We sat down for a talk with the CEO of the thriving cryptocurrency trading platform. CoinSwitch is changing the way the world trades cryptocurrency with a simple idea. It is essentially a cryptocurrency exchange aggregator, a platform where you can trade over 300+ coins. And for that you don’t need an account on any other exchange. Founder and CEO of CoinSwitch Ashish Singhal explains his vision and strategy.
“What CoinSwitch does is aggregate all the exchanges under a single roof,” he explains. “At CoinSwitch, we are able to support 300+ cryptocurrencies. This drastically increases the possibility of finding any coin that our user may be looking for. We had about 127 cryptocurrencies when we started. We are about to cross the 400 coins mark in the coming months.”
What distinguishes CoinSwitch from all the other cryptocurrency exchanges out there?
CoinSwitch is a crypto exchange aggregator. As exchanges keep on coming up and providing better services to the user, we become their partner. Instead of competing with an exchange, we let our customers use any exchange that they want. We provide our users the best rates by comparing them across exchanges and offering a better service than any single exchange can provide. We’ve built CoinSwitch with the idea of providing information to the user. There is a lot of fraud in the industry, and it is hard for any trader to trust any platform. So we wanted to be that platform people can trust, where they can have complete information about their trades.
How are you simplifying cryptocurrency trading?
If you look at any large exchange, for a simple user who is not very tech friendly it may be challenging to first open an account, put funds in, and then try to figure out how to trade and get the best price. It’s very technical for a normal user. It’s more friendly to a stockbroker, or a Wall Street guy to trade on such exchanges.
I use an example of Robin Hood, how they changed the way stocks are traded. Robin Hood made entering the market easier. Before they appeared, you had to go to a broker to trade stocks, and the process was really tedious.
Do users need to be a part of an exchange to trade coins on Coin Switch?
No. CoinSwitch creates accounts on behalf of the user on any of these exchanges – we are integrated into them. This allows people to trade any decentralized token on our exchange. Users now can trade without worrying about how the exchange works on the backend.
How and why did you start CoinSwitch?
We built this product as a hack for ourselves to trade across exchanges at the best rates. My friends and I were tired of opening new accounts at exchanges just to trade specific cryptocurrencies. To solve the problem, we created a hack that allowed us to trade altcoins on many exchanges with one account. The hack ultimately became CoinSwitch after we realized other traders will pay for such a service. We figured out the industry wanted it. So, a simple hack grew into one of the most popular cryptocurrency trading platforms. People all over the world now use CoinSwitch. A lot of traders come to us because they are looking for such a product. They were tired of creating accounts at different exchanges. They were tired of their rates.
Why built this is because we are hackers. If you can think of any hackercon, we probably won it. But my background is in e-commerce. I’m a computer science graduate from one of the major colleges in India. I started my career at Microsoft and Amazon. Amazon Prime One Hour delivery was one of the programs I led in India. I’m a techie by heart, a hacker by heart.
How do you offer reliable support for your business?
One of the biggest advantages our team is bringing to cryptocurrency is basic customer service. CoinSwitch offers swift resolutions of customer issues. We can resolve any user query faster than anyone in the industry. In just 14 minutes we will get your ticket to some sort of resolution. Because we have been doing it for quite a while, we know the right person at the right exchange to ask questions. If a user has a problem with an exchange, probably he is facing it for the first time, and does not know how to get it resolved. CoinSwitch is handling support for all the exchanges together. We have the right amount of data that we need to pass to these exchanges to get things sorted fast.
How do you select coins?
If users ask for a coin and it meets our criteria, we will add it. Although it takes a review from our team, we try to add the coins our users want. How we approach this problem. First of all, it has to be traded on one of our platform exchanges. Then we try to pick by market cap. And we try to add the ones that our users want. We have a really strong user connection. Usually users come to us and ask why don’t you add this coin. I don’t want to go to an exchange and create an account for just this coin.
What coins do you avoid and why?
People doing ICOs cannot list their coins on CoinSwitch – they have to be traded on one of the exchanges we partner with. For the listed coins we have our own process of deciding the right ones and the wrongs. We don’t offer our own cryptocurrency, and we don’t want to in the future. What we want to do is offer a product line that will allow any business around the world to accept any cryptocurrency they want. We want to make it very easy for any merchant and user to accept cryptocurrency. They will be able to easily integrate with our application program interface (API) that any business or cryptocurrency exchange can use. For example, the API can be added to digital wallets, cryptocurrency wallets, websites, and point of sale (POS) terminals. Merchants can use the API to accept payment in any cryptocurrency supported by CoinSwitch. The merchant can use CoinSwitch to quickly convert the cryptocurrency into fiat currency, or a widely used altcoin, such as Bitcoin (BTC).
Tell us about your ZERO CODE solution. What is it?
Anybody can build his or her own cryptocurrency exchange with CoinSwitch’s help – they can start their own personalized cryptocurrency exchange with CoinSwitch’s ZERO CODE solution. You come to our website and create an exchange. Now your website becomes a cryptocurrency exchange. For example, a cryptocurrency blogger or podcaster could create a cryptocurrency exchange connected to his or her website. CoinSwitch will operate the exchange and handle all the trades. In exchange, the blogger will promote CoinSwitch.
Who are your competitors?
I do not believe CoinSwitch has any direct competitors. The largest competing aggregator offers 6,000 cryptocurrency pairs. In contrast, CoinSwitch offers traders access to over 45,000 cryptocurrency pairs. We don’t directly compete with anyone because we are an aggregator.
What is your ultimate goal for CoinSwitch?
We want to build a PayPal for crypto. I hope CoinSwitch will duplicate the switch of the popular American digital wallet PayPal. I think PayPal is successful because people are not afraid to use it. People are not using cryptocurrency because they are afraid to use it. Therefore, CoinSwitch’s goal is to end the fear of cryptocurrency. People should not be afraid to use it. That’s the key to market.
For more information about CoinSwitch, please visit: https://coinswitch.co/.
