This is a mechanic that not only further incrementally increases KICK token ownership among its holders by reducing the overall amount of coins in circulation, but also makes the KICK token hyper-deflationary.
What’s more, over 3 million tokens have been burned since the beginning of July. This means the number of tokens in circulation is gradually decreasing in amount, resulting in an increase in the token ownership rate among holders. As such, there are fewer tokens every day and their value, in the eyes of the users, is increasing. This combination of exchange economics, token-staking, and automatic burning is the new beginning for exchange tokens, and all current KICK holders or those who join us now, still at an early stage, will soon be congratulated.
Q: Are you planning to launch margin trading? This is very popular at the moment and quite in-demand on the market.
A: KickEX is currently a spot market, but margin trading has already started being developed. It’s still in the research & design phase because we want to make it better than anywhere else and safer for traders. Right now, on other cryptoexchanges is just gambling – actually, it’s not margin trading, but in fact, mostly it is a primitive binary option. It’s not real margin trading. Our ambition is to do it the way it’s implemented in the adult world of economics, not the way it’s done everywhere else, with the goal of bankrupting traders and taking their money on a constant and regular basis. We plan to launch a beta version of margin trading by the end of this year.
Q: Tell us about the new products coming out before the end of the year.
A: The most important development is the mobile applications for iOS and Android, and it is so important because 80% of our traffic comes from mobile devices. Currently, the iOS version is being tested privately by a small focus group of 150 users, due to the limitations of the TestFlight testing service. I personally believe that we have a genuine masterpiece on our hands, and the feedback from users lucky enough to be in that group has been nothing but positive and confirming that we made a great app! Over time, those versions will be much bigger than your typical trading app, they will become superapps, in the best China and Asia mobile trends. The goal is to cover all the needs that users of digital assets might have so that they wouldn’t need anything else but the Kick Mobile Superapp. This includes news, chat, widgets, hot and cold wallets, portfolios, alerts and notifications, staking, token selling, and more.
Q: Tell us about the company’s plans overall. What are you going to focus on in the next 3-5 years?
A: This is a very long stretch of time when it comes to cryptocurrency. Things are changing rapidly, and there are many directions in which the industry can develop further. I mainly see development moving towards cryptocurrency regulation, government cryptocurrencies, and the digitalization of businesses and their assets, which is especially relevant for Russia. We are looking in this direction. We are looking at trading stocks and securities with the necessary licensing, of course. We plan to make our own blockchain, which will be suitable for business, and not just for miners and speculation. I don’t know any blockchain like that and so far, none like that exist, which isn’t good enough for us. We’re considering funding rounds with plans to bring our company to IPO status.
Q: Now let’s talk about the market as a whole. I’m going to ask the question that absolutely everyone is dying to ask, “When can we expect growth?”
A: The price of any token depends on either the display of the product or the millions poured into advertising and hype. KICK is the first case and always has been. All tokens or coins that pour money into advertising but have no product will deflate when marketing investments stop, and that is bound to happen sooner or later. In our case, we’re taking the developmental route rather than just creating hype and pyramid schemes. This is why growth should be expected with the development of our business, as KICK is an exchange token. Should there be a million active users on the exchange using KICK, reaching the moon won’t be the end of it. This is going to happen no matter what, as our audience is constantly growing each day. Time works in our favor, especially coupled with the deflationary token model. But like with everything else, only the patient and those who understand how the token economy works, who believe in us and support us, will be picking out their supercars. Speculators who buy KICK and wait for claims the next day are unlikely to get their happily ever after, and this applies to cryptocurrency trading in general, not just to our token. Unfortunately, those are the majority so far; the industry as a whole has not yet matured and has not yet learned how to invest for the long term.
Q: Do you believe those experts who predict that Bitcoin will reach $250,000 in the next two years, or are expectations set too high?
A: I can accept that, but we’re currently in a period where one tweet from Elon Musk or another statement from the Chinese authorities can bring everything crashing down again. Until the market matures and learns to react soberly to these kinds of tweets or statements by the authorities, the current level of volatility will continue to be unpredictable and dangerous. If you have your own money that you aren’t afraid to invest into something for a few years, and you understand perfectly well that things might not go your way, I believe that Bitcoin should fit the bill.
Q: What should newcomers to the market do: sell coins, buy coins, wait?
A: First-time investors make hype-purchases, that is, at the peak, and then when a correction occurs, they usually panic and sell, losing their money. I recommend beginners not to panic, to study projects before buying their coins or tokens, look for those that are low, and never make hype-purchases. If there is hype on the market, and everyone is buying one asset, then there’s a 90% chance that you’re getting in too late, and that rocket is about to land. You should look for assets that have a real product and where there is a token or coin that has a real use. That is why exchange tokens are so promising: traders buy them to pay trade commissions and reduce their own commissions, and after they pay for their trades, these tokens are usually destroyed. This leads to the depletion and scarcity of exchange tokens, which, in turn, positively and permanently increases their value. Even though exchange tokens are not securities and are not investment instruments, many people buy them for resale. In our case, KICK has the same use, plus it is also a deflationary token in and by itself, and is currently on the downside. I think the choice is obvious, but again, this is not investment advice.