Meet the CEO of Finblox, a Hong Kong-based crypto lender serving a region with some of the highest fintech adoption in the world
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Finblox, a crypto investment platform founded in 2021, has raised $4 million to become a rising star in Southeast Asia.
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Co-founder and CEO Peter Hoang says the firm offers users easy access to their wealth through crypto.
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This article is part of “Master Your Crypto,” a series from Insider that helps investors improve their cryptocurrency skills and knowledge.
Finblox is in the right place at the right time.
While based in Hong Kong, the platform serves Southeast Asia, and like Latin America, there is a significant number of unbanked and unbanked residents in the region – more than 70%, according to a 2019 report by Bain & Company.
Over 600 crypto-related firms are headquartered in Southeast Asia, with VCs pouring an estimated $2.5 billion into them in the past 18 months. Crypto user adoption rates averaged 3.56% in 2021 in Southeast Asia, compared to 10% in the US, and nearly 10% of Singapore’s 5.7 million people own crypto.
Finblox allows people to deposit cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ether into the app and earn interest. These coins are then lent to financial institutions. CEO Peter Hoang told Insider that his company gives over 25,000 users in more than 40 countries an easier way to control their wealth.
“Traditionally limited by local financial products, for the first time they have access to a global asset class and are able to invest alongside the rest of the world,” Hoang said.
‘We’re still here’
Hoang, 34, graduated from Singapore Management University in 2011 and attended Harvard Business School in 2018, as well as the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, in 2008.
In 2009, he founded a social network designed to connect Vietnamese communities around the world and a mobile game company called Space Jump Studios in 2011.
Hoang is an alum of famed Silicon Valley incubator Y Combinator, which backed a zero-commission stock trading app called Gotrade that he co-founded in 2019. He has served as an investor in the Singapore-based XA Network since 2021 .
He became fascinated with the crypto space in 2017. His company employs about 25 people worldwide, and Hoang said he strives to lead through engagement with them.
“They have a lot of freedom to innovate and present their own ideas and strategies, and the founders would step in to contribute and sometimes challenge the logic of their minds constructively,” Hoang said.
Hoang said the accessibility of crypto and the promise of potential returns are two key factors driving adoption in Southeast Asia. And despite a gloomy outlook, Hoang is convinced that Finblox will come out the other end of this crypto winter alive.
“No one can accurately predict when and where the next black swan event may occur, but we can learn from past mistakes,” Hoang told Insider. “We have lived through various crises caused by systemic failure and excessive financial institutions – but we are still here.”
“People should not misunderstand this asset class as a get-rich-quick scheme”
Founded in mid-2021 by Dmitriy Paunin and Hoang, the crypto-investment platform raised nearly $4 million in capital within four months of launch — taking VC money from Sequoia, Saison, and Dragonfly, among others. , as well as from failed Three Arrows Capital, or 3AC.
Finblox offers more than 23 different coins to invest in or lend against, such as dogecoin and bitcoin, and returns of up to 60% for the Vietnam-based, Sky Mavis-owned, $4.6 billion Axie Infinity, which is the third largest the gaming-related asset. The company offers expected returns ranging from 4% to 12% on the rest of the coins.
Crypto lending giant Celsius had a similar business before it crumbled during the crypto downturn. The platform also offered eye-popping interest rates and made headlines for stopping withdrawals, leaving customer funds trapped in the app. It is now embroiled in controversy.
Finblox itself was forced to impose withdrawal limits of $1,500, but not a freeze, in mid-June due to its exposure to crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which imploded when a major stablecoin went full throttle.
He is annoyed by some users who say crypto can be a shortcut to riches.
“This has been perpetuated on Crypto Twitter, Reddit and some popular crypto influencers,” Hoang said. “The golden rules of investing, ‘the higher the risk, the higher the return’ and ‘timing the market is more important than timing the market’ also hold true for crypto, and people should not misunderstand this asset class as a get-rich-quick scheme.”
But Hoang said confidence in crypto could be improved with clarity from companies — and common sense from consumers.
“Reports, disclosures, educational articles and communications can go a long way,” Hoang told Insider. “But society does not have the power to control individual users’ risk tolerances or decisions – that responsibility always rests with the user.”
This article is intended to provide generalized information designed to educate a broad segment of the public; it does not provide personalized investment, legal or other business and professional advice. Before taking any action, you should always consult your own financial, legal, tax, investment or other professional for advice on matters affecting you and/or your business.
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