Alexi Lane — CEO of Everex, getting ready for the interview with Bitcoin Centre Korea

Tell us a little bit about your professional life and how you got into the world of blockchain?

I have a professional history of working in Corporate Finance where I started my career in Banking. I have worked in almost all the sectors of Banking including Commercial and Investment Banking as a trader as well as an analyst. So, I used the experience from all these industries to start Everex. We started Everex end of 2014 where we experimented blockchain and we were actually one of the first companies to use blockchain technology. This happened before the Ethereum network was even live and Bitcoin was also at a very nascent stage.



As a commodity trader, I noticed a huge gap in the trading of gold and we actually started with the idea of creating digital gold. We wanted to digitise gold on the blockchain to make the gold trade like any other asset. We were successful in digitising gold where we learnt many things. If you want to trade anything on the blockchain, your money must also be on the blockchain. For this, we had to accept payments in a traditional banking way with a lot of fees and this paved the way for Everex. The only money on a blockchain is either BTC / ETH.

So, we wanted to put fiat currency on the blockchain where the idea was to digitise national currency on the blockchain to encompass cross border remittances, merchant payments, lending etc.



This is called e-fiat, a bridge between crypto and fiat world as a stable coin which is packed and backed by real national currencies. This has the value of a Fiat currency but in a crypto form.



What does Everex mean?

Everex means Everything Exchangeable where an environment of exchange is created.



What problem is Everex solving?

We came out with the idea of Everex as we were unable to find a payment method to sustain asset trading on the blockchain. We can see that in SE Asia, 80% of people do not have access to traditional banking services. So, it is an all cash trade with no credit scoring or histories. Blockchain solves most of these problems especially in settlements. It takes seconds as opposed to days and this will help with development of economies. Blockchain payments can solve problems which most developing countries have like transfer of capital from salaries to remittances and access to funds for SMEs.



The access to capital is very low and this provides an opportunity for the loan sharks to set their own rates which in the macro sense hurts the economy of the country and the development of SMEs. Blockchain will put more players in the credit market and currency exchange market along with cross border lending which allows for collecting in different currencies and in different countries.



What was the reason for Ethereum?

We are supporters of Ethereum. However, we are blockchain agnostic. At the interest of our clients, we are always ready for a change.

We moved to Ethereum from Bitcoin at the end of 2016 and the reason for this move was as follows: Ethereum has been through multiple DDoS attacks and other problems, and Ethereum has survived all of it. When other challenging blockchains come about and when they prove their worth, we can explore switching to them. But, for now, we are extremely satisfied with it. We also believe the smart contract system is the best in the industry.

Who are the main customers of Everex?

The vision of Everex has been to use our technology to serve the underbanked and unbanked population. Total remittance business is well over a trillion dollars where only $600 billion is through the official channels. Blockchain can help maintain order and systemise payments because it is cheap, fast and convenient. Our user base is primarily the bottom of the pyramid.



In developing countries like Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar, this becomes an important aspect in accessing the capital without it being controlled by greedy loan sharks hampering the development of the SMEs. We have growing interests from central banks of different countries for the digitisation of their currencies on the blockchain, where we provide advice to the interested parties — for developing countries without National payments systems without inter-bank payments which is mostly a physical transfer in SE Asia in many countries.



So, on the blockchain, it is cost efficient and faster to implement. This is true for all blockchain companies in the payments space, not only Everex.



Can you tell us more about the remittance pilot?

We are actually starting another pilot soon between Myanmar and Thailand. This will have more users and more interesting with larger quantities. We will use the experience from the first pilot to successfully release the new one. The first pilot was actually the first use case of the blockchain in the real world.



In Thailand, we have a few million workers from Myanmar earning in Thai Baht and sending money back to Myanmar to their families. For this reason, we created the e-Baht (eFiat currency which is considered as a stable coin; a digital representation of the national Thai Baht on the blockchain) where money could be sent in less than 30 seconds where upon receipt, our local partner in Myanmar would buy the e-Baht from the workers’ family in Myanmar and exchanged it to the local currency.



The second leg of the pilot was the trading of e-THB (e-Baht) where the local partners in Myanmar sold the e-THB to local businesses who had interests in Thailand like Thai vendors or suppliers. There is no necessity to cash out the e-THB as it can be used as a payment system. e-Fiat is very similar to Bank guarantees or cheques where there is no necessity to cash it out as it can be used to pay for goods and services.



What is the regulatory framework for Everex?

We spoke to many legal experts and essentially what we have is just a better technology. It is innovative, efficient and is a better payments system. Our e-Fiat solution can only be created by licensed and regulated financial entities like banks or money transfer companies. We can only technically create it along with licensed partners. So, our system is better in the sense that instead of the bank using a core banking software, they will do it on the blockchain using the Distributed Ledger Database. Our wallet looks and functions exactly like a banking mobile wallet.



The only difference between the banking wallets and ours is that Everex is powered by blockchain technology and both of them can only be operated by licensed financial entities.



How has been your experience of working Thailand in terms of technology?

It is a great country where we love living here. We truly enjoy the environment. The regulators in Thailand are looking to come up with a friendly environment for cryptocurrencies, Thailand is trying to benefit from this and it is a good sign where the access to capital is very important to the economy. Our technology will be a source of capital access to SMEs.



Can you tell us more about lending and Credit Scoring on Everex?

What Everex offers is an opportunity for the unbanked and underbanked population to access to capital as predominantly cash users have no credit histories and as a result of this, nobody will lend them credit. So, by using our technology either by using our payments system or payrolls we want to provide credit scores to people.



So, we are in communication with factory workers in Thailand who pay salaries in cash which has its own problems like security, safety and a hassle in terms of obtaining that cash from the banks, we are proposing to put their payrolls on the blockchain where the salaries will be instantly credited into the workers’ wallets. They can send money back home immediately and since this will be on record, it is storage of the credit histories. So, based on these financial transactions, we provide credit scoring and technology to moneylenders where we will work on a revenue sharing basis and this is what we believe to be true financial inclusion.



Where will you see Everex in 5 or 10 years?

Things in crypto change so fast. I want Everex to be the predominant name in the financial space with financial partners in different countries and continents.