Bohdan Prylepa is the CEO of the international company Prof-IT Blockchain, which, over the past few years, has launched several super-successful blockchain startups and cryptocurrency exchanges that are part of CMC’s Top-100.
At the beginning of this year’s November, the company announced the launch of the Qmall crypto exchange, with its focus directed towards the Ukrainian market. Bohdan is the CEO of the newly created exchange, and we asked him a few questions about the purpose of the new exchange’s creation and the special features of its launch.
Bohdan, tell us about your new project, the Qmall crypto exchange. What is the main idea behind it and what audience is it intended for?
We presented Qmall on November 3rd at the BlockchainUA conference in Kiev. Our company, Prof-IT, has been developing this project for more than 3 years as we expect it to become one of the best crypto-exchanges within the next year. Our exchange is based on a unique technical solution that we have developed and tested on other trading platforms from the TOP-100 CoinMarketCap rating. One of the main reasons why we decided to create a cryptocurrency exchange for the Ukrainian audience was that Ukrainian accounts are often frozen on foreign exchanges. It's a big problem because not only users cannot access their money, but also, legal disputes in different countries are extremely difficult to deal with and expensive. We therefore believe that it’s important to create a Ukrainian-Speaking exchange with official representatives and a support service that would belong to the Ukrainian jurisdiction, which is what Qmall is.
How difficult and expensive is it to organize a cryptocurrency exchange? Can an amateur create it, and how much money does it take?
It all depends on your vision and expectations from the platform, but in any case, a modern cryptocurrency exchange is a complex mechanism that requires a lot of time and effort for its proper making. This is not the same as launching a simple exchange platform based on a cheap template you’ve purchased for a measly $1K. When making an exchange, you need to understand that you will have to deal with three important things. First, the technological process so that all orders are executed without delays. Second - security, because as you might expect, just as exchanges’ quality goes up so does the abilities and possibilities for hackers to exploit said exchanges’ weaknesses. We must always be one step ahead so that our clients' money is safe. Third of all, the exchange needs to develop a reputation as its value and worth depends on it. As such, a cryptocurrency exchange is not something that you can complete in a week with money saved from school lunches. Over the course of almost four years, we have invested more than $3 million in the development of the project. This is roughly what the budget for creating a truly serious and reliable crypto trading platform looks like.
Do you have competitors in the Ukrainian market? How critical is this rivalry for you?
I believe that Ukraine desperately lacks products such as the Qmall exchange. This is a commercial product that fully meets all the requirements that the crypto market imposes on a modern exchange. I am sure that Qmall will definitely find its audience despite the existence of the two slightly similar projects in the local Ukrainian market. This can hardly be considered real competition, especially seeing how few in number those projects are. In addition, we are confident in the quality of our product because we know its worth. So no, I don't think competition is a bad factor for our growth, rather the opposite – if there ever were a comparaison, I think it will inevitably be in our favor when the user evaluates all the features of our exchange. We are unique, have extensive experience in building exchanges, including international level ones, have been improving Qmall for more than 3 years, and also have 10 thousand terminals from our partner, Ibox Bank, in Ukraine. No other exchange has such an infrastructure, let alone one based in Ukraine.
How safe is it today to work with cryptocurrencies in terms of legality?
You know, when we talk about cryptocurrencies and the legal field, there is always a bit of uncertainty from an outsider’s perspective. Especially seeing how there are still no universal laws that apply to cryptocurrencies. But the governments of all countries have been working hard on legislation regarding them for the past years, and the ground on which we are building our business is becoming more and more solid by the day. As for the exchanges themselves, if the exchange operates in the legal field, it is quite adequate to work with it in terms of security. The user is legally protected and can count on support in controversial cases. On our exchange, an additional layer of security on top of the usual multi-level authentication is added : We proceed to a verification of each user and thus go even beyond the absolute security standard.
This article was written in cooperation with Tanveer Zafar